Lost, Found, and Still Biking

Jerry Kopack [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Bike Life, a podcast from the Warmshowers Foundation. Here we celebrate our global community of touring cyclists and hosts who make life on the road unforgettable. Through stories, insights, and shared experiences, we explore the connections that fuel every journey. Whether you're pedaling across countries or welcoming travelers into your home, you're part of a movement rooted in generosity and adventure. Discover more and join the community@warmshowers.org now let's hit the road together. Hey, everyone. This is Jerry Kopeck, the host of Bike Life, coming to you from the Rocky Mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado. Today, I'm chatting with Claire and Bob Rogers, whose bike journey spans more than three decades.

Jerry Kopack [00:00:52]:
In addition, they have also been part of the Warmshowers community since 2000, hosting and being hosted around the world. We'll talk about how bike travel has evolved for them over the years and the lessons learned from a lifetime of cycling connections. Guys, welcome to Bike Life.

Bob Rogers [00:01:07]:
Thank you.

Claire Rogers [00:01:08]:
Great to be here.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:09]:
All right, now, where am I finding you both today? You both look like it's kind of warm there.

Claire Rogers [00:01:13]:
Yeah, we're in sunny Tucson, Arizona.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:16]:
Tucson, I love it. It's so fun to get to talk to somebody, actually in my same time zone in Colorado. So I want to kind of dive right into this and talk about your bike touring longevity, because it's really inspiring. So tell me about that first experience that really got you hooked into seeing the world this way.

Bob Rogers [00:01:36]:
Oh, well, we started. Our first bicycle tour was one year clockwise around the United States, and we never looked back. Yeah, we never looked. We kept going.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:49]:
Wait, that was your first bike tour?

Bob Rogers [00:01:51]:
Yes, it was.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:52]:
That's a big one. Get out the door.

Bob Rogers [00:01:55]:
Well, everybody said we were going to be divorced by the time we got to the east coast, but didn't work out that way.

Claire Rogers [00:02:02]:
So our shakedown cruise for that tour was like a weekend of bed and breakfast. Really cushy and nice. And then we loaded up the tandem with all the camping gear and we took off for the year.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:16]:
Okay, so couple of questions. One, a tandem. I have heard stories about tandems being divorced bikes, because you mentioned that. How did that work out? And also backing up. What year Was this trip?

Claire Rogers [00:02:29]:
1995. Okay, 1995.

Bob Rogers [00:02:33]:
96.

Claire Rogers [00:02:33]:
Yep.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:34]:
Excellent. And how long were you on the road?

Claire Rogers [00:02:37]:
13 months. How many?

Bob Rogers [00:02:40]:
14,000 miles vet. You know, we were in Tucson for, like, two months.

Claire Rogers [00:02:45]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:02:45]:
And we stopped and we would spend a week with a relative or somewhere. We went to a number of national parks and spent time, so.

Claire Rogers [00:02:55]:
And as far as the Tandem being a divorce, I, you know, that's what they say is a tandem will just get you there faster, whichever direction your relationship is heading. So we ended up really loving, you know, the bike touring life and we ended up looking back on it now, all the tours we've done, I, I would not change it for anything.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:19]:
So have all of your tours been on a tandem?

Claire Rogers [00:03:21]:
No.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:22]:
Okay.

Bob Rogers [00:03:23]:
Almost all up until Iceland was our.

Claire Rogers [00:03:26]:
First time on single bikes. We just thought it was going to be really hard to navigate. We were going through snow and mud in the center of Iceland and wind was brutal. So having single bikes was a little better in that case.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:41]:
And what year was the Iceland trip?

Claire Rogers [00:03:45]:
Oh, approximately 2006.

Bob Rogers [00:03:49]:
Okay. Something like that. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:52]:
So you completed this whole circumnav of the US over 13 months, 30 years ago and you decided obviously you're still together, so congrats on that. That's amazing. But you decided that this was a way of life, something you wanted to continue to do, right?

Bob Rogers [00:04:08]:
Well, we got back after all that time on the road and living that life and we had rented out our house and it was empty and we came and we slept on the living room floor for several days. We just could not. The idea of sleeping, you know, settling in didn't work.

Claire Rogers [00:04:31]:
We didn't want to move back in. We just wanted to keep going. So the following year we ended up going across parts of Canada and we broke Canada up into three summers each piece. First the west coast, then the middle and then the east coast. And that was just the summertime. And after that we decided we wanted to go around Australia for another big tour. A year long tour around Australia that was counterclockwise.

Bob Rogers [00:04:59]:
Of course there was being in the southern hemisphere. You have to think about these things.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:04]:
Tell me about that.

Bob Rogers [00:05:06]:
Well, you just, you know, planning is really important for tours. Claire's really good at that, particularly, you know, finding places for us to stay. Warmshowers, yes, Warmshowers was very helpful one thing. And so you have to think about your timing so that you stay with decent weather as you go around your trip. You have your year with the season. So in the southern hemisphere it was anti clockwise, as they say.

Claire Rogers [00:05:36]:
The weather system sets up so that you're more likely to have tailwinds if you go anti clockwise around Australia. We started about in May, which is their winter. So we were going across the north in the winter, down the west coast in spring, October, which is their spring, which is beautiful. Then across the south in the fall, I mean our fall, sorry, November, December, and then we took our time going all the way back up this the east coast.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:07]:
So why Australia?

Claire Rogers [00:06:10]:
Oh my gosh. I think my dad probably influenced us there. He said the wildlife is so amazing. We thought that this would be adventurous enough where we still spoke the language, sort of, kind of. So one of the great things was that was about in the year 2000, and that was about the time we started discovering Warmshowers list. And I remember looking at the map, I don't even remember how warmshowers list was organized back then. There was no app, there was no. I mean, there wasn't all the information that's readily available.

Claire Rogers [00:06:42]:
But somehow I found a map that showed a Warmshowers way out in Western Australia called Peripadu. And I laughed and I said, bob, look at this. Here's someone who's got a Warmshowers list in the middle of nowhere and as if someone's actually going to go out there and see them. And guess what? We did.

Bob Rogers [00:07:04]:
We did.

Claire Rogers [00:07:04]:
We did. We went out to see Michael and he was a great host. I mean, again, 2000, he took us hiking and all this fun stuff and he was in the middle of nowhere, but he was, he was happy to share his country with us.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:19]:
That's so fun. You bring that up because obviously Warmshowers has gone through some growth and it did start off as essentially a list or an Excel sheet with people's names, address, phone number. So did you just ring them up and said, hey, we're in your neighborhood.

Claire Rogers [00:07:33]:
We didn't carry a phone way back then, so I don't know how. We would have probably done it by email when we could find an Internet cafe.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:41]:
Sure, yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:07:42]:
It was wonderful.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:45]:
So thinking about that trip or maybe a trip prior to that, was there like a particular moment or an event or an encounter that just really affirmed for you that, yeah, this is why we're doing this. This is why we traveled way.

Claire Rogers [00:08:00]:
I think there was one for me. We had been traveling across the north and we had been on our own. Just not much food and water available out there. You sort of have to really be careful of your logistics. And the first time we got to a town, we were looking forward to staying in a motel and we both felt like we were in a cave because we had been camping out for so long that we just felt more at home outdoors in our tent than we did in a motel.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:33]:
Yeah. What about you, Bob?

Bob Rogers [00:08:35]:
My memory, there would be the Plenty highway, which is a diagonal from the northeast part of Australia into the middle.

Claire Rogers [00:08:48]:
It goes about from Mount Issa to Alice Spring.

Bob Rogers [00:08:52]:
About 7 or 800 kilometers of basic red dirt.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:57]:
Okay.

Bob Rogers [00:08:58]:
And so we had to.

Claire Rogers [00:09:01]:
That was a logistical.

Bob Rogers [00:09:02]:
Yeah, logistical issue, which was her idea.

Claire Rogers [00:09:05]:
Okay. So this was the first time we came up with the idea of having a turnback point. We knew that it was going to be at least 20 days out there on our own. And so we set the midpoint and the mid date of when we needed to be at that midpoint. If we didn't make that midpoint by that date, we would have to turn around because there wouldn't be enough food or water. So that was the first time we figured that out. And of course, we did make the midpoint just fine. We were carrying with a bob trailer about 30 or 40, 30 liters of water.

Claire Rogers [00:09:39]:
The bob trailer broke halfway. It started sagging in the middle, and we had to gobble it back together.

Bob Rogers [00:09:47]:
By the way, see, Claire insisted we had bear spring, bear string up in Canada, Western Canada, because they're grizzly bears up there. Well, you want to hang your food? Claire said, we got to take the bear string. I said, they don't have bears in Australia. Why do we need to say, guess what? We used that to patch the tape the. The trailer back together so it would continue to carry our water.

Claire Rogers [00:10:14]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:10:14]:
And our water was in the blister of the bags.

Claire Rogers [00:10:18]:
The wine.

Bob Rogers [00:10:19]:
The wine bladders that come in, and you didn't want to drag those on the ground.

Claire Rogers [00:10:25]:
That was also the first time we had to mail ourselves food. And it worked. The Australia Post is fantast. And the likelihood of your finding good, healthy food out in the middle of the outback at a roadhouse is kind of slim. So we mailed ourselves packages of groceries 3 kg at a time. And it worked.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:45]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:10:46]:
And you'll hear that later when we did another much longer actually tour from the center to the far west southwest of Australia through Aboriginal lands that we needed the same techniques. I think we made.

Claire Rogers [00:11:03]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:11:03]:
How many bags of food that we mailed to Aboriginal communities?

Claire Rogers [00:11:07]:
Three different places. We had to mail food to ourselves. Wow.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:12]:
An incredible adventure. I'm so glad you talked to me about the mail system there, because I was. I was perplexed thinking, did you really carry 20 days or 10 days worth of food? Because in addition to all that water, I just. That's gotta weigh a couple of tons.

Claire Rogers [00:11:30]:
I mean, we eat a lot of food. And we were literally down to one granola bar at the end. And we both were sort of saying to each other, no, no, you take it. No, no, you take it. No, no, you take it.

Bob Rogers [00:11:42]:
I don't need it.

Claire Rogers [00:11:43]:
I don't need it. So. Yeah. And that was the first time we actually asked people to tote water for us. So with our big ladders of 3 and 5 liters, we would flag someone down, say, are you heading out west? And ask them, would you please, about 100km from now, would you please drop this water off and tie a piece of this red flagging tape up on a tree or any branch that is over top of it so we can see it and we'll look for it.

Bob Rogers [00:12:11]:
And that worked several times, that orange surveyor's tape.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:14]:
Yeah. Because I'm guessing the roads were kind of minimal. Right. There's just like, there's a road that's going out here and we'll see you in 100 km or something, right?

Bob Rogers [00:12:24]:
Yeah. They call them tracks.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:26]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:12:26]:
And the people out there are all four wheel drivers and it was an adventure for them and so they really liked helping us have our adventure.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:37]:
Now were those roads, you said they were four wheel drive. So were they dirt or. They're pavement tarmac.

Claire Rogers [00:12:43]:
They were dirt. I don't think they're tarmac yet, but at the time they were dirt and they were very bad corrugations.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:49]:
Okay. So was there any point along that trip you thought like, holy crap, what are we doing out here? Or how are we going to get out of this thing?

Claire Rogers [00:12:58]:
Not, not that. No, not that bad. But I actually did have saddle sores bad enough that I went to an aboriginal clinic and they said, they said you should rest.

Bob Rogers [00:13:08]:
This was the second, the second trip. Through the center.

Claire Rogers [00:13:11]:
Yeah, through the center.

Bob Rogers [00:13:13]:
So a few years later, quite a.

Claire Rogers [00:13:15]:
Few years later, the corrugations were just unrelenting.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:20]:
So like we call those washboard roads. Right. Back in the day.

Bob Rogers [00:13:24]:
Yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:13:24]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:25]:
So is it fair to say, living in Tucson, spending all in the outback in Australia, that you guys are desert for people, Right?

Claire Rogers [00:13:33]:
No, I think so. Yeah, we do. Like, we had a really bad rain on that Western Australia trip and we got bogged down in the mud, but it was only a day, so not bad.

Bob Rogers [00:13:46]:
This too will be done. We'll be done with this. Yeah, yeah, it was. We had 23 bush camps.

Claire Rogers [00:13:55]:
Yes.

Bob Rogers [00:13:56]:
On that second trip. And that's basically dig a hole in the dirt and throw some sticks in there, light it and put your billy. I don't know if you know what a billy is, but billy's just a small.

Claire Rogers [00:14:09]:
A small pot.

Bob Rogers [00:14:10]:
Small pot. And we boil water and. And that was how we cooked our dinner. And had lots of tea to rehydrate. So our evenings in Australia were just.

Claire Rogers [00:14:22]:
Under the southern sky.

Bob Rogers [00:14:24]:
Amazing. And then it would get dark and you see the Southern Cross up there and it's like, ah.

Claire Rogers [00:14:30]:
So, yeah, that was one that we did not want to end.

Bob Rogers [00:14:34]:
Yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:14:35]:
But that's something you might want to know and other bike tourists might want to know is we don't actually carry a stove in Australia. We could build a fire, but generally we try to be able to eat without cooking. So we have found a lot of tricks that you can use, like the fire you can use to warm up mashed potatoes, dried peas, tuna, can of tuna, things like that. But then in Iceland, for example, we had to. We just would soak our oats the night before and eat them cold. I know that sounds really unappealing, but Iceland was a little tricky because it was way too windy to even have a stove or a fire.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:17]:
Really.

Claire Rogers [00:15:18]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:18]:
So. So one question before we pivot to Iceland, back to Australia. This is the best Vegemite.

Bob Rogers [00:15:28]:
Oh, absolutely.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:30]:
Yes.

Bob Rogers [00:15:31]:
Great stuff.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:32]:
Okay. Okay. Because I've heard there's two kinds of people in the world, peanut butter people or vegemite people. And I just. I thought there was no crossover.

Bob Rogers [00:15:40]:
No, they go well together, actually.

Claire Rogers [00:15:43]:
What, for you? Not for me.

Bob Rogers [00:15:46]:
For me, I mix them together and put them on a cracker or bread.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:50]:
Because it's salty, right?

Bob Rogers [00:15:52]:
Very salty.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:53]:
Salty, which is probably great when you're sweating to try to retain fluids. Right?

Bob Rogers [00:15:58]:
Yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:15:59]:
And it makes a good sort of a bullion also. Very good.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:03]:
Okay, so what kind of things were you cooking out there on your billy? Is that what you said?

Claire Rogers [00:16:08]:
Yes. Yeah. Often, like I said, the tuna, mashed potatoes and peas. And then I also would grow sprout sprouts. I don't know if you knew that this or not, but it's actually pretty easy to grow sprouts when you're bike touring. We. You soak them, you know, a couple days you can drink that water that you soak them in, and then every day, maybe twice a day, you'll. You'll see them there in your panner and you say, oh, yeah, I need to water my sprouts again.

Claire Rogers [00:16:35]:
And always drink that water because you don't want it to go to waste. So. And then after three days, you have really nice crunchy sprouts to go on whatever you're eating.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:43]:
I am laughing, listening to this. You are growing sprouts along your tour.

Claire Rogers [00:16:49]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:49]:
I mean, I've heard people growing mold or other things like that. Unintentionally, but you're consciously growing sprouts. That's fantastic.

Bob Rogers [00:16:58]:
I also made damper a couple of times. You know what damper or you don't?

Claire Rogers [00:17:03]:
It's like a biscuit dough. You can make self rising flour with baking soda, baking powder and salt already in there. Yeah. And then you just make biscuits out of. Just add water to the flour and then cook it right over the hot coals. It has to be.

Bob Rogers [00:17:17]:
Well, you just wait till the coals go down and they're still red and you just throw it on there, lay.

Claire Rogers [00:17:23]:
It right on top of that.

Bob Rogers [00:17:24]:
And because it's so hot, it releases. So you can flip it over with a stick and have both sides and.

Claire Rogers [00:17:31]:
And the ash just brushes right off.

Bob Rogers [00:17:33]:
And we always carried. In Australia. What was it called? It was like our sorghum here. But whatever. I can't remember the name of it. Oh, anyway, it's a sweet.

Claire Rogers [00:17:45]:
It's like a treacle.

Bob Rogers [00:17:46]:
Yeah, it's like a treacle. It's a sweet syrup made out of sugar cane.

Claire Rogers [00:17:53]:
Yeah. And I can't remember the name.

Bob Rogers [00:17:55]:
And it goes. Goes well with anything actually. When you're out there, anything tastes good, right?

Jerry Kopack [00:18:02]:
You guys are survivalists out there. That is incredible. How did you learn that you could grow sprouts?

Claire Rogers [00:18:10]:
You know, I'm not sure I like.

Bob Rogers [00:18:12]:
Actually sprouting here at home.

Claire Rogers [00:18:13]:
So I think that's when I realized, hey, I could do this on the road because in the outback Australia, you're not going to see anything fresh and crunchy for the whole 23 days.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:23]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:18:23]:
You're not likely to eat anything like plants because since Australia has so many things that can kill you, mostly snakes, you know, you would not know which plants were safe to eat. So.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:38]:
Yeah, I've heard that about Arizona as well. I have friends who live in Tucson and they talk about having what they call caxidence where they. So maybe you've heard that expression, so.

Claire Rogers [00:18:49]:
No, that's great. I know exactly what it is though.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:54]:
Yeah. They always. Every time I'm out there riding with them, they always talk about the desert's trying to kill you. So just pay attention.

Claire Rogers [00:19:00]:
Yeah, that's right.

Bob Rogers [00:19:01]:
It is.

Claire Rogers [00:19:01]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:02]:
So quite a big shift going from Australia to Iceland. What. What prompted that? I.

Bob Rogers [00:19:12]:
We were a little bit. We're not usually so goal oriented or it's a very long goal maybe, but this was kind of a short goal. And we heard that there were people that bicycle tourists that claimed to be the first ones across the middle of Iceland every Year after the winter, after the winter, it was over. So we thought, oh, we could do that.

Claire Rogers [00:19:33]:
So the roads are not open yet because they don't want cars driving on and mucking it up. It's very. It can be.

Bob Rogers [00:19:40]:
Although it gets stuck. So. Yeah. So June is really not spring or summer. It's. It's still the end of winter, but it's not frozen. Everything has had a chance to thaw and turn to mud. And then the wind is really, really high.

Bob Rogers [00:19:57]:
We had. At one point, Claire was pushing her bike up a hill and the wind blew so hard from the side that her bike went out this way.

Claire Rogers [00:20:06]:
Blew out from under.

Bob Rogers [00:20:07]:
Blew out from under her, basically, as she was pushing it. That was pretty hard. So we had to find, like a big boulder or something to put up a tent.

Claire Rogers [00:20:16]:
Yeah. So that was all camping.

Bob Rogers [00:20:19]:
That was all camping, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:20]:
And cold nights, I'm guessing, right?

Claire Rogers [00:20:23]:
Very cold. I was very surprised in Iceland at all the different ways that rain can make different rhythms.

Bob Rogers [00:20:32]:
Oh, because it rained for a month on your tent.

Claire Rogers [00:20:36]:
You're in your tent and you can hear this. And it makes all these different patterns, rhythm patterns.

Bob Rogers [00:20:42]:
And the wind. Depending on the wind too.

Claire Rogers [00:20:44]:
Maybe.

Bob Rogers [00:20:44]:
So.

Claire Rogers [00:20:45]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:46]:
So question about that. You're talking about rain and wind and cold and also heat from Australia. What is the one element that truly just grinds you down? For me, it's wind. I can't deal with wind.

Bob Rogers [00:20:59]:
Boy, oh, boy. If you. It's heat.

Claire Rogers [00:21:01]:
I think with me, it's heat. Yeah. I cannot tolerate heat very well.

Bob Rogers [00:21:06]:
You live in Arizona. Yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:21:08]:
Right. I know it is in the summer. It's a dry heat. And you do adapt here with your.

Bob Rogers [00:21:15]:
Skin, you can adapt.

Claire Rogers [00:21:16]:
You have to get up very early, before sunrise, and you're out riding, and then you're home before it starts.

Bob Rogers [00:21:23]:
Coming up, one of our. Our Silk Road crossing, which comes later in Turkey. We had a day when it was 50 degrees centigrade.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:34]:
I. That's a lot. That's like 120.

Bob Rogers [00:21:37]:
120.

Claire Rogers [00:21:39]:
By then, we were back on the tandem. This was our route across the Tea and Horse Road.

Bob Rogers [00:21:44]:
No, no, this was the Silk Road. Silk Road.

Claire Rogers [00:21:47]:
And we were going from Beijing all the way across to Istanbul.

Bob Rogers [00:21:50]:
Istanbul.

Claire Rogers [00:21:51]:
And we looked down. We were climbing a hill in Turkey on the tandem. I looked down and the rear tire was sinking into the asphalt. Oh, that was discouraging.

Bob Rogers [00:22:04]:
No wonder we were tired.

Claire Rogers [00:22:05]:
It was hard. That was really hard in the heat. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:09]:
Wow. So talk to me about that trip, because that is a. That's a big trip.

Claire Rogers [00:22:14]:
So again, that was another big jump. After Australia, we wanted to do something that involved a foreign language. You know, all these foreign languages, all those countries. And we wanted to see if we could go follow the Silk Road, one of the Silk Roads. It was in about 2000. Well, actually, that might have. No, that wasn't before Australia. It was after Australia, after the first.

Bob Rogers [00:22:38]:
Australia songline strip, which we'll mention later.

Claire Rogers [00:22:42]:
Okay, so, yeah, we did make it. I don't know if Peter Snow Cow is a Warmshowers list member or not, but he was a big help to us when we got to Beijing. No, no, that was.

Bob Rogers [00:22:55]:
So that was the other trip. Yeah, that was the other trip.

Claire Rogers [00:22:59]:
But we really did not have much information in China. We couldn't get much information. And we had a few false starts. From Beijing, where we got to small towns and villages where we tried to.

Bob Rogers [00:23:11]:
Stay overnight, policemen would come and say, you cannot stay here.

Claire Rogers [00:23:15]:
That's all we knew. They couldn't explain why we couldn't stay there, and we weren't supposed to be asking why we couldn't stay there.

Bob Rogers [00:23:23]:
Then they chased us into the dark and we found some nice Chinese people to take us in.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:31]:
Today's episode is brought to you by bikeflights.com Bikeflights delivers everything you need to ship your bike, whether you're riding a bucket list tour, selling your bike online, or moving across the country. Bikeflights. Easy to pack bike boxes, carbon neutral shipping and pickup to delivery, monitoring. Make it simple and save you up to 40%. Visit bikeflights.com warmshowerstoday to book a shipment. Now back to the show. So what year do you think that was? Because I asked. Because I was in China, in that region as well, in probably 2016, 2017.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:10]:
And you bring up a good point, because I would travel through some villages on the Tibetan plateau and you'd go through a checkpoint and the police would turn you around and say, there's no foreigners can stay here. Or you'd go to a hotel and said, this is not open for foreigners. You'd have to go to a specific hotel that allowed foreigners. Yeah, did you guys have that?

Bob Rogers [00:24:28]:
Right? We had that.

Claire Rogers [00:24:29]:
We did have that. Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:24:31]:
For the most part, we were able to stay in really cheap hotels. Remember, we're talking two, three dollars a night.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:38]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:24:39]:
Because they wouldn't turn us in. But every now and then they would say, no, you can't stay here. You have to go to the. The official hotel. Which was horrible. I mean, it was just, ah, yeah. Karaoke at night. Oh, yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:24:53]:
All we wanted to do was sleep. Yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:24:56]:
So anyway, you probably know about that.

Bob Rogers [00:24:58]:
Yeah, there were all kinds of different things. We, we had an experience in western China where we were in an Internet cafe. Remember, this is before cell phones or any of this connectivity, but they had lots of Internet cafes. And we were out there.

Claire Rogers [00:25:14]:
Xinjiang.

Bob Rogers [00:25:15]:
Okay. Yeah. We're typing away and all of a sudden everybody else in the place stopped typing at one moment.

Claire Rogers [00:25:25]:
They shut down their computers and they.

Bob Rogers [00:25:26]:
Shut down their computers or got off that screen, whatever they were on. And we looked in. These two guys walked in the door.

Claire Rogers [00:25:34]:
Probably in fatigues, military fatigue. Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:25:37]:
And they were looking like, okay, what are you people up to here? That's why everybody sat down their screen. Because they were probably looking at something in the west that they were not allowed to look or they didn't know if they were allowed. But I'm sure the police had heard that there were foreigners there.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:58]:
We might.

Bob Rogers [00:25:58]:
Have been stirring up. We actually had a car follow us one day. I mean, we're going 10, 12 miles an hour. This car followed us at that speed all day.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:08]:
Because to your point, like, even though you're traveling by bike, you think you're kind of incognito. Like, they know, right? They know you're there.

Claire Rogers [00:26:17]:
Yeah, we stand out like a sore thumb, I guess. So was that your experience too? Did you fly into Chengdu or where did you bike out of when you.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:25]:
Were doing that is exactly what I flew into was Chengdu.

Claire Rogers [00:26:28]:
Okay.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:29]:
So I was. It was part of a. An almost two year trip for me. I had come through northern India, into Nepal, back into Northeast India, and then from there into Thailand.

Claire Rogers [00:26:41]:
Wow.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:42]:
And from there I had the opportunity with some people I'd met along the way from Switzerland. They said, hey, we're going to go into China and eastern Tibet. Do you want to come with us? And at that point, it never crossed my mind about going there, but I had this opportunity and of course I said yes. And it was one of the most unique and influential experiences of my entire life. I remember just trying to order food one time and I had no idea how to do that. And you, you think all the places you've traveled, like the world speaks a little bit of English in every place you go? Except China. Except China, yes, because they have 1.4 billion people, so why do they need English? Right. So I remember trying to order food one time and just.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:25]:
Nothing. Just. It was so hard. I had to take pictures of the food when I actually got it right. Okay, cool. That was really good. Take a picture of this, go to the next restaurant, show them this picture. I'm like, can you make this?

Claire Rogers [00:27:36]:
Yes. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:37]:
But the. But the food was amazing, right?

Claire Rogers [00:27:39]:
Yes, it was.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:40]:
The people were kind.

Claire Rogers [00:27:42]:
If you were really starving, you could always ask for egg, tomato and rice, right? Yes, that was. Yeah, that was the fallback. So one of the tricks that I learned when we were in trouble, not deep trouble of any kind, but just general trouble in China was to look for an older woman. And if I would try to speak a little bit of Chinese to her, she was always very nice to me and would reach out and help. And it wasn't like she would speak English, but at least I could get through to her. And they were always willing to help. It was amazing. So here's an interesting story.

Claire Rogers [00:28:15]:
When we were in Chengdu, we stayed in a guest house called Sims Cozy Guest House. It wasn't a Warmshowers list, but Sims Cozy Guest Guest House, I think is what it was called. And then we stayed in touch with them and they now have a guest house in Japan. And we went to see them in.

Bob Rogers [00:28:31]:
Japan, stayed there for.

Claire Rogers [00:28:32]:
So they are very much bicycle. They very much support bicycle.

Bob Rogers [00:28:36]:
And they were almost family now.

Claire Rogers [00:28:39]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:28:40]:
We watched their children grow up, by the way, in eastern and southeastern China. When you went across that, it was Sichuan, Tibetan. Did you go across the Tea and Horse Road?

Jerry Kopack [00:28:55]:
I don't recall that name. It's possible. Yes, yes, yes.

Bob Rogers [00:29:02]:
That's the next one. We did that one.

Claire Rogers [00:29:04]:
Yeah, that's.

Bob Rogers [00:29:05]:
That's very steep.

Claire Rogers [00:29:07]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:29:07]:
That was one of the hardest.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:10]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:29:11]:
We've ever done.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:12]:
Although, you know, it was interesting when I was there again back in 2016 and 17, how fast China was changing.

Claire Rogers [00:29:19]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:20]:
So roads were getting paved overnight.

Bob Rogers [00:29:23]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:23]:
So we would cycle through these remote valleys along the Tibetan plateau, over mountain passes on dirt roads to these Buddhist monasteries or Tibetan monasteries. And we would land on this four lane highway with a toll road on it.

Bob Rogers [00:29:40]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:41]:
Out of nowhere, like, where did this come from? Which.

Claire Rogers [00:29:43]:
With no cars. No cars on it.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:45]:
They haven't come there yet. They would build these cities and they hadn't gotten there yet, but they, they were sort of like, if you build it, they will come. Kind of a mindset.

Bob Rogers [00:29:54]:
We don't know if it's worked or not.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:55]:
I don't know either. But that brings me to a question I have for you guys, because this was 2017, and so I had a cell phone, I had offline GPS maps, so navigation was easier. How were you guys navigating?

Claire Rogers [00:30:09]:
That was another thing we spent about a week in that Chengdu Sims cozy guest house. And we were looking. Someone gave us. Peter Snocal gave us a road atlas that was all in Chinese. It was the kind of road atlas that the Chinese truckers use. But again, it was all in Chinese. So I had to use the angles of the roadways to figure out what city I was looking at. And you can sort of tell the name of a city like Beijing is two syllables.

Claire Rogers [00:30:39]:
Chengdu is two syllables. So pretty soon you can recognize this is Chengdu and this is Shangri La, Remember? Yeah. So I began to. From looking at the map and figuring out which road was rich, I could figure out where we were, where we were trying to go. And that way I'd know what the road, what the name of the town looks like on the road sign. So I would take a picture of the road sign, and I would keep pointing at that to show people on. On the phone. I think it was on our camera.

Claire Rogers [00:31:15]:
We didn't have phones back then, so it was all paper earlier.

Bob Rogers [00:31:19]:
Yeah. So, yeah, one. One time in China, we were totally lost in western China. Had no idea where to go. Didn't. In that trip, we didn't have a. We didn't.

Claire Rogers [00:31:30]:
We didn't even have the road out anytime.

Bob Rogers [00:31:32]:
Yeah, nothing. We just went. We had a compass. Anyway, we got this intersection. It was like. And there were these truckers parked around, and of course, they didn't speak any English. But finally we. With pantomime, we indicated we wanted to take the road that would take us west to Kazakhstan.

Claire Rogers [00:31:54]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:31:55]:
Okay, which way is Kazakhstan, basically, which was in before you get to Kazakhstan. And finally after, they were all back and forth, back and forth.

Claire Rogers [00:32:06]:
No, no, no, no. Lots of arguing, lots of arguing.

Bob Rogers [00:32:10]:
And finally one guy just said, oh, man. He got in his truck and took off. And here we are loading tandem, trying.

Claire Rogers [00:32:18]:
To catch up, trying to keep up with this.

Bob Rogers [00:32:20]:
But we did, and he got us on the right road, which did get us to.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:25]:
I think it's incredible that you guys did a trip of this level without what I would call modern technology now, because I think. Let me. Let me back up right there. So do you guys now use, when you travel, your phones, your mapping apps? Because think of how different it is, like traveling with the map or with the compass or trying to talk to people versus now think about. Much easier it is to navigate. Right.

Claire Rogers [00:32:53]:
Yes. I wouldn't trade that time for anything because I think it's really a valuable skill to have. And I still try to keep my bearings and Keep my awareness of how to read a map and how to use a map map. I think it's an important skill to have. But I do love Google Maps and all of those.

Bob Rogers [00:33:11]:
Yeah, it works your brain in a different way.

Claire Rogers [00:33:13]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:33:14]:
I think to have to go, you know, just on your senses and a compass. And there was a time when they didn't even have a compass, so we at least had that.

Claire Rogers [00:33:24]:
So I. I think I have to admit that we have developed skills over time. For example, in Baku, trying to get out of Baku, we flew in Azerbaijan, and they did not have any maps at all. And because we flew in, I couldn't even tell what part of town we were in. So as we cycled out of Baku without a map, I began to understand the traffic patterns that most all cities have. A circular road and radial roads, and you can figure out which ones are the circular ones and which are the radials, and you can figure out which direction most people are going. So in the morning, most people are heading into town. We're trying to get out of town.

Claire Rogers [00:34:08]:
So that's one clue.

Bob Rogers [00:34:10]:
So we go west against the traffic.

Claire Rogers [00:34:11]:
Yeah, there were. Yeah. When we've been lost, I've been able to, like, even on gravel roads, figuring out, okay, this is where most of the cars are turning. So we want to follow those car routes instead of. Yeah. So over the years, we've developed a real keen sense of direction.

Bob Rogers [00:34:32]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:33]:
So how long was that Silk Road trip?

Claire Rogers [00:34:36]:
The Silk Road trip was four months.

Bob Rogers [00:34:40]:
We had a breakdown which kept us in Beijing for a while.

Claire Rogers [00:34:45]:
We had to fly out of Kazakhstan because we were planning on going through Uzbekistan. And there was an uprising which caused the. There was. We weren't.

Bob Rogers [00:34:57]:
We couldn't get any visas.

Claire Rogers [00:34:59]:
We didn't think we could get a visa.

Bob Rogers [00:35:00]:
So we were. It was kind of fun. We were stuck in. This is. My 60th birthday, was in Almaty. Oh. With a whole bunch of other cycle tourists who were all stuck there for the same reason.

Claire Rogers [00:35:13]:
We were stuck there with Alistair Humphries, a couple who went on to cycle the world with their children. As they had kids, they kept going, and we had to pay a bribe to get out of Kazakhstan.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:26]:
Really?

Claire Rogers [00:35:27]:
Yeah. That was the only time we've ever had to pay a bribe.

Bob Rogers [00:35:29]:
Right.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:30]:
Wow. What a cool experience. So you actually made it out of Kazakhstan, obviously, and you were able to continue forward with the trip?

Bob Rogers [00:35:37]:
Yes.

Claire Rogers [00:35:38]:
Yeah, we flew. So what happened was they once they had our bicycle in the luggage at the airport and they had our passports. Then they said, oh, come with us, there's a problem.

Bob Rogers [00:35:48]:
It's a scam.

Claire Rogers [00:35:49]:
It's a scam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we paid the bribe and we got out.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:56]:
But that was. You haven't had too many experiences like that.

Claire Rogers [00:35:59]:
That was the only time like that.

Bob Rogers [00:36:00]:
Yeah. Okay.

Claire Rogers [00:36:02]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:03]:
So I wanna, I wanna pivot a little bit because I know that you guys, I, I'm looking at Claire's jersey and I'm looking at your T shirt, Bob. You've, you've, you have some connection with, with Ukraine. Tell me about that.

Claire Rogers [00:36:14]:
Yes. So we both feel strongly that our years of bike touring have prepared us to finally go to Ukraine. We had a mutual friend who has been going to help Ukraine as a volunteer. We had two good Richie touring bikes that we don't use anymore. We had them and we sort of.

Bob Rogers [00:36:34]:
Got them for the second trip across the middle of Australia. It was a thousand miles of outback. So I had it built up with like 40 spokes and, you know, really.

Claire Rogers [00:36:46]:
Really good, strong bikes.

Bob Rogers [00:36:48]:
Very specific.

Claire Rogers [00:36:49]:
We used them in Germany because they pack into a suitcase and you can just build them up and they're a full frame bike.

Bob Rogers [00:36:55]:
But anyway, we were ready. We've started now in Europe. We rent bikes for the most part. And so we were ready to do something with them and give them away. And give them away. And we ended up riding them from Poland into Ukraine and then doing three volunteer stints while we were there.

Claire Rogers [00:37:15]:
And we gave the bikes away.

Bob Rogers [00:37:17]:
Gave the bikes. Well, actually they were auctioned. They were auctioned off. Auctioned.

Claire Rogers [00:37:22]:
They were raffled.

Bob Rogers [00:37:22]:
Raffled off. Yeah. And the money is going to the front lines to buy drones, the small personal drones.

Claire Rogers [00:37:32]:
So there's actually a strong bicycle culture in Ukraine. And getting back to Warmshowers less, I was eager to find. I was a little uncertain about going into Ukraine. I didn't know what we were going to encounter. So I reached out to one of the Warmshowers list members in Lviv and I said, we don't want to stay with you, but we would like some information. Could you please help us? And he was able to help us with how to get the bikes on the train. Because once we got to Lviv, we realized we really were in a hurry to get to Kyiv. It would have been two more weeks by bicycle.

Claire Rogers [00:38:07]:
So we decided to take the train. Train. And he was able to coach us how to get the tickets for the bikes, where the bikes were going to have to go on the train and whether we were going to have to break them down at all. And that's really important information and that's.

Bob Rogers [00:38:20]:
An important part of Warmshowers.

Claire Rogers [00:38:22]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:38:23]:
Quite often you don't stay with the people, but you connect with them and they help you out.

Claire Rogers [00:38:28]:
Yes.

Bob Rogers [00:38:28]:
Oh yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:38:29]:
In Australia, real community.

Bob Rogers [00:38:31]:
The second trip, our, our, those richies went into suitcases but we, we needed to get the suitcases back to Sydney. Sydney. And so we sent them there on the bus to a Warmshowers location. A woman who had a.

Claire Rogers [00:38:48]:
She said that she didn't have a place for people to stay, but she could provide storage. So I emailed her ahead of, ahead of time and I said, would you be willing to store our suitcases for three months while we're out here bike touring? And she said yes. So that was wonderful. And we got to meet her and it was a wonderful experience. Again, the Warmshowers people are so more than just, you know, a place to stay.

Bob Rogers [00:39:11]:
And the ones we've hosted have been nice too.

Claire Rogers [00:39:13]:
Yes, we've hosted here. I have to say that, you know, we have over the years, we used to use Warmshowers a lot more and we don't use them as much now because I kind of feel like we don't want to impose. We're old enough now that we can afford to stay, you know, in a private place, I mean, in a hotel or whatever. But we still like to connect with the warmshowers community by asking for help somehow or, you know, being help to others. So, yeah, I think it's a very important community. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:44]:
And I think that's a great point because it can be a terrific reference, not just for sleeping, but also just for local intel. To your point about how to book the train in another country or what roads are good to cycle on and whatnot. Even if you don't stay with that. For that family or that host.

Claire Rogers [00:40:02]:
Right, Yep. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So Ukraine has a good bicycle culture. They really do. And Eurovelo, I don't know if you've ever heard of the Eurovelo bike routes.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:12]:
Sure.

Claire Rogers [00:40:13]:
But they have a plan to go all the way to Kiev. It had to. It stalled. The plan has stalled since the full scale invasion in 2022. And we are forming now a coalition. I've made connections with bicycle communities in Kiev and in Ukra and we are going to restart the planning process to Eurovilla 4. Yeah. For Euro Vello 4 to start building capacity for bicycle tourism when the country opens.

Claire Rogers [00:40:48]:
Because when the country opens, there's going to be a lot of people that want to go there. And if we can get some of those people to Go by bicycle. It's a little more sustainable and a little bit less of a. A harsh impact on them. You know, it would be better if more people could bicycle into Ukraine rather.

Bob Rogers [00:41:05]:
Because we know the cultural connections are great.

Claire Rogers [00:41:09]:
Yeah. So we want to help get small villages up to speed on what to expect when you get a massive bicycle tourists coming in.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:20]:
That is incredible. That gives me goosebumps just hearing about your story, because to your point, when they do open and they will, they're going to need tourists, they're going to need tourism funds coming in there to help rebuild their country and their infrastructure, for sure, Right?

Claire Rogers [00:41:35]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:35]:
Oh, man.

Claire Rogers [00:41:36]:
And Eurovelo. I mean, across Europe, different countries have approached bicycle tourism with some really innovative ideas. For example, in Germany, there's a network called Bettenbike, which is a fantastic network of hospitality bed and breakfasts that know that bicyclists want a shower, a bed, a safe place for their bike, and a beer. A beer. And they probably only want to stay one night. And that network of hospitality homes, they all know that. And they put themselves on this one website where everyone knows you can go and you can plan your trip and stay at these different bed and bikes. It's a great network and it's.

Claire Rogers [00:42:24]:
Everyone's agreeable to the needs of bicyclists. So there's some good ideas all across Europe and I'm hoping to incorporate as many of those good ideas into building Ukraine's capacity.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:37]:
God, I love that. That is incredible.

Claire Rogers [00:42:40]:
Thank you. I'm really hoping that we build cover for it.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:44]:
Wow.

Bob Rogers [00:42:45]:
Let me back up.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:46]:
I have really, really enjoyed this conversation with you. I want to spend more time talking to you, but what's next on your. In your life plans besides trying to help build inroads into Ukraine? Do you guys have any tours planned? Any trips, places you haven't seen? Maybe they're still on your. Your to do list.

Claire Rogers [00:43:04]:
It's so funny because I look back in my journals from years ago and I. I listed on my journal someday trips, and I look back and I think, we did that, we did that, we did that, and we did that and we did that. And I don't know, you know, I'm not sure what.

Bob Rogers [00:43:20]:
We're easing up a bit. I'm not as young as I used to be. She's much younger.

Claire Rogers [00:43:24]:
So Bob's 81 and I'm 61 and.

Bob Rogers [00:43:27]:
And so I'm not going to be crossing the Himalayas again. And by the way, have you. You've been to Ladakh, right?

Jerry Kopack [00:43:34]:
Yes, a couple Times one of my favorite places in the entire world.

Bob Rogers [00:43:38]:
So we went there to. To. For my 70th birthday. I wanted to ride Cardinal.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:45]:
And did you?

Bob Rogers [00:43:46]:
Yeah, we did. In a tone.

Claire Rogers [00:43:48]:
On the tandem.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:49]:
On the tandem motorable road in the world. Right. Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:43:52]:
Then. Then we turned around and went. I don't know how many days. The 13 days. Well, we wrote out across the Himalayas.

Claire Rogers [00:43:59]:
Yeah. We rode out to Turtuk.

Bob Rogers [00:44:01]:
Out to Turtuk, which is the end of the road right next to Pakistan.

Claire Rogers [00:44:05]:
And then. Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:44:05]:
Then came back, and then we rode across 13 days across to Manali. The Manali Lake Highway. Yeah, I know.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:13]:
It's. I was there.

Bob Rogers [00:44:17]:
I love it.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:18]:
That was my first introduction to India, and wow. It was amazing. And that one of the. Where do I start? With all the things that are amazing about India. Right. The culture, the food, the landscape. But think about this. As touring cyclists, you talked about how much food you carry and how much food you eat.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:36]:
Think about the. The food there. Right. The Dalbat.

Claire Rogers [00:44:39]:
Oh, my.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:40]:
Yes. It's all you can eat. Right. For roughly a dollar U.S. right, right, exactly.

Claire Rogers [00:44:46]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:47]:
I have personally closed down restaurants because I've beaten them out of their supplies.

Claire Rogers [00:44:52]:
Oh, my gosh.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:53]:
Yeah. They would look at me. It's like, seriously, like, you're a skinny white person. How can you eat so much? I'm like, just keep it coming. Just keep it coming.

Bob Rogers [00:45:02]:
And we really like the food. We going across the Himalayas southbound. We stayed at the parachute camps, the Tibetan parachute camps, where there are these cargo parachutes that the Indian army uses. And then when they are done with them, they leave them and they put a pole. The Tibetans put a pole up in the middle, stretch them out, and they have pallets around the outside for you to sleep on. And then they cook in the middle, and you spend, like, three bucks per person per night. And that was one of our amazing experiences. Was, like, at 15, 16,000ft one night.

Claire Rogers [00:45:40]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:45:41]:
Two nights. We stayed two nights. One place.

Claire Rogers [00:45:44]:
Yeah.

Bob Rogers [00:45:44]:
Anyway.

Claire Rogers [00:45:45]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:45:45]:
Did you experience those along. Did you experience those along the Lehmanali Highway? Yes, because they were called. I think they were called dabas, right?

Claire Rogers [00:45:53]:
Oh, yeah. I don't even know that we learned that.

Bob Rogers [00:45:56]:
I remember that.

Jerry Kopack [00:45:57]:
Yeah. But some would be just like. Like a little yurt. Some would be like a corrugated steel shed, the kind you might put your lawnmower in or something like that. It's really basic accommodations, but completely adequate, Right?

Claire Rogers [00:46:10]:
Yes.

Bob Rogers [00:46:14]:
Which is a place I'll never forget.

Claire Rogers [00:46:15]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:46:18]:
So I just want to thank you guys for taking time to Share these inspirational stories. I'll give you both this. This one last question. You can think about it yourselves individually. Why should people travel by bike?

Bob Rogers [00:46:33]:
Oh, my.

Claire Rogers [00:46:35]:
You force yourself to learn. You have to learn. I mean, you. First. It's. You learn about your body. You learn to listen to your body. You also learn to hone your instincts.

Claire Rogers [00:46:50]:
You're very, very aware when you're out bicycle touring and you're aware of your surroundings. You pick up on things and after a while, you begin to sense the culture. And, yeah, it's a very finely tuned, sensitive instrument to bike tour.

Bob Rogers [00:47:14]:
What was the sign we had on the wall that it's going to be in our show?

Claire Rogers [00:47:18]:
Go where you feel most alive.

Bob Rogers [00:47:20]:
Go where you most alive. And when you're there on a bicycle, that is. That's very, very, very true. And that's what we thought when people would say, you're going to Ukraine, you're crazy. Why are you not afraid? You've just heard. You understand why you're not afraid. Yeah. Because we've done all these things that most people would be scared of doing, and that's.

Bob Rogers [00:47:49]:
And we came through all of them just fine and with great memories and, you know, what a life, huh? That's.

Claire Rogers [00:47:57]:
That's a muscle that you build also is courage. I really strongly believe that. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:02]:
And ultimately, all these places you've been, at least in my experience, people are just people, right?

Bob Rogers [00:48:07]:
Yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:48:08]:
Yes.

Bob Rogers [00:48:08]:
Yeah.

Claire Rogers [00:48:09]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:11]:
Guys, thank you so much for taking the time.

Claire Rogers [00:48:15]:
Thank you.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:16]:
How can our listeners find out more about your adventures, what you've been doing, what you are going to be up to? Is there a website for us to post?

Claire Rogers [00:48:24]:
Oh, yes. We are at www.newbohemians.net.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:30]:
I love it. We will post that link in our show notes. And whatever you guys are up to next, I want to know about it because I know you're going to be doing great stuff.

Claire Rogers [00:48:39]:
Oh, thank you. I hope so.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:41]:
All right, so for everyone out there listening to my show today, thank you for listening to my convers with Claire and Bob Rogers. Stories like these will hopefully inspire you to set off on your own bicycle adventure and maybe make the world feel a little bit smaller, one pedal stroke at a time. Until then, keep the wheels rolling. And the story's coming. Thanks for joining us on Bike Life. I'm Jerry Kopak and I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you. Please leave us a rating and review or just tell your friends. This helps us reach more cyclists and hosts around the world.

Jerry Kopack [00:49:18]:
To learn more or become part of this amazing community, visit us at warmshowers.org or follow us on Instagram @warmshowers_org. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or have a question you'd like us to explore, email us at podcast@warmshowers.org.