Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 podcast, season 3, episode 23,. An epic India bike trip, and I'm your host, tom Butler. Let me first start with a reply to a question that was texted by a listener in Jacksonville, illinois. As a reminder, you can find a link at the top of the episode description that lets you easily send me a text. The question was why aren't recumbents considered more as a serious option to have a comfortable bike fit? The question is a good one as far as I'm concerned, and I think it just boils down to what we think of when we think about what a bicycle is. The interview that I did with Jim and Maria Parker on the February 16, 2024 episode touched on this a little. Jim pointed out that the UCI rejected the recumbent design as an option for professional cycling competition almost a century ago. If you search UCI 1930 recumbent, you will find information on the vote. I imagine that if the vote had gone differently, recumbents would be more widely embraced today. Personally, I like riding my traditional bike, but I think the reasons we chose to get my wife Kelly a recumbent are very sound. It has made a world of difference for her being able to ride comfortably. That being said, I would not be surprised if I ended up riding a recumbent at some point down the line. I do think there's a lot more to think about when it comes to recumbents, as far as how our biases might get in the way of embracing what is comfortable sometimes.

Tom Butler: 1:42

We're basically three months into 2025, so I thought I would report on my progress so far. I'm well ahead of where I need to be to make my 2025 elevation goal at this point. That is mostly because of Zwift riding. At the six-month mark, I will evaluate this goal and maybe bump it up. I would like to find a way to sort rides on Strava and look at virtual rides separately, but I'm still working on that. For the goal of doing an average of 10 miles a day, I'm 13 miles behind on the progress for that goal. At one point I was somewhere around 75 miles behind the goal, so 13 seems very manageable and I don't see any reason that would cause me to modify my distance goal in the future. The final goal is upper body fitness. I currently have done 11 consecutive weeks of two workouts each week. I'm still struggling with it and several times I've put in a workout on Saturday night just to make sure that I get it in for the week. All in all, I'm pretty happy with my progress so far in that realm.

Tom Butler: 2:43

I thought I would talk about a family trip that we have coming up because I like it so much and I think other people should do it. As I have talked about several times on the podcast, I see the Olympic Discovery Trail as a one-of-a-kind bike resource, so we have planned for our first Olympic Discovery Trail trip. We're going to be staying in a yurt at Soul Duck Rainforest Retreat. It's just beside the trail, about 20 miles from Port Angeles. I found the yurt by searching on Airbnb for Lake Crescent. I was specifically looking for something as close to the trail as possible. We're going in April and I think we'll enjoy the fact that the yurt is heated. We'll be close to Lake Crescent, but we won't be able to see the lake until we ride the trail.

Tom Butler: 3:26

If you're somebody who likes to camp, there is a campground called Fair Home Camp that is part of the Olympic National Park. You can find it on recreationgov. Fair Home is right on Lake Crescent. The summer season starts May 23rd and I'm positive that Fair Home gets booked fast. So if you're interested, you should do some planning and book something just as soon as you can. We will ride 10 miles beside Lake Crescent on the trail and then turn around and head back to the yurt. You can extend the ride further. Port Angeles would be 34 miles from where we are staying, taking the Olympic Discovery Trail the whole way. Some of the route between Lake Crescent and Port Angeles is unpaved. When we're out there I'm going to try to get a look at it just to see how rough the unpaved segments are. I'm hoping it's going to be a sunny day, which means that we'll take it slow and stop along the way so we can enjoy the lake, or it might be really cool and we won't want to be out riding too long, but either way, I think 20 miles is going to be the right amount for this trip.

Tom Butler: 4:28

One final bit of news I did my first critical mass ride this week. I found it to be awesome and I look forward to doing it again. I was a little disappointed that there weren't more people there. I think there were about 50 riders and one dog in a trailer. That is good, but I think in order to really be noticed, we would need at least twice that many people, and I certainly think we could do that many in Seattle. The weather wasn't ideal and it's a real possibility in the summer I could see a bigger turnout. I really enjoyed the riding we did and how well the whole thing was organized, but I do think in today's environment we need to make as big of a statement as we can that a lot of people out here use the bicycle as a form of transportation on our roads.

Tom Butler: 5:21

I always find it exciting whenever I meet people who have embraced cycling later in life. There are so many people out there showing what is possible when you get on a bike and start pushing yourself. My guest this week is a perfect example of this. I asked Erin Eli to come on the podcast and share her cycling journey and information about a recent epic trip she did. Here is our conversation. A few months ago, I read that Erin Eli was going to do a big cycling trip in India. As soon as I saw that, I wanted to have Erin on after the trip and have her share her adventure. So thank you so much, erin, for coming on the podcast.

Erin Ely: 5:58

Oh yeah, Thanks for having me. I mean, I've been listening to your podcast for a long time, so it's kind of exciting to be here.

Tom Butler: 6:08

Well, not as exciting as to have you here.

Erin Ely: 6:14

Before we get into the trip, tell me what is your earliest memory of the bicycle. Well, I was thinking about that and I was like I know I rode a bicycle when I was a kid, but I don't really remember riding it very much. I wasn't a very bicycle person. I guess I walked everywhere, I think. So I don't really know when I rode a bike. I know I did, though.

Tom Butler: 6:35

Now you're in Oregon currently.

Erin Ely: 6:38

Yeah, I live in Eugene.

Tom Butler: 6:40

And is that where you grew up also?

Erin Ely: 6:43

No, I grew up in Albuquerque, albuquerque, new Mexico. That that where you grew up also. No, I grew up in albuquerque, albuquerque, new mexico. That's where I grew up but, yeah, my, I didn't. I don't remember riding a bike much when I was a kid well, so at some point you took it up, did you?

Tom Butler: 6:57

was that later on in life, or what happened?

Erin Ely: 6:59

yeah, like this, may will be three years of me riding. I started when I was 66 years old. I'm 69 now.

Tom Butler: 7:08

What was the thing that got you going? Do you? Was there a specific thing?

Erin Ely: 7:13

Yeah, I mean I I thought about writing, but it was the where I live. I live at the top of this huge hill and so I just never I've been living in this house for over 20 years and I just never thought about riding here because the hill, the hill was an impediment for me. And then, I don't know, one day I was like I'm gonna go get a e-bike and I literally I literally just went. This was during COVID. So what? Three years ago, that was during COVID, and I just thought I'm going to go get a bike and start riding because I like it'd be nice to start moving, you know. And so I went like I remember it was February 14th I went down to the e-bike store and I bought this e-bike.

Erin Ely: 7:57

That was probably way too big for me and they probably shouldn't have sold it to me, but you know, there was a lot of demand for bikes and not a very big supply during COVID. So I I got that bike and I just started kind of riding it back and forth to work. It wasn't like I was riding that much. And then I got online and looked up if there was any riding groups here in town and I found a riding group. There's more than one, but I found the kind of the main, the main riding group here. So I I went to one of their rides on my what I would call my monster e-bike and of course they're all like kitted out riding road bikes and I'm like, oh wow, I feel like really out of place here. How did that?

Tom Butler: 8:44

go? Did they? Did they kind of welcome you? Did you feel welcomed or did you feel out of place the whole ride?

Erin Ely: 8:50

No, they were totally cool about it. They're like hey, yeah, all bikes are welcome, well, but you can ride pedal assist e-bikes, but not the, not the throttle ones. So like a class two, they don't. They don't like class two bikes, those are the throttle ones. If you have a class one or a class three bike, and that's what I had, it was a pedal assist. It was a nice gazelle with a nice Bosch motor. It was a really nice bike but it just weighed like 50 pounds, I mean, and like I'm only four feet eight inches tall so I'm wrangling or you know, know, wrangling this huge bike around. But yeah, they were all very nice and welcoming and I just, I just felt kind of, you know, out of place because obviously these people are all, like you know, big time cyclers right.

Tom Butler: 9:36

Well, I think that's fantastic and good for you for for joining in. Uh, so it sounds like you've gotten a different bike since then. Is that what I'm hearing?

Erin Ely: 9:46

Yeah, so I got that. Well, that was in February, so in May, which is when I say I really started cycling I bought a used specialized Robe from somebody in the group another shorter person that was selling this fairly nice Robe. It was only like a year and a half old or something, because she was getting a different bike. So I bought that from her and that's what I started riding. I was riding that for a long time and now I have like five bikes. In three years I've already accumulated five bikes.

Tom Butler: 10:18

That is not an unusual story really. I think we all do that. There's always one more bike that would be good. Now, the rebate is not pedal assist no, it's just a regular analog bike.

Erin Ely: 10:32

Yeah, which is the bike that?

Tom Butler: 10:33

I have too. I don't know if you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, so I.

Erin Ely: 10:37

I rode that for a long time, and then my bike guy.

Erin Ely: 10:41

you know I I struggle because I'm kind of a slower rider, and so these group rides they're set up by speed, like you have to ride 10 to 12. You have to be able to ride 10 to 12, 13 to 15, you know, just so. It kind of keeps the group and I was riding a lot of 13 to 15 rides, which I could do okay, but I was struggling. I would ride for like 30 miles. I'd come home and sleep for like three hours. I was so wrecked from it and eventually I ended up buying a specialized carbon fiber road e-bike which is like a class three e-bike. It has an assist up to 28 miles an hour and that bike is awesome. I love it.

Erin Ely: 11:33

I ride that bike because that allowed me to ride from my house. So before I was like taking my bike and my car down to the ride start because I live at the top of this big hill and I couldn't get up the hill. So then I started riding that. And then I was thinking about going on one of these big long tours and, um, you, you can technically take an e-bike on some of those big long tours, like the India tour, because they were staying in hotels. They said you could take an e-bike. You can't take an e-bike on an airplane because the battery's too big right so it would just be, you know, ridiculous to try to do that.

Erin Ely: 12:12

So and then I ended up buying a specialized diverge, which is a gravel bike, and that's what I started riding to take on this tour because you could put a wider tire on it. And they said you need to have a wider tire because the roads are.

Erin Ely: 12:28

The roads are pretty crazy and india they're not in great condition and we're riding a lot of uneven roads and gravel and um tons of potholes and big washed out areas and so I I thought that diverge and I started riding that. And then I thought, well, you're not going to think I'm crazy. I thought, well, maybe I should get a bike made that actually fits me, because every bike that's off the rack is too big for me.

Tom Butler: 12:56

Right.

Erin Ely: 12:57

Most of these bikes go down to like five. Somebody that's five feet tall and I'm four feet eight inches, that's five feet tall and I'm four feet eight inches. So I thought, what if I get a bike that's made to my specifications, I can ride faster and better and all this stuff. Well, I had a bike made by this bike maker in Southern Oregon. His name is Mike DeSalvo. He's pretty well known in the maker world. He's been building bikes for like 30 years or something.

Erin Ely: 13:26

So I had a titanium bike made to take on this tour with me and it's so small it had to have 650b wheels on it. It's a mixed frame, so it's a step through right. It's the. It's not a bar like that. It goes down and the cockpit is really tiny compared. You know, I've been so used to riding these bigger bikes. I got the bike and I'm like wow, I feel really crunched up on this bike. What did I just do? You know, never satisfied. But I got the bike in December and I left on the tour in January and I really didn't ride it enough before I left. I should have had more riding time on it, but it worked out fine.

Erin Ely: 14:08

It was mechanically beautiful for the trip because, there's so much rough riding and it worked out great. It was good.

Tom Butler: 14:18

So talk to me about how the thought to ride in India came about how the thought to write in India came about.

Erin Ely: 14:26

Well, india's a place I've been wanting to go for a long time and I just wasn't really sure how I was going to do it. Because my husband didn't really have any interest in going to India. And I thought, since I started writing I mean I feel like when I go on a vacation now I want to be more active. You know, you just feel better when you're moving around so I thought, well, this may be a cool place to go on a cycling tour. And I think I was somewhat naive about it because I didn't realize how hard the riding would be. It was pretty challenging writing for me. So that's it. I just thought, well, this would be cool, this sounds neat. Well, one of the people in that writing group that's here in town. She had gone on a trip with the same tour company and she gave us a presentation on her trip. So I looked up this tour company and they had a trip to India. And so I thought, wow, this would be really cool. Maybe I'll sign up for that trip to India. I did, okay.

Tom Butler: 15:31

When you signed up, were you? You didn't have anybody, you were going, or did you have someone you knew that you were going with?

Erin Ely: 15:38

Well, at first I didn't have anyone and then there was another person here in town that rides with a group. She decided she wanted to go on the trip and I was kind of surprised by it but I thought, well, okay, cool. Well, she's 79. And she's a badass rider. She is so strong. She's a much stronger rider than I am. So she ended up coming with me and I helped her basically get organized for the trip and helped her with all the technical stuff of downloading apps and getting all the rides and everything. I helped her buy her airline ticket. I kind of helped her with all the technical stuff and she actually rode more of the tour than I did. She's a stronger rider than I am.

Tom Butler: 16:24

Well, that's kind of fun isn't?

Erin Ely: 16:26

it. Yeah, everybody on the tour trip was just like whoa, she's such a badass and she really is. She really is. She's just this tiny, tiny person. She doesn't you know, you wouldn't know. She rides this big, heavy touring bike and she just goes uphill. She's a climber, she can climb hills, she's anyway. So that was cool. We rode together. I would say we rode together about the first week or longer, but then we kind of split off and because, because I'm a slower rider, I ended up riding a lot by myself at the back of the group and she was more near the front of the group. But she actually rides a lot by herself and she kind of likes to ride that way rider and I kind of like to ride with other people. So that was a. One of the challenging things that I had on that tour was I was spending a lot of time riding by myself, but it still worked out well, I would have to say that I'm super impressed by you and your spirit of adventure.

Tom Butler: 17:30

I need to just go. Okay, I'm gonna sign for this trip and the trip is it slated for 30 days.

Erin Ely: 17:40

Well, it's a 39-day trip and 30 days riding, with nine rest days that are interspersed. They put the rest days in these specific areas where there's really high historical scenery, things that you would want to visit there's forts or there's caves. There's something special where they put the rest days in, so you would ride one week, you'd ride four days and have a rest day. The next week you might ride three days and have two rest days, and then five days and one day. It's kind of mixed up like that.

Tom Butler: 18:14

Well, I don't see it as really normal for someone to just on their own decide I'm going to go do this. What is it about? Like your personality or your background, that like it sounds like you go for things.

Erin Ely: 18:28

Well, I mean kind of I'm sort of a like. I'm kind of I was kind of athletic growing up. I was sort of like a tomboy, I guess you could say I was a swimmer. I swam competitively growing up. I ski raced. I was actually a forester by trade. I worked on the Willamette National Forest. I was on a hotshot firefighting crew. I used to fight fires in the summertime. That was a normal part of your job when you work for the Forest Service and I don't know. It just seemed like something that would be fun to do.

Tom Butler: 19:10

Well, I would describe you as badass.

Erin Ely: 19:13

I'm just going to say that right now?

Tom Butler: 19:17

Did you have any other options? Were you thinking about anywhere else, or was India pretty much the only thing on your list?

Erin Ely: 19:28

Well, that tour company has a lot of big tours. So their primary tour, the company, is called TDA Global Cycling. They're based in Canada, but their legacy tour is called the Tour to Afrique and it's a 100-day tour across Africa. Wow, that would be. I mean, I know that that would be just way too much for me. It's a really tough tour, that one. They camp like 90 out of 100 days on that trip.

Erin Ely: 19:49

So my trip was a hotel trip, but there was some other. There was actually another tour that they had that I signed up for like about a year after I started cycling. It was going to Vietnam, laos and Thailand, because I've always wanted, I've always wanted to go to Vietnam and Thailand. Those are two places. And when is the tour started? Getting closer and closer? I was like freaking out. I was so nervous about it. I was just like agonizing over I'm not going to be able to ride, it's going to be too hard, I don't think I can do it, and so I didn't go. I canceled out of it. So it gave me more time to ride more and to get more confidence in my riding, and so that just the India tour is offered every other year. So it was like if I wanted to do India, I had to do it this year, because it's not going to be offered again for two more years. So I'm actually already looking at another tour for 2026.

Erin Ely: 20:44

That is one that's going to Vietnam, thailand, cambodia, malaysia, and there's some people on the tour that I went on that are interested in doing that trip, so I might do that with them.

Tom Butler: 20:58

Well, I am hoping to interview someone next week who rode around Taiwan. Oh, okay. Did the entire trip around Taiwan. I guess it's kind of a big deal there. It's kind of a rite of passage or whatever there, and so that just sounds like a super interesting trip as well yeah, yeah.

Erin Ely: 21:19

So I mean, these trips are all supported the one that I did. So it's like you know, if you don't want to ride or you can't ride, you can get in the support van. So you, you have choices if you don't want to ride, or if it's too difficult, or you know it's just not working out so now did you feel that you, if you could go back, you would change your training a lot before this trip.

Tom Butler: 22:09

What, what do you think about that?

Erin Ely: 22:11

well, maybe I. I actually did quite a bit to prepare for this trip. I took a four month cycling class with a woman in the United Kingdom that she helps mature women mature women with their cycling, and I learned more about cadence and fueling and you know all the things that I don't really know that much about because I was kind of a relatively new cycler and I spent four months training with her and then I actually hired a personal trainer here in town that I went to twice a week and he was actually an ex-triathlete, so he knows he knows a lot about cycling, so I worked with him for I did this. I started about eight months before my trip, so I was did that four-month cycling thing with her and then I was using a personal trainer and then I just had a writing schedule because one of the things I found out when I took that class with this woman was that I was over training, I wasn't giving myself enough recovery time because I was riding like five or six days a week before that. So once I started training with her, I cut my riding schedule down, but it was more like specific about some of the things I was doing Because she put me on an indoor trainer one day a week, which I thought was really boring and I didn't like.

Erin Ely: 23:34

And then I was riding two days outside, two or three days outside. I had to ride a lot more zone two, which, which is challenging to. When I ride with a group. It was hard for me to keep my heart rate down enough because I'm constantly trying to catch up and stay up with everyone. So my e-bike was actually good for staying in more zone two. So my e-bike was actually good for staying in Marzone 2.

Tom Butler: 24:01

When I rode with a group it allowed me to keep my heart rate down because I could use the assist and it wasn't as hard to ride. I think that's an excellent, a really excellent point that people don't necessarily think about is that you know you can, you have the flexibility to dial things in with pedal assist, and it's not that you know that it's easy going, it's you can like vary, the resistance to, to what is right for you yeah, and you can.

Erin Ely: 24:30

You don't even need to turn on the bike, I mean you don't need to have the motor on. I mean, like I can ride like 90 of the ride without the motor. Anyway, a lot of it, a lot of the rides that I do, I just do it because I need to keep up with the group sometimes Mostly it's hill climbing is my challenge. I'm not I'm not a good hill climber. I still struggle with that. It's like I hit a brick wall. I don't know what it's like.

Erin Ely: 24:59

I come to the hill and it's just like you know. I'm going, like I do know, but I look at other people and I see them going up the hill and it looks like they never miss it. You know, their cadence is still good and they're still spinning. I'm like how do they do this? I don't understand, I'm not.

Tom Butler: 25:14

I still can't do it. Yeah, I think there's a lot to understand about the way that, you know, muscles build as you're older and the way that energy is utilized as you're older. And I, you know, I look at my legs and they seem to be muscular enough that I should be doing well. But yeah, I think there's just a. There's a lot of variety there, so right.

Erin Ely: 25:36

Yeah, I mean I'm strong. I know I'm strong because I can lift a lot of weight. I mean when I started lifting I was dead lifting on a trap bar 315 pounds. I'm strong, but it doesn't translate to sending me up the hill the same way. I mean, like my friend Jackie, who I told you about, she's just this tiny person, she hardly weighs anything. And's just this tiny person, she, you know, she hardly weighs anything. And she just like. When I see her pedaling up the hill, I'm going like how does she do that?

Tom Butler: 26:03

Yeah.

Erin Ely: 26:03

She doesn't have a motor on her bike, she just seems to just like pedal away, you know but she has been riding for a long time too.

Tom Butler: 26:16

I think that's one of those things, that cycling over 60, I'm really interested in connecting with the people that know, specifically like, as you get older, you know what's happening in your muscle fibers, in your muscle cells, you know and how can, and maybe part of it is just realizing okay, I don't have the physiology that some of these you know, because I get passed on, passed by 75-year-old women going up hills all the time when I'm out riding and it's like, okay, you know, I don't know what's going on there, but good for them.

Erin Ely: 26:52

Right, right. Yeah, I try not to take it personally. I'm always at the back of the crowd, but sometimes it does get discouraging. I mean I did write a blog about my trip. So I wrote every day while I was gone and you can see, I mean I wrote about it I feel discouraged. I'm not riding as fast as everybody else, I'm at the back by myself. You know that kind of stuff, but I knew it was going to be like that.

Tom Butler: 27:20

Yeah, well, and you can, I will put a link to your blog because I think that anybody that be interested in that trip there's just so much there and I I think it's you did a very good job at a you know diary about that trip.

Erin Ely: 27:39

Right, right. Yeah, I mean it was kind of good. It was fun to have that because I could go back and you know, look at it and go, oh wow. Yeah, it's kind of nice to have it as a remembrance.

Tom Butler: 27:50

Yeah for sure. Can you talk a bit about logistics? How did you find it, as far as you know getting your bike there, you know picking it up, you know just kind of the mechanics of having your bike there to ride in a cardboard box because they break all the boxes down.

Erin Ely: 28:20

We're arriving in one city and we're departing to come home from another one and they can't carry there's like 22 people on the tour. They can't carry 20. You know, hard box bike holders or whatever. So, um, they required it had to be in a cardboard box and actually I'm not great mechanically with my bike, so I just had my bike shop break it down and box it up for me and then it's pretty easy to take your bike on the plane. It's pretty seamless. I was, um, surprised how easy it was actually was.

Erin Ely: 28:50

We flew out of the Portland International Airport and they just recently remodeled that place and and it was just like we just, you know, checked in and they took our bikes and it was super easy. And we were a little bit worried about it when we got to India. We weren't sure if they were going to make us pay customs or do anything crazy like that. But no, it was fine. We got our bikes, picked them up, they were all in great condition and so the tour company when you get there.

Erin Ely: 29:18

We flew to New Delhi a couple of days ahead of when the tour started, so that we had time to acclimate, kind of. You know, get our feet on the ground and stuff. And then the tour company actually had a transport from New Delhi to Agra, which is where the tour actually started. The Agra is where the Taj Mahal is and it was like a couple hours bus ride away or something. So they actually transported us and all our bikes to Agra and then when we got there, they have a full-time tour mechanic on the trip, who was awesome.

Erin Ely: 29:55

And, of course, all the tour leaders. They all know how to take bikes apart, put them back together. So everybody helped you. You could you know a lot of people could do it themselves or you could have them. You know help you put it together.

Erin Ely: 30:07

So they, they helped with that and they also at the end, helped us break it down on the box it and they had all these boxes you know with them. They, you know, compressed them all and got them all back out and we it was actually pretty seamless. I was surprised how easy it went well, that's fantastic.

Tom Butler: 30:25

I mean, that could, in my opinion, be a real hassle as part of the trip, so to hear that it went so smooth, that's great yeah, we went to the airport super early like four hours ahead of time because we were worried about getting our bikes checked in.

Erin Ely: 30:39

It was so easy, we didn't even need to worry about it. Nice, nice.

Tom Butler: 30:44

Now, how about accommodations like lodging? Was that totally figured out or were you just kind of? When you showed up, you found out what was going on? Or had you pretty much learned about all that?

Erin Ely: 30:59

showed up, you found out what was going on, or had you? Well, they had all that. Yeah, they have all the lodging, but they don't tell you what it is until you're actually on the tour. So, um, they send out, which I guess I didn't realize it. They send out the rides because we use ride with gps on a smartphone. So I had a quad lock on my bike with my smartphone and we had downloaded all the rides before, so that you don't need any cell service or anything to get the rides loaded in here. So, on those rides, on the rides, at the end of each ride day, they had the hotel listed. But I didn't realize that because I didn't actually really look at that stuff. So they did kind of tell us ahead of time, but not directly, right, so? But they didn't have all the hotels already booked for us and that was all set up, so we didn't really have to worry about that.

Erin Ely: 31:43

There was really I would say there was a real variation in the quality of the hotels, though Some of them were very nice and some of them were not nice at all. Ok, I think in the in the more rural parts of India, it was harder to get nicer hotels. Some of them were pretty sketchy but you know, for the most part everything worked. You know, the toilet, the shower, the stuff you needed, the bed was there. It's not like you're sitting around in your room, right, you're riding your bike all day anyway, and so you don't spend a lot of time in your room day anyway, and so you don't spend a lot of time in your room.

Erin Ely: 32:21

And when we had like rest days in nicer places, we usually had nicer hotels. You know, when we were on our rest days because you were spending more time around the hotel and stuff. But I think they try to get they're not, like you know, five-star hotels, but the nicer ones are, you know, three or four-star hotels and the other ones are kind of like two-star maybe. I don't know, um, but I think they didn't have a lot of control over the rural parts of india because there's limited hotels in those areas I guess that's one of the messages about the ride is that you're going to be seeing a lot of different places and so if if you do that.

Tom Butler: 32:59

You got to expect that in some of those places the accommodations are not going to be, you know, excellent, but but you're going to get by.

Erin Ely: 33:06

Yeah, and that's basically what they said in the tour notes for the tour. You know, be prepared to not have, you know, every the nicest place, but you'll have the basic stuff that you need and we always did have that.

Tom Butler: 33:19

You talked about having curiosity about India for some time and I'm thinking that's because you see it as a place that's got a different culture than what you're normally in. Did you find that you were able to experience the cultural differences on the trip?

Erin Ely: 33:36

Yeah, somewhat. I mean, like I got into this thing where I was, I didn't want to stop a lot because I didn't want to get too far behind. So some people actually spent more time stopping on the side of the road and talking to people than I did. They met people, went into their houses for tea and stuff like that. I didn't actually do any of that because I was riding by myself and I was feeling like I didn't want to get too far behind everybody. So I just kind of kept moving along.

Erin Ely: 34:08

But I did see lots of stuff on the roadside. We'd pass down, we'd go through these little villages and there'd be all. You'd hear all this blaring music when you're coming up and they'd be like outside a wedding, like all these people would be outside and they'd be dancing and there would be all this music. And I mean, and really I could have stopped at some of those places because some people did do that and they pulled them in and they were in there dancing and doing all kinds of stuff and so, like you know, it's pretty cool that way. I mean I it was just my own personal thing that I didn't participate in as much of that stuff as some other people did.

Erin Ely: 34:46

When I, when I was with some other people, I did do some roadside stops Like you know, they call them coke stops where you could stop and talk to, you know, people that own the shop and then usually when people you know, when we stopped anywhere, everybody was super curious, especially when you're riding through these rural parts of india, because they're just not going to see a bunch of people riding around on bikes and bike kits.

Erin Ely: 35:10

You know it's pretty unusual and they are all very curious and as soon as you stop you just be surrounded by people and they were all you know, looking at your bike and touching stuff and talking, asking you questions and you know. So that part was fun. I had, I did experience that some you know some also. Yeah, it just there's just so much to look at. This is why, on the, on the trip rating for their trips, they have far that one of the ratings is far out factor and on this trip they said it's like five of five far out factor because there's just so much going on, there's so much traffic and buses and people and you know just animals everywhere and dogs and cows how about in the evenings did?

Tom Butler: 35:59

did they organize stuff in the evenings a lot, or?

Erin Ely: 36:03

uh, not really. Usually what we did was was you know, everybody rode, each got. We usually got done by around two or three in the afternoon and mostly people would work on their bikes every day. So at the end of every day there was an hour where you could meet with the bike mechanic and an hour with the medic. You know they had these set times that you could meet with them and almost everybody every day would look their bike over. You know, if they had these set times that you could meet with them and almost everybody every day would get their bike over, you know, lube their chain, clean the bike, because your bikes are getting pretty dirty. It's dusty, you know. So I think we mostly did that.

Erin Ely: 36:39

And then, you know, we might kind of sit around together and talk and have a beer or something, and then we'd have dinner and then everybody would go to bed and it was starting all over the next day. So we spent more time together doing things on our rest days, and on those rest days I went with there was sort of a group of us. There was one guy that was kind of the leader and he went out and was like okay, let's, you know, do you guys want to go see this, and he would set up all these tours for us, you know, and we to go see the forts or the you know special uh, the alora caves or you know, we'd get these guided tours. And so every single rest day I did something like that. I definitely took advantage of all the um, the historical sites and things like that that we could do on our rest days.

Tom Butler: 37:28

Oh that sounds. That really sounds interesting. I mean, it draws me in just that thought of being able to see those places. That's great.

Erin Ely: 37:36

Oh yeah, some of those places are just so amazing, just the history, I mean. You just look at these, like the Allura Cave is one of the the hindu cave areas that we went to and there was, with a hindu and buddhist and kind of all mixed together. But, um, it's like going to, you know, the pyramids or something. You just look at this and go like, how did they build all this stuff? You know, before they had all this modern equipment and everything is so massive and all this big structures and carvings and just yeah, it was just amazing, it really was. There's so much history in India, it's just everywhere.

Tom Butler: 38:17

Now is there some interaction you had or some site that you visited that you think really will stand out to you as you remember the trip?

Erin Ely: 38:28

well, for me, the Taj Mahal, which is where the tour started, that was always a place that I wanted to see and it feels kind of magical when you see it. It just it just kind of has this aura around it when you're there. We went in the early morning, right when it opened, and so there was this kind of like this hue of you know pink and the you know blue and the air and, um, it just it's the white marble of this building and we just it just stands out. So that was really cool. That was kind of one thing that I really wanted to see and I really thought it was worth, you know, going to.

Erin Ely: 39:05

And then the alora caves, where that was the other place that I thought was really cool and, um, but there was there's so much, there's so much, um, these old like forts that the moguls, the, um, the palaces, you, they're just so elaborate and so full of you know, stained glass and all these painted, elaborate paintings, and it was just really cool to see all that. And then you know, you still have that thought of going like you know it's like the kings and queens, and you go like all the peasants are barely surviving, these guys are living in these.

Erin Ely: 39:49

So you kind of you kind of have mixed feelings about this you know, seeing that and appreciating it, while at the same time realizing that you know, all these other, the majority of the population, is not living that way it sounded like from some of the things that I read and I, I followed your trip on strava.

Tom Butler: 40:09

It sounded like you had some real challenging parts of it and I so I'm wondering if you could talk about that. What, uh what did you find physically challenging about it?

Erin Ely: 40:20

well the in the first couple of weeks it was pretty good because we were sort of in the northern part of like mid to northern part of India and the state of Rajasthan and it wasn't that hot yet. But once we started going south down the coast it started to get really hot and so it was like in the mid 90s and sometimes up to 100 degrees and I just really struggled riding in that. So a lot of those days I rode like half the day. I would ride in the morning and then not ride the afternoon, and some of those days I didn't ride at all because I knew there was just going to be too much climbing for me and I just I was just like I'm not enjoying this, I'm not going to ride today, and I mean I felt kind of guilty about that.

Erin Ely: 41:08

But at the same time I just went. You know, I'm still good, I'm still going on all the rest days and seeing all this other stuff that I want to see. So I just put it in my head that this isn't only about the cycling part of the trip and I'm just going to let it be the way it is. And so I had, you know, kind of come to grips with that, because some of these tours I know I've heard this thing they call it EFI, which means every effing inch, like you ride, every inch of the tour.

Erin Ely: 41:36

So, there are some people that do that. Although, on this, this group didn't seem to be that driven for that kind of stuff, which was good. I felt like the group was really good. But yeah, these hot days, those hot days with the high humidity, that was really challenging. Oh there, there were quite a few people that couldn't, that chose not to ride some of those days, or chose to ride just half of those days or actually had to quit, you know, after lunch, just because it was.

Tom Butler: 42:03

It was challenging, challenging well, I think it's a super healthy perspective. You know to go in and say I am not going to do myself in, I'm here to have an experience and I can kind of see my limitations and you know it's good for me to I to keep that in perspective yeah, yeah it was.

Erin Ely: 42:24

It was good. For the most part it was good. I think I rode. The tour was 30, you know 30 riding days and I think I rode like 23, 24 days out of the 30.

Tom Butler: 42:35

That's awesome.

Erin Ely: 42:35

Some of those days we were sick, though, because we all got food poisoning. Oh no so there was definitely, uh, like a three or two or three day period where people were not feeling so great. Then some people just had kind of gut issues sort of off and on during the tour. So there's also that I didn't. I didn't have too much of that, just at that one little section where everybody got sick so was that a restaurant that people ate at, or?

Erin Ely: 43:10

well, we thought it was from one of the hotels that we stayed at. It was like we, the second night that we were at this hotel, were we there for two nights. Yeah, we were there for two nights because it was a rest day hotel. So on a rest day you're there at the end of the ride and then you're there rest day, so you stay at the same place for two nights in a row. Usually you're moving, like every night you're at a different place, and it was after that place that everybody was sick, so we're just assuming that it was from the food there.

Tom Butler: 43:43

Yeah, Now how about the food in general? Did you like the food? Was that part of the experience? I experienced a lot of different food. How was that?

Erin Ely: 43:54

Well, I did at the beginning. At the beginning it was like, yeah, Indian food, this is really good. But then after a while it was kind of like, oh, no more Indian food really good. But then after a while it was kind of like, oh, no more Indian food, which I didn't expect. There was like, there's like definitely two guys that just loved Indian food and they were just, you know, happy about eating Indian food all the time.

Erin Ely: 44:19

And we did have a lot of the same foods because at night they would serve us off a buffet. So we had a selection of things, but a selection of a lot of the same kinds of food every night. You know, there's dahl, there's butter chicken I'm not great, I don't know the names of all the things, but very similar. You know vegetables, rice, protein, but a lot of curries and a lot of it tastes sort of similar after a while. Maybe it would have been different if we were all ordering separately off a menu, but that's just how that. You know, the tour was set up. And then, you know, on our rest days we could go out and eat, eat a little bit differently, but um, by the end of the tour, I would say the last week I was just like I cannot eat this Indian food anymore. I was living on soup and French fries and beer and chai, tea and coffee. I lost 22 pounds on this tour.

Tom Butler: 45:26

Wow, wow, wow. That's amazing.

Erin Ely: 45:30

Well and other people lost. Somebody lost 27 pounds on the tour.

Tom Butler: 45:35

Okay.

Erin Ely: 45:37

So we're like well, if you need to lose weight, go on a tour.

Tom Butler: 45:40

Right? Well, I think that you go on a tour where you get tired of the food after a while and then you're still cycling.

Erin Ely: 45:51

It did make it a little bit challenging to fuel your ride. So for the lunches, the tour company fed us our lunches and those were always the best meals of the day. Everybody was like I got to make it to lunch so I can eat for the tour companies.

Tom Butler: 46:06

That's interesting Snacks and stuff. Did you have that provided? Did you buy those yourself? What was?

Erin Ely: 46:15

Well, they did. They had at the lunch stop. They had stuff, but most of us were eating a lot of bananas. Bananas seem to be the main fuel for fueling your rides. And then you know, the Coke stops is what they call them. Coke stops. People would stop for drinks cold water, chai tea, or get a Coke, or buy something on the roadside.

Tom Butler: 46:39

Now, did you find the countryside, the landscapes? You talked about cycling, some by the ocean. Did you find the landscapes to be awesome?

Erin Ely: 46:51

they were, they were in. I mean they were. I think that the first part of the tour I like better. There seemed to be more diversity in the landscape, but it was wintertime there so there wasn't like there was. We went to areas where there's no leaves on the trees and it looked kind of barren.

Erin Ely: 47:10

But then we would go through these areas where there's huge agricultural fields of all kinds of wheat and corn and mustard seed and cotton. That's cotton is there. Actually, india is a very big cotton growing um country and so yeah, it was variable and the and the ocean part was nice. Sometimes you couldn't really see the ocean because that's really hilly that part um riding down the ocean. But yeah, there's a lot of a lot of good landscape and some, you know a couple of days where it was just kind of like I just need to ride and get this over with, because it was like kind of not that interesting. But there was only actually a couple of days where it was just kind of like I just need to ride and get this over with, because it was like kind of not that interesting, but there was only actually a couple of days like that now.

Tom Butler: 47:51

You did take pictures for your blog and also posted on strava. I'm wondering if you have an image, or a couple images that really capture your trip, that are like like things that you're really happy that you captured an image of well, natash mahal, that was really my highlight.

Erin Ely: 48:11

That tag mahal was my highlight and then we we crossed the tropic of cancer. Yeah, anyway, I took a picture there with one of the, with a bike mechanic was with me and that was one of the pictures that I thought was kind of cool because it's a picture going across there. But there you know then a lot of the Alora caves that those were other. Those were some other pictures that were really cool. I thought yeah.

Tom Butler: 48:39

Do you think you'll ever do that trip again?

Erin Ely: 48:42

I don't think. So I don't think I would want to do that trip again, only because there's so many other places I still want to go, so I don't. I mean I don't think I would do it again. I'm glad I did it, though, but I don't think I would do it again. They actually do have another trip to india that they do. That's more in the southern part, called the tea or tea something it's in the more tea growing regions, and then they go to Sri Lanka, and which Sri Lanka is actually supposed to be really nice. I just want to. You know, I think I've had my India feel for now, and I want to try some other place so someone like you, who you know, before this trip, again, you were curious about India.

Tom Butler: 49:28

you wanted to go to India, did you feel? Do you feel like that was a good way to, to really get to, to experience India?

Erin Ely: 49:35

Yes, definitely. I, you know, knowing you know more about traveling. I've done trips where you're just traveling in a bus and getting out and walking around and getting back in it. You just, you know, you just get to really see more stuff when you're just traveling in a bus and getting out and walking around and getting back in. You just get to really see more stuff when you're riding your bike down the road and you just notice more things, the smells. There's a lot of smells in India, so you really get the full gamut of all this stuff when you're riding your bike down the road.

Erin Ely: 50:06

I guess one of the things that I was sort of surprised about was that the air pollution really never cleared up. No matter where we went, it was polluted everywhere and I was kind of surprised by that. Actually, I thought maybe when you got out of the bigger cities the air quality would get better, but it was pretty kind of crummy most of the trip, except it was a little bit better once we got way, you know, south on the coast, but it was hazy. It was hazy from air pollution everywhere. So you don't get like you know, in the pacific northwest you can get these great big vistas with beautiful blue sky and stuff. You just never got that. You never got that same. You know I would go oh, we'd be riding down this you know big gorge or something, and you, you know it was just a cool. You know beautiful vista, but the air was all hazy and so that part was a little bit not. I did not expect that.

Tom Butler: 51:03

So if you ran into somebody and they said you know, hey, we're planning on doing this 30-day trip, 39-day trip in India, and you're like I went on that trip and they said, well, what would you, what are some of the main things that you would recommend to get the most out of that trip? What would you, would you say?

Erin Ely: 51:24

well, you just have to be prepared to ride rough roads. You know, not have clean air, be able to ride in traffic, those things are. There's a lot of riding in traffic on this trip. There's a lot of riding in traffic and you definitely need to be prepared for that, although, surprisingly enough, I almost felt safer riding in India than I do here, even with all the traffic.

Erin Ely: 51:53

So I mean, some people cannot ride in a lot of traffic and it's noisy. It's very noisy because they're honking their horns all the time, because they honk their horns to tell you where they are, not to get you out of the way. It's just like a sign of hey, I'm on your side, I'm behind you on this. But so you're going to you ride through areas that are just full. It's like you see it on the movies. It's just like zoom, zoom, zoom.

Erin Ely: 52:16

Cars and motorcycles go in every direction, no lines on the. You just start to go out into that and they just ride around you because that's what they do to go out into that and they just ride around you because that's what they do and, um, they're all alert. So those are the things that you would have to be prepared for being able to ride in traffic, knowing a little bit that the air quality is not going to be great and I guess for me the riding in the heat that was a big thing, and I think I would have actually probably brought more of my own food for my fuel. I did bring my own electrolytes because I don't like to have sweetened electrolytes and I only like use the scratch lab that are not sweetened. So most electrolytes are sweetened and I knew that that would be a problem for me, so I brought that and I think if I had to do it again which I do another trip I would have brought more of my own food for my uh fueling because I like to eat real food.

Erin Ely: 53:11

I don't want to drink a bunch of cokes, I don't really like to drink a lot of sodas and stuff um I usually eat like dried fruit and but they always had like nuts, and you know, yeah, they usually had a lot of nuts and some dried fruit and then bananas that you could use to fuel your food, but sometimes you want more than that.

Tom Butler: 53:31

Could you access fresh markets to get stuff, or was that pretty hard?

Erin Ely: 53:36

You could. There was actually lots of little produce markets when you went through these villages, but unless you could clean the food with fresh water and stuff, you wouldn't want to just buy it there and eat it. At least I would not do that. I did not drink any water that didn't come out of a bottle. I didn't even use the tap water to brush my teeth. I didn't eat any fresh fruit unless it was served to us by the tour company because I knew they had washed it with their purified water.

Erin Ely: 54:09

Um, so that I think that part is kind of an individual thing, but based on all the stuff I read, it was just better not to eat that stuff unless you knew how to clean it with. You had fresh water to clean it and stuff. So if you were riding through in the day, if you stopped and bought something, you weren't going to be able to clean it and stuff. So if you were riding through in the day, if you stopped and bought something, you weren't going to be able to clean it properly probably you mentioned that you are looking at other trips to take, and so uh are you.

Tom Butler: 54:38

Have you decided between a couple trips? Have you have you found a tour company that you'd like to use? Where are you in that process of planning your next trip?

Erin Ely: 54:49

Well, I think I'm going to go on another trip with this company. I really like this company. They were awesome, they were great. Their tour guides were awesome, their mechanic was amazing, their attitude was great. They were super flexible. I mean like when everybody got sick they had to hire more cars to transport people because they're they're two or the vans that they drive they're like sprinter vans, but you know they can only hold like four or five people, Plus in the back is full of gear and food things and bicycles and so, um, they were really flexible and they I never felt any pressure or anything. If you didn't want to ride, they were like, okay, you know, they were really flexible and I never felt any pressure or anything. If you didn't want to ride, they were like, okay, you know, they were really good, Easy to work with, very flexible and they're just really experienced at this. This tour company has been around for like 25 or 30 years or something, so they have a good reputation.

Tom Butler: 55:42

Courteous people, friendly people, the ride leaders.

Erin Ely: 55:46

Yes, all of them were great, very, and also encouraging too. You know, like there was one day where I was riding I was like I have to get off my bike, I can't get it. There was a like this hairpin turn, I can see it coming. And there was this big bus coming down the other direction. I was like I'm not going to try to ride, that, I'm getting off my bike. And the guy I was like I'm not gonna try to ride, that, I'm getting off my bike.

Erin Ely: 56:06

And the guy I was in the back, so the sweep, the sweeper, was behind me and so I got off my bike and I was like now I'm going uphill, I can't get going again on my bike, I'm gonna have to keep walking. And he was like okay, why don't you let me push your bike for you? I'm feeling so embarrassed. I'm like, no, I can push my own bike, you know. But I'm like I'm sorry, I can't get back on my bike and ride up the hill because I can't get started.

Erin Ely: 56:38

And you know, here it wouldn't be that big of a deal because I would just go across the road and go, but there there was so much traffic and stuff. There was this for me too much going on, that I didn't feel comfortable that I could get back on my bike and, you know, kind of crossroad up the hill to get going again. So it was super sweet, super nice. I think I probably walked like maybe a half a mile, just to, you know, to get up to a place where I could get back on my bike. But no, they were, they were all awesome and the mechanic the mechanic was awesome. They were all just super supportive and great people to tour with.

Tom Butler: 57:18

That's cool. And what's the name of the company?

Erin Ely: 57:21

It's called TDA Global, like Tom David G, like Tom David Green, tda Global Cycling, and they're based in Canada.

Tom Butler: 57:33

I will put a link to the website in the show notes if anybody wants to check them out.

Erin Ely: 57:41

Extended tour trips, extended day tours Like most companies don't do these long tours. They do, like you know, six, seven days, maybe two weeks, but all their, most of their tours, I think all their tours, are at least 30 days. So it's for you know, for that person that really wants to like really dive in deep for a long tour.

Tom Butler: 58:05

Erin, thank you so much for being willing to do this. This was super fun and I'm just so glad that you're willing to talk about this trip. I am super impressed. I mean, I think anybody that is you know takes the initiative that you did to go out and do this and took on the challenges and put up with some of the the problems with the trip. I just think that's just amazing and just such an example to other people that you know get out there and do stuff.

Erin Ely: 58:38

Yeah, well, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about it. Yeah, I mean, it's never too late to start. I'm a perfect example. I mean I didn't start writing until I was 66. And then I was like, hey, I think I'll go to India. Yeah, just a short 30 days of writing.

Erin Ely: 59:02

Well, I really totally believe that you have to keep moving. You just got to keep moving and the easiest way for me to keep moving is actually to have something scheduled that I have to go and show up to do. That's why having this gears, you know, ride group is really good for me, because I have to be there at 9 30 on monday. I have to be there, you know, and the same thing with, like, my personal training and all that, I'm not, I'm not like a self, you know, doer, I need to have a schedule and I have to show up.

Tom Butler: 59:33

Well, I I'm glad you're doing that. I know that you're reaping benefits from doing that, and and again, thanks so much for for taking the time to do this.

Erin Ely: 59:42

Yeah, thanks for having me Appreciate it.

Tom Butler: 59:45

Talk to you later.

Erin Ely: 59:48

All right, yeah, thanks for having me Appreciate it Talk to you later.

Tom Butler: 59:52

All right, bye, bye. Now. It is so awesome to hear from someone like Erin. I love how she embraces new cycling experiences and I'm so glad to hear that the gear group in Eugene, oregon, embraced her when she first showed up. There are a couple of episode ideas that came out of that conversation. One is that I would like to get Aaron's frame builder on and have him share his story, and another is I would like to get on an Amtrak train with my bike and go meet some cyclists in Eugene. The train and bike combo is intriguing to me. So, whether you are out and about on your bike in some new country or just in your hometown, I hope you are discovering new ways to enjoy cycling and finding people to share good times with. And remember, age is just a gear change. Thank you.