Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1226: Cycling 50,000 km Since Turning 80 with Robert Fletcher

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Ep. 1226: Cycling 50,000 km Since Turning 80 with Robert Fletcher · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for adventuring with us as we discover what incredible athletes and outdoor enthusiasts are doing all over the world.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Linville.
0:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Today I have such a special guest for you to meet.
0:26
[SPEAKER_01]: His name is Robert Fletcher.
0:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Goes by Bob.
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the part this crazy.
0:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You're ready for this?
0:33
[SPEAKER_01]: We've interviewed people that have done a lot of bicycling around the world and put in some incredible distances.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's always a wonderful thing to visit with people that have traveled by bicycles, it's just such a rewarding and unique way to travel.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But Robert, Bob, decided to do, are you ready for this?
0:51
[SPEAKER_01]: He has done over 50,000 kilometers since he turned 80 years old.
0:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's still going strong with a plan all the way across Canada coming up 8,600 kilometers.
1:03
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the man who can tell us how things have been and how they are going over the long haul.
1:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Bob, welcome to the program.
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Kurtz.
1:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Very happy to be here with you and your listeners.
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know what, it's such an honor to get to visit with someone who's been at it this long.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Just before I hit record, you shared that you started your first world journey in 1968.
1:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And that in 1972, you did a big bike tour around Europe.
1:34
[SPEAKER_01]: To be able to say, this is what the world was like then.
1:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's something the most people can't say.
1:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it certainly changed a lot.
1:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And it changed a lot in every kind of aspect from biking to cultural and everything.
1:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But way back then, we didn't have internet.
1:53
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have the GPS files to navigate.
1:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have.
1:57
[SPEAKER_01]: fancy equipment, lightweight equipment.
2:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember my panties, we're made of heavy canvas.
2:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That's had to leak then.
2:07
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't the best of times, but we didn't know any better, so we thought it was the best of times.
2:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it makes a good point, though, which maybe you could speak to.
2:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm often telling the listeners.
2:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, doing an outdoor sport these days can be quite expensive.
2:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a barrier to entry that keeps some people from starting because there's like, ah, it's too much money.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to do it.
2:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But I keep saying, you know, all the expensive equipment you did didn't exist.
2:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do this stuff without spending the big bucks.
2:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It just gets easier when you get the nice equipment, but you can still get started.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do you feel about that?
2:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You agree with that one?
2:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I agree thoroughly, but the world is out there and all you need is a bicycle and maybe a credit card, if you don't want to have all the expensive stuff, use the credit card for the motel rooms or whatever.
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's a lot easier today, I think, with all the tour groups, I can't even think of a tour group that was available at that time for people to join up and take a tour and it becomes a lot easier with a group of people and somebody else's
3:14
[SPEAKER_02]: doing the navigating and planning for you.
3:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a lot easier today to get out and get going.
3:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Although I must admit when it comes to looking at buying a tent or sleeping bags or even a new bicycle, you can spend a lot of money.
3:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
3:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And the equipment's fantastic.
3:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would argue it's worth the money, but it shouldn't be what keeps you from starting.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's kind of where I am on it.
3:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Bob, you said that you were born, now, let me get this right, in London, Ontario, not London, England, Ontario, is that right?
3:50
[SPEAKER_02]: That's there.
3:51
[SPEAKER_02]: That's correct.
3:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
3:53
[SPEAKER_02]: on time ago, 42, 1942.
3:56
[SPEAKER_01]: 1942.
3:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
3:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you had a career in Edmonton.
4:01
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you do there?
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I taught for 30 years with Edmonton Public School Board.
4:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a great career with them.
4:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Enjoy every minute of it.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And I retired at the ripe old age of 55, freedom 50.
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye.
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: what did you teach?
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: What was your subject?
4:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I know you taught students, but what was your subject?
4:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope I did, but my major was mathematics, but I was mostly in administration over the ended up as a director of curriculum for Edmonton Public for a couple of years in principle in a number of schools as well.
4:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's very nice.
4:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So why did you decide to go on the first big
4:46
[SPEAKER_02]: 1972 we just got home from traveling around the world for two years my wife and I I had a first year of employment with the Edmonton Public at starting in September and we left in 1968 after graduating from university and took two years around the world I guess I still had the wonder last because a couple years later I said let's go again and let's do it by
5:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I was doing biking to work in those days and I was biking in the weekends, maybe I'd do a road trip through the mountains of Canadian Rockies for three days of riding that type of things.
5:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So, we set off to do a summer in England and France, but our bikes in London, England, not Ontario and pedaled around the two countries at that time.
5:45
[SPEAKER_02]: and I've been doing it pretty well ever since with time off for other activities, of course, raising up the headline and things like that, but pretty much since 72 being on the bicycle.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems that there were not as many people doing travel by bicycle back in those days.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it a pretty novel thing where people surprised?
6:06
[SPEAKER_02]: People that surprised me the most were the French men.
6:11
[SPEAKER_02]: because as we would pedal through the French countryside and the men would be sitting in the coffee shops having their coffee in the morning and they would see my wife come in along and I can't remember whether we had spandex at that time I sort of dealt it by Charlottes and T-shirts with road bike, drop panda bars and they're used to seeing a lady in a skirt and a hat on riding upright with two or three low
6:40
[SPEAKER_02]: They were quite impressed and they would bravo, bravo, you know, way to go kind of comments and she quite loved all the comments she got as we went through the small French towns.
6:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think it was pretty uncommon to see bike packers at that time and especially some ladies doing it.
7:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, times have changed.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You've seen a lot of change.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you think that the outdoor industry
7:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, tremendously, I mean, as we were talking about the equipment that's improved so much, I used to do a lot of downhill skiing in the winter time, that whole industry has changed drastically.
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We got carbon bikes, and we've got, I don't know how many gears now.
7:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We can get 30 years lightweight, our cassettes are no longer 11, 20,
7:38
[SPEAKER_02]: 51 is, I guess, some of those dinner plates on the back of the mountain bikes.
7:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The change has been slow, I think.
7:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you look back over 50 years or whatever, you can really notice the difference between the old heavy steel bike and the carbon bike that I used to, 100% carbon was high end components.
8:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no comparison with equipment.
8:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the same for, I think, every time a sports
8:08
[SPEAKER_02]: even the hockey which I used to play a bit of, you know, with the sticks and everything now in the skates or so, so much improved.
8:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So, wonder that we even were able to participate in the sports for some of the equipment we had.
8:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm taking a ski and I started with wooden skis, you know, put skins on the bottom so you could get up the hill so you could come back down again.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: right.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what I've often wondered, and I've lived through part of that transition, not quite as much as you have, but through a part of that transition.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I've wondered is, are we having more fun than we did before, just because the equipment got better technology has developed, it's made it easier, but are we actually having more fun or was it just as much fun to get on
9:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It's equal.
9:05
[SPEAKER_01]: When we got on the old steel bike, we thought that was the newest and the best equipment that we could have at that time and we enjoyed it.
9:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I get on my new bike in Canada, it's coming up in a couple of weeks.
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to enjoy that just as much, I think.
9:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Experiences are probably different.
9:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, at my age, I'm no longer a bike packer.
9:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I like to comfort so that things like that.
9:33
[SPEAKER_02]: The trips that I've been taking, I've had a support crew, so it's not a bike packer, so I've lost a lot of freedom with flexibility and being able to decide when to go, where to go, how far to go.
9:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm into a timetable and there's pressure to continue one day at a time, so I know every day in my four months travel across Canada where I'm going to be.
10:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was different that way back when, because we got up in the morning.
10:04
[SPEAKER_02]: But let's keep going.
10:06
[SPEAKER_02]: How far are we going today?
10:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
10:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's see how far we can get.
10:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's raining.
10:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Should we keep going?
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's just a sprinkle.
10:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's keep going.
10:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, that's changed.
10:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I've lost freedom, but at the same time, I'm making better use of my time.
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I think as far as covering distances.
10:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Spreading the world or the world that life is an over at retirement, there's lots of years left and if I can do it, everybody can get out and need their comfort zone, live life because of the fullest, I think.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of a message I'd like to put out to everybody out there as well.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you retired at 55.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That means that you've been going almost 30 years after retirement.
10:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that's a grand retirement, my friend.
11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It has been, I mean, being the active, it isn't like I said on my rocking chair on the front porch.
11:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I got into doing golf tours to Australia.
11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I started a little company that allowed me to travel the world and take people to different continents for golf.
11:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Winter's in Edmonton, it's a little tough to golf up there during the winter, so why not take him to New Zealand in Australia, Argentina, so I did that for eight or nine years until my wife got a L and we couldn't do it anymore.
11:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I had a bicycle touring company down here in Costa Rica for a few years, where I brought friends and other people down and we take them on a couple of weeks towards Costa Rica on bikes.
11:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I kept active and not really any business-wise, but enough that I could go and do these trips and get my way paid for it.
11:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Mmm.
11:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Very smart.
12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you still leading trips around Costa Rica?
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: No, the last one I think was 2022 was the last one that we did with the book, I don't know, 1617 people, then I started on the, when I called the Octogenarian Odyssey.
12:17
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a story of, I never thought I'd make it to 80 years of age.
12:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd live my wife, I'd live one of my son, and my lifestyle wasn't such that I thought I would live forever.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So when I started looking at my 80s, birthday coming up, I got,
12:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to do something different rather than have the friends over and cut the cake and have some presence.
12:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started looking for what I could do to celebrate my 80th.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And I came up with the idea after watching the series a long way up where they rode electric motorcycle from bottom Argentina to Los Angeles.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to do that.
13:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get electric bike and I'm going to ride from North Pole to Alaska.
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: just outside of Fairbanks down to Panama City.
13:09
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the way I'm going to celebrate my eighties.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
13:15
[SPEAKER_02]: The life on the road is being great.
13:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it and that's led to.
13:19
[SPEAKER_02]: South America and Europe and Australia, and now Canada, they're coming up this year.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So already more than 50,000 kilometers since you turned 80 years old, not many people can claim 50,000 kilometers at any age, much less, you know, after 80, it's magnificent, Bob, I'm really impressed.
13:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell you, that's something else.
13:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Well thanks.
13:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't feel like that, I mean.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one day at a time, one pedal stroke at a time.
13:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, I really like it because where else, what else can you do on a bicycle, where every morning you get up?
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I got a hundred K to do today, and I've never been on this trail or this highway or this country before, what lies ahead?
14:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And it sort of proves that concept,
14:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to start doing something big while one step at a time will eventually add up to a long distance.
14:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So 100 kilometers a day pretty soon adds up to the length of a continent.
14:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, in five months later, you're looking for your next adventure.
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and all the people that you've met along the way, I know that you have experienced a lot of kindness and hospitality.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned that, but that seems to be a major theme for people that ride bicycles around the world, especially.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about that.
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: What's it like?
14:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, certainly, that experience has gone way back to 1972, for instance, where the farmers
14:58
[SPEAKER_02]: strawberries and cream for dessert things like that.
15:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know, the bicycle probably opens up more doors than if you were driving in a fancy car with tinted windows and everything else looking out.
15:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it probably makes the people think that we're part of their environment part of what they're doing.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: slow travel, slows you down so that you do have time to talk to people, meet people, stay with people, experience some of the things that they want to demonstrate or show you.
15:35
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the things you read in the press about the world today, you find on a bicycle, it's sort of the opposite being through so many different countries, different religions, different colors of people,
15:51
[SPEAKER_02]: everything.
15:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And the common thread is the same.
15:54
[SPEAKER_02]: We all want to be happy.
15:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We all want to raise our families.
15:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We all want to help one another and the people of being so gracious to do that.
16:06
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're stop beside the road and just having the drink out of your water bottle, cars will pull up.
16:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, mate, what's happening?
16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You need to help.
16:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Can we do anything?
16:17
[SPEAKER_02]: That's universal, Kurt.
16:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, kind of redeems the idea of humanity every time we hear stories like that.
16:26
[SPEAKER_02]: One story that you just reminded me of in Mexico, the police reputation is very bad, but our experience was tremendous.
16:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We had the best help, the best assistance from the police as we travel through Mexico for two months on the North American Odyssey.
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: One in particular, that's a good story is we have stopped for a coffee break and close the lunchtime and all of a sudden, please car pulls up the lights around behind us and I'm there with my support team and a fellow writer.
17:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, what's happening now?
17:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Normal questions, what are you doing here, where are you going, where you're from, how kind of thing?
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we told them and then it's
17:14
[SPEAKER_02]: everything changed when they found out we're a bike riders and as well.
17:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on to the station, you guys can have a shower if you need it and you can clean that there and do we really want to follow them to a police station but we did.
17:30
[SPEAKER_02]: We got there, and the first thing they did was brought out there, my closest pension mountain bikes to show was nice.
17:36
[SPEAKER_02]: They were a question.
17:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they looked at ours and we looked at theirs.
17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they said, come on, let's go for lunch.
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And they treated us to lunch in the hall.
17:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was about eight police officer men and women, treated them.
17:51
[SPEAKER_02]: That was at four or five of us to lunch that day.
17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we said goodbye.
17:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And they go on.
17:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a minute, and we got on the radio to the highway patrol and let them know we were coming and for the next 40k, we had a police cruiser behind us on the four lane highway just to keep us safe.
18:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's a, that's a, a favor story I have, especially about the Mexican police because they, they are criticized a lot, and this was in cartel country as well, in order to
18:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the same thing happened in Southern Mexico.
18:31
[SPEAKER_02]: We pulled into a town, and there was no place to stay.
18:35
[SPEAKER_02]: No place to put the tent trailer, no hotels to rent, because the town was full of migrants.
18:41
[SPEAKER_02]: They would come over the border from Guatemala.
18:44
[SPEAKER_02]: They would be in process there, given papers, taken off by buses to wherever Mexico city is in place.
18:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So we stopped at the police station.
18:55
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what we're doing.
18:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Where can we say?
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, she's staying right here.
18:58
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a cement pad out back with electricity.
19:01
[SPEAKER_02]: We got running water and showers here in the jail cells.
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome to use them.
19:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And when they found out I was 80, some at the time, they said, oh, we can't have you sleeping up in the tent trailer.
19:13
[SPEAKER_02]: You can use the combatants office and sleep in his bed, do the private baths on the camera.
19:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So another total experience that blew our minds right out
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, it's so fun to hear those sorts of stories, and I think that's what happens when we go.
19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: If you stay home, you never experience these things.
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you go, you do have these experiences, and I'm sure it changes your whole world view.
19:41
[SPEAKER_01]: How did travel change your world view?
19:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it's you travel the world and travel it maybe slowly, that there's no way that you
19:55
[SPEAKER_02]: a big of any kind that will need experienced people in every corner of the world and experience that we had bad experiences for sure, but there are much fewer than the 90% of the good experiences.
20:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it gives you a, for me, a better outlook on the total world that total population the, how we're all human.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's marvelous, so here's something else that keeps going through my mind here.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You started doing this in 1972, you're a young man at that point, and obviously you already said you had to take some breaks, family career, all that sort of thing.
20:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But what advice do you have for people who want to keep having the adventure, keep experiencing travel in an active lifestyle as they age?
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of people think I've just aged out, I can't do it anymore.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: What recommendations would you have?
20:52
[SPEAKER_02]: From one experience where I had a...
20:55
[SPEAKER_02]: What I thought was lung cancer that turned out to be just a lung infection, but the first they would die, you know, was the lung cancer.
21:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So I spent a summer trying to figure out where I was headed with, you know, I got a lung cancer, am I going to do chemo, am I going to do radiation, am I going to do whatever?
21:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it turned out to be a false thing.
21:18
[SPEAKER_02]: At that point, I came out of that summer and said, man, I got a lift life to the fullest because I don't know when it's going to end, so let's try and get as much into it as possible.
21:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And then that summer as well, I ended up climbing Kilimanjaro, and I really didn't want to do it.
21:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to talk myself out of it that I don't know.
21:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Why I was scared was I gonna get
21:44
[SPEAKER_02]: altitude sickness was going to fall and break bones was going to die and to be on that top of that mountain and see the sun rise over the continent of Africa, sparkle off glaciers it was, wow, if I hadn't stepped out of my comfort zone, I wouldn't experience this and I wouldn't have had that dream memory for the rest of my life.
22:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I've done is I've tried to put these two things together
22:13
[SPEAKER_02]: live life to the fullest by stepping out of your comfort zone or enlarging your comfort zone.
22:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And it doesn't mean riding a bicycle cross-cannot, it might be taking piano lessons, it might be getting in a drama club and doing something on stage, but expand your comfort zone with life to the fullest.
22:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But you must keep physically active and mentally active as well.
22:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Stepa, expand your comfort zone.
22:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Be physical, keep the physical part going.
22:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And let's do some mental work, whether it's learning Spanish, or planning bicycle trips across Canada, or something like that.
22:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think those four components in my mind is what we should be striving for.
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And even if it's going for a walk around the block and seeing where that takes you,
23:10
[SPEAKER_02]: stopping to look at that mural on the wall that it didn't see before.
23:15
[SPEAKER_02]: That could be the Slap of Star.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You stress here that life does not end at retirement.
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we've all seen it too many times where someone retires and they stop doing.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And it seems like as a rule, they don't last very long.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But while you're recommending here, staying physically active, mentally active, going outside of your comfort zone, right?
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And living life to the fullest, those four things,
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder how much that just helps us to be healthy and have longevity in the first place.
23:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I hope it helps a lot.
23:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope the message can be put out there.
23:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I do have a fairly active Facebook page.
24:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been writing about observations from slow travel.
24:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I get a lot of comments about it.
24:10
[SPEAKER_02]: wish I could be doing that or thank you for the motivation.
24:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I was going to do nothing after retirement.
24:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You've given me the idea that I should try this dream or something like that.
24:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get a lot of those comments and one of the first comments I remember I think I was 70 at the time and we did a cycle trip with a group from Agra, the Taj Mahal down the bottom of
24:39
[SPEAKER_02]: and one of the fellows was approaching retirement and he was so happy to see that I was riding 72 or whatever my age was.
24:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember him coming up in the above.
24:51
[SPEAKER_02]: He gave me hope.
24:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I wouldn't be riding a bicycle after I turned 65.
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
24:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, but I just felt that things were coming to an end and now I know I can keep going like you're doing.
25:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So
25:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the first time that it sort of dawned on me that maybe somebody needs prodding just to keep active and it's okay to get off the sofa and trade it in for a bicycle seat, which happens to be in.
25:24
[SPEAKER_02]: the subtitle of my first book, Octo Generian, Odyssey trading the sofa for a bicycle seat.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
25:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So how many books do you have now?
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm on your website.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I see the one you just mentioned.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: What's this more than just a journey?
25:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's it was the material that didn't make the original book that was dropped on the cutting slower.
25:49
[SPEAKER_02]: people in Hollywood might say, so I sort of put all that together in a second book above the same thing.
25:55
[SPEAKER_02]: But right now, trading the sofa for a bicycle seat is North America, at Journey.
26:03
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, I can't stop peddling in South America.
26:08
[SPEAKER_02]: The third continent is the trip across Europe from there's been Portugal, too, and Talia, Turkey.
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And the one I hope will be able to in a month or two
26:19
[SPEAKER_02]: pedaling the perimeter of Australia book number four, and then there's these other little books, but four there, maybe five for Canada.
26:30
[SPEAKER_01]: When did you start writing?
26:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, that's stepping out of the comfort zone.
26:35
[SPEAKER_02]: That's big time.
26:36
[SPEAKER_02]: People kept saying you should write books in that, you know, I'm not a writer, you know.
26:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I work with numbers and chemistry and physics
26:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been trying to study Spanish for 15 years and I'm still not much more than the beginner.
26:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But eventually I said, okay, I'll try and I came up with a system where I record my thoughts and feelings and what happened during the day and I send it off to my ghost writer who puts all the collection together, puts the books together from my daily recordings.
27:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's how I decided that I could step out of
27:16
[SPEAKER_02]: comfort zone and these somewhat successful and that's the plan that I came up with.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the way that I can see how you're adapting.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You're adapting to new things, and you're not letting age or anything else get in the way.
27:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But I see that you're being flexible with your approach to stuff.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, that that's a formula for success as well.
27:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh, I don't want to write a book at a typewriter or handwrite a book, but there are other ways to do it, right?
27:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've been a napwriter.
27:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, I guess you could call it ad or.
27:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people might say, oh, it's just lazy.
27:53
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't want to do the world.
27:55
[SPEAKER_02]: He's going to see his best.
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, you're lazy.
27:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You're about to break 60,000 kilometers since you turned 80.
28:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds pretty lazy to me.
28:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I understand that people think about it.
28:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But in the population of long distance writers, I mean, there are quite a few of us, very small percentage of the world's population.
28:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Every day there's a lot of people doing incredible things.
28:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I've met people that had walked from the bottom of our entertainment to the Prudu Bay at the top of the last reality circle.
28:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And one guy we met in the Yukon just before the last converter, he was pushing a baby carriage with his dog and he had started an Argentina.
28:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Incredible.
28:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I had met people all over the world, a cycling long distances, walking long distances, scaling mountains, and they're not Olympians, they're not professional athletes, but they're doing incredible feats.
29:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't get recognized, they're just out there doing it for their motivation or whatever is motivating them to do this.
29:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And I keep thinking that they need to be
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Promote of it and I think a lot of things like your podcast is doing that kind of thing Given credit to these incredible athletes that are out there on the road every day doing something spectacular So at some point along the way you already mentioned that you decided to write an e-bike instead of a Non-electric bike can you talk about that thought process and how that change has altered the way that you're traveling
29:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was one that I'm never going to ride an E-bike, that's cheating, I'm going to ride my road bike, until I can't ride anymore.
29:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But I started to see things around me.
29:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I did a bicycle trip from Amsterdam to Rome with a group of friends.
30:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And three things happened on that particular trip.
30:06
[SPEAKER_02]: One, as we're leaving Amsterdam on a Saturday and Sunday and cycling through the woods of Netherlands, I saw a lot of senior people, couples, writing, and then they look closer and they were on e-bikes.
30:20
[SPEAKER_02]: That's cool, has been wife in the 60s or 70s who are out enjoying nature on their bikes.
30:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And another day I was,
30:29
[SPEAKER_02]: going up a mountain in Switzerland, and I hear a noise beside me, and of course, I'm off in a puffing.
30:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I look over in here, there's a lady on an e-bike, she's coming by me very silently and slowly, and leaves me behind.
30:42
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty cool.
30:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And then another day, it was later on as getting close to Rome, and that headwind, and again we're struggling, and
30:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I hear that noise and the e-bike comes by and tucked in behind was her partner on a road bike and he was drafting in behind his wife on the e-bike.
31:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I came back and the tour groups that I were doing, I got requests.
31:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you get us an e-bike for the tour?
31:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So I bought two in an inexpensive e-bikes.
31:22
[SPEAKER_02]: made them available to the people on the tour.
31:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But before I let them write it, before I had to figure out what these machines were all about.
31:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So I spent one month on one of them.
31:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I enjoyed it.
31:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Found out how to fix a flat tire when you've got different branches and you've got this big moment in the back hub and things like that.
31:44
[SPEAKER_02]: How far I could go on a battery,
31:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And that said, OK, I know what's happening.
31:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I can now make sure that these people are going to have a good ride.
31:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But I went back to my road bike.
31:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I had a crash.
31:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I broke my hip, some ribs, unconscious.
32:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of think.
32:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And over the period of recovery with the fractured hip, I wasn't in shape to do one of my trips that I had planned, which was from Frankfurt over to the Czech Republic and I,
32:13
[SPEAKER_02]: two weeks ago about 11 hundred kilometers.
32:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So I rented the bike in Germany.
32:18
[SPEAKER_02]: About good quality one.
32:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I came home and bought a good quality e-bike and I haven't been on my road bike since.
32:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So when I started looking for how to do this ride from my 80th birthday, okay, I know I can do it on a knee bike.
32:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I could probably do it on a road bike, but it's going to take me a few months longer to do it on a road bike.
32:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, it is easier, but I still have to pedal
32:43
[SPEAKER_02]: and the weather and the mountains and the wind is still the same whether you're on a road bike or on an ebike and then but I did want to make sure that it didn't have a throttle.
32:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't want to be accused of riding a vest for a motorbike from Alaska to Panama.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's my ebike story curve.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're you're riding the ebike in what are they call it pedal assist mode?
33:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you pedal it takes some of the mode or some of the
33:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Mine is torque sensors, so you have to put torque on the pedals to make the motor opera, okay.
33:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've got on my particular bike, there will be eight levels of assist.
33:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can vary how much effort you want to put in.
33:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you could ride it with no assist.
33:30
[SPEAKER_02]: You can turn the motor right off and ride it that way, but he bucks are pretty heavy, as soon as you get a little in-line or headwind, you pay the big price.
33:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's very tough to ride him.
33:43
[SPEAKER_02]: without a motor assist because of the weight of the things.
33:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So I use all four assist depending on the terrain, the mountains, the things going through the end of some of those mountains.
33:55
[SPEAKER_02]: One was 76 kilometers long in the climb that day.
33:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
34:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I was happy to have some assistance.
34:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And some of the climbs not many, but three or four are approached 3,500 meters
34:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So as an old man, I'm happy with a little bit of assistance, I can muster.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned that at first, you had the thought that, well, e-bikes, that's cheating.
34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always going to be on my road bike for get that idea.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, at the end of every show, I always say get out there and have some fun.
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really care how people get out there and have fun.
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I care that they're doing it, that they're getting out somehow, right?
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And when E-Bikes first started showing up in our county, Gunnison, Colorado, it's a huge mountain biking capital, world class, right here.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But when the E-Bikes started showing up, there were a lot of people, they're kind of like, I don't know, that's not it, you know, that's cheating or whatever.
34:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But I started seeing people that were on the E-Bikes that wouldn't be mountain biking otherwise.
35:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, that's great.
35:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so thankful that, you know, they have that opportunity, and why shouldn't we take advantage of it?
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we could argue that we should all be walking because bicycles technology, too.
35:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and even E-bike technology is advancing rapidly, and I'm sure the battery problems will be solved even quicker,
35:33
[SPEAKER_02]: 48, both 500 watt batteries, now they're at 800 watt batteries.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: One battery, two battery bikes, it's changing rapidly even in that sport, which is somewhat new.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: If you set your bike to a medium assist, not low, not high, right, just kind of medium, what kind of distance can you get out of it before the battery starts to croak?
36:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Have I got a tailwind?
36:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Have I got a headwind?
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Going up the hill or going down the hill.
36:09
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the surface like?
36:10
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many variables, Kurt.
36:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, I operate on a two battery system.
36:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So, when I travel, I have two batteries that give an medium type of terrain and day, a nice sort of day, a variety.
36:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I could probably get a hundred to 120 out of those batteries, a kilometers.
36:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So, the two battery system, even if I got headwinds, I've got enough juice to get through the day of 100 kilometers, 120 kilometers.
36:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
36:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So do you swap the batteries midday?
36:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I kept the support vehicle to give me the other battery and in the support vehicle I've had an inverter.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So my wife will take the battery, put it on the inverter, there was a pleaded one.
37:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's getting charged as long as the car is running.
37:04
[SPEAKER_02]: If I ever needed and I think there was one or two days in the end, these were I did more than two batteries.
37:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I can take the
37:12
[SPEAKER_02]: partially filled battery out again and put the second depleted battery in the car and keep going that way.
37:20
[SPEAKER_02]: But now with all the slices of batteries, there's no reason that you can't do in your own country, because it's hard to travel over the continent with batteries.
37:30
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't take them on the planes and the boats.
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a limb behind, I couldn't even ship them back from Europe.
37:37
[SPEAKER_02]: In the United States or Canada where we live, it's easy to plan 100 kilometer right each day and you've got enough battery.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You're running a little lower, taking our break and charge it for an hour and you'll get another 15 or 20 kilometers that way as well.
37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's doable.
37:56
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no limit, no limit to the distance that you can go on.
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's fun and I think it opens up the idea of traveling by bicycle.
38:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It opens it up to all sorts of new opportunities, new ways to do it.
38:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Places you could go that you may otherwise say, oh, maybe not, you know, you don't have to worry about whether or not you're in peak physical condition.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You just have to be in a good enough condition to get out there and have some fun with it, right?
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, sir.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
38:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Get on the bike or I met these people walking all around the world too and you don't have to be in the bike You can walk and that's really slow travel that way
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm sitting here on your website as a really good website.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's share it with people so they can see it as well.
38:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It has blogs on here, it has information about your books, you're upcoming trips, your past trips.
38:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The name of the website is octoauticy.com.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So OCTO, like Octogenarian Odyssey, right?
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So octoauticy.com.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about your blog.
38:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The blog has been pretty well shifted to Facebook now.
39:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Kurt, daily post on Facebook.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
39:06
[SPEAKER_02]: People follow along and they can experience what I saw that day, the photographs and things that day.
39:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And from December when I came back from cycling around Australia to now we're going to Canada at the end of the month, I thought, what can I do to keep followers following?
39:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So I came up with this observation from Slope Travel.
39:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So on the Facebook page, each day I write something about one of my trips, a memory about, well, the place giving us lunch that I mentioned.
39:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Yesterday I wrote a wrote about writing through southern California and coming head on with a swarm of bees and being covered in bees all over me.
39:57
[SPEAKER_01]: people wrote, no please that are moving are fact from their honey and they're looking to establish and protect their queen.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So this whole observations from slow travel has been moved to the Facebook page, which is
40:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Facebook.com slash B and B travel Bob and Beth travel B and D B travel and there I will be publishing or writing each day.
40:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I post about the Canadian trip and memories from the past as well.
40:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So when does your Canadian trip start?
40:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm leaving here, of course, 3K, the 31st of May, flying to Edmonton to pick up the vehicle
40:41
[SPEAKER_02]: rooftop carrier, bike racks, coolers, all those things, and then driving out to Greater Vancouver to a place called White Rock where my granddaughters live, and we start pedaling there on the 12th of June.
40:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We cycle through all 10 provinces of Canada and we end up in St. John's Newfoundland on September the 60s.
41:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got to turn around drive all the way back again.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: What a beautiful place to do it to.
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I love Canada.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's just so scenic and it's also not crowded at least most of it right and once you get to Montreal I mean, I think there's cities like everywhere else, but what roads are you taking?
41:25
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a major decision because a lot of the cross-cannabis cyclists started Prince Rupert, or Hydecoi, and the island's off Prince Rupert.
41:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But I traveled that period chunk in the past, and I wrote it when the Octogenarian Odyssey number one in that section.
41:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you get down in which your way out of the Greater Vancouver area, but you don't want to take the big freeway so I avoided that.
41:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Besides I take the trans-cannabis through to
41:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, Burda, see part of the Canadian Rockies Jasper down to halfway down the balance.
42:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Cut across the prairies, Saskatoon, Regina, and the Winnipeg, and then we take the northern route.
42:06
[SPEAKER_02]: There's only one road, basically, around Lake Superior in Ontario, cross by ferry, north of Toronto, and then down to Toronto, pick up the Transcana, the trail, and cycle the trail
42:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Connecting up with the retail canal trail up to Ottawa connecting with the great trails that Quebec have, the green trails, moved to Durde, Montreal, Quebec, and then into New Brunswick.
42:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Cross over the confederation bridge where you're not allowed to cycle, so we've got a load up to bikes at that time over Prince Edward Island.
42:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Then off the island.
42:46
[SPEAKER_02]: around Cape Britain, which is supposed to be spectacular.
42:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't done that and then on to Lufanland.
42:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So, the paint roads all the way, hope, wind it my back, Western ladies are on that direction.
43:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I hope I get a lot of tailwinds.
43:02
[SPEAKER_02]: We could experience high temperatures and humidity or we could get a lot of rain as well.
43:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hoping we get the somewhere in between.
43:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, what are you looking forward to the most for this trip?
43:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I haven't been to Newfoundland in Cape Red Island.
43:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm looking forward to that, to see that.
43:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody has told me you got to do it.
43:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact I wasn't even going to go to Newfoundland, I was going to end in Halifax.
43:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And everybody just said, that's ridiculous.
43:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You write 8,000 miles, and you don't do the best part from Newfoundland.
43:35
[SPEAKER_02]: OK.
43:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking for my 84th birthday and Quebec City.
43:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It should be some great food and a good place to celebrate it.
43:45
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the nice things about this.
43:47
[SPEAKER_02]: By the time the 9th birthday was in Costa Rica, my 80th was in Newport, Oregon.
43:51
[SPEAKER_02]: My 81st was in Lulul Ecuador.
43:57
[SPEAKER_02]: My 80s second was in Istanbul and Turkey, and this one will be in Quebec City.
44:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's an inspiration.
44:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's easy visiting with you because you look young, you seem young, you're energetic, you're still out there and doing it, and I just applaud you.
44:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just want to back up for a moment and remind everybody what's going on here.
44:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Bob is getting ready to cycle 8,600 kilometers.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your age right now?
44:26
[SPEAKER_02]: 84 August in August.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: 84 in August.
44:30
[SPEAKER_01]: People, isn't inspiration, and he's showing us that can be done.
44:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do it.
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You can keep going.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You can keep having that fun.
44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?
44:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to Bob, if we can, I want to go over the four things that you said earlier about how to keep going.
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Just so people can be reminded.
44:49
[SPEAKER_01]: To see if I can remember them.
44:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You said, live your best life.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: keep doing things.
44:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You said to go beyond your comfort zone, so you're challenged.
44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You said to stay physically active and mentally active, and that those four things seem to be the recipe for being able to do what you do.
45:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope it's a good recipe, but that's what I've been trying to do for a number of years now since
45:18
[SPEAKER_02]: As I mentioned, the cancer scare that made me look at life a little bit differently.
45:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that I've lost a couple of my family members.
45:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm impressed and I say more power to you.
45:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the website is octoautice.com.
45:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Facebook.
45:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Facebook.com.
45:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Slap forward slash B and B travel.
45:47
[SPEAKER_02]: when I was doing golf tours, it was ball that best travel.
45:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So B&B, a lot of people say B&B or something I have, but it's B&B and B&B.
46:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And observations from slow travel is that what you call your Facebook?
46:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That's that Facebook page B&B travel.
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: OK. You have, looks like four books.
46:12
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the best place for people to find your books?
46:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they're all on Amazon.
46:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I think most people are used to going Amazon, but they're also available for every bookstore and they probably have to be ordered in.
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And the series goes over under the moniker of octogenarian Odyssey, so you can look that up or you can look up Robert Fletcher.
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that'll get you there too.
46:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the smaller ebook is more than just a journey.
46:39
[SPEAKER_01]: What else did we cover everything?
46:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We do those four things I mentioned, and I'm happy that I'm getting word out.
46:49
[SPEAKER_02]: My goal was to put the word out at people that are seniors.
46:54
[SPEAKER_02]: There's still a lot of life left.
46:58
[SPEAKER_02]: They're valuable.
46:58
[SPEAKER_02]: They've got a lot of stories, a lot of experiences.
47:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no reason that one should worry that grandfathers might be coming to live with them.
47:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's some stereotype in the media about what we can do and what we can't do.
47:13
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things when I stepped out of my company's own, I ended up with the Guinnesses World Record for the longest e-bike ride.
47:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It's now being broken, but I held it for a few years.
47:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But it wasn't one of the goals that I set up on.
47:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I was out riding one day and I get a lot of really good ideas when I'm riding.
47:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But I usually forget them all by the time I get home.
47:36
[SPEAKER_02]: But I did remember, I think I should check and see who's the oldest guy that's ever ridden the longest distance.
47:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't thinking e-bikes.
47:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't find any records like that, but I did come across a record for e-bike.
47:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So I applied the Guinness and...
47:52
[SPEAKER_02]: and it ended up like a ward for that ride.
47:56
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic.
47:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't let turning 80 slow you down.
48:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You can still set world records, Guinness Book or world records.
48:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic.
48:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Little Robert, thank you so much for your time today.
48:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would like to encourage everyone to go to your books because I know that with this much writing, you have many, many inspirational stories in those books.
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to encourage everyone to hear more of the story please go there and follow Robert on Facebook so you can see what he's up to especially on his upcoming 8600 kilometer ride across the 10 Canadian provinces.
48:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot.
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep going Robert.
48:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep doing it.
48:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you Kurt and thank you to Venture Sports podcast for thinking that I would be somebody that you might want to talk
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and I hope our past cross along the way.
48:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Gotta get the Denver to see my friends there.
48:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So...
48:53
[SPEAKER_02]: and good luck with the hockey teams as well.
48:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you very much.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's rare to hear a Canadian wish someone around Colorado good luck with a hockey team so that's pretty generous.
49:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Bob Fletcher is such an inspiration and I love it, but you don't have to stop.
49:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Matter of fact, when you get into retirement, that's an opportunity to do even more.
49:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Until the next show, make sure you figure out how you're going to keep getting out there and having some fun.