Bicycles and Beats with 0Stella

Tahverlee [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Bike Life podcast by Warmshowers Foundation, where we will be sharing knowledge, experience, tools, and stories of touring cyclists and hosts from around the world. I'm Tahverlee, the woman behind the scenes at Warmshowers Foundation, the leading platform for cyclists looking for hosts and to connect with a passionate international community. Find out more by visiting us at Warmshowers.org. Now, on to the show.

Jerry Kopack [00:00:40]:
Hello, and welcome to Bike Life. This is Jerry Kopack. And if you still don't recognize my voice yet, give it time. We'll get there. I'm the new host of bike life, taking over the reins from Tahverlee. But don't worry, she's still here as our executive director, but she's focusing her time on making your experiences as host and travelers even better. A little bit about me. I've been the finance guy for Warmshowers showers for about 5 years now.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:04]:
And when I'm not building spreadsheets, you'll find me hosting bike travelers in my home in Breckenridge, Colorado or on my own bike journey someplace else in the world. Today's show, I'm talking with Liz Pomeroy, a musician who took the expression, taking her show on the road to an entirely new level by cycling more than 8,000 kilometers to play 60 shows throughout Canada. Hey, Liz. Welcome to Bike Life.

Liz Pomeroy [00:01:28]:
Hey, Jerry. How are you?

Jerry Kopack [00:01:30]:
Doing well. So you live in Canada. Yeah?

Liz Pomeroy [00:01:34]:
I do. I live in Edmonton.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:36]:
Ah, okay. So we were talking offline. That sounds like a very non Canadian accent. Where is that accent originally from?

Liz Pomeroy [00:01:42]:
It's a very Irish accent. Fresh out of Dublin. Fresh out of Dublin 15 years ago.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:47]:
15 years ago. Been a good move?

Liz Pomeroy [00:01:50]:
Great move. Yeah? Yeah. The, Canada and especially Alberta is, fantastically supportive of the arts. So being a musician, couldn't be happier with my choices.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:02]:
I love it. So I was looking through the archives of bike life, and I'm pretty sure you are the 1st bike traveling musician that we've interviewed here on bike life. So kudos to you. Now Thank you. At the risk of sounding horribly unoriginal, because I'm sure you've gotten this question way too many times. I'm still gonna ask, why a bike for your trip?

Liz Pomeroy [00:02:28]:
The short answer is it was the only thing left. I grew up on bicycles. I think I was somewhere trapped between loving bicycles and wishing it was a horse, and it was the cheapest way to have a horse and, or the closest thing. So I I made a record in 2021, and I'm a huge fan of Glenn Hansard, who is, a musician out of Dublin. Right? So his band is The Frames. I grew up watching them. Took huge inspiration from them. What

Jerry Kopack [00:03:02]:
was what was the movie? Once. Once. Yes.

Liz Pomeroy [00:03:05]:
About the buskers. Yeah. Totally. And, so he had this band called The Frames, which had a fiddle in it, which hugely inspired my sound. And, during lockdown, he was doing an Instagram live, and he's always I I didn't realize, but he's been very, environmentally focused for a long time. And he just made this comment saying how nice and clean the skies were since no one was flying anywhere and how it got him thinking that it had inspired him to maybe rework his world tour schedule when things opened back up again so he would have fewer transatlantic flights. And I said, oh, that's an interesting concept. And in 2018, I had just rebranded myself.

Liz Pomeroy [00:03:50]:
I'd been in lots and lots of different bands over the years as OSTELLA. And I spelled Ostella. I took the name from a PJ Harvey song. I'm a huge PJ Harvey fan, and changed the spelling into starting with a 0. Because 2018, I had gotten really into, like, the low impact, lifestyle kind of thing to try and, you know, like, it started out being named as a zero waste lifestyle in the community, but they kind of moved away from that after a number of years because they found it was a real turn off to people trying to get into that kind of lifestyle because it was had a real all or nothing feel to it, which is not the goal at all. So but for branding's sake and for starting a conversation's sake, I kept the 0. It's the easiest way to explain yourself. So 0 Stella became my name.

Liz Pomeroy [00:04:43]:
Oh, Stella to my face. And I figured having heard Glenn Hansard say this, I was like, well, if anyone is going to do it, probably the girl with the 0 in her name should be the one to give it a hack. So, through 21, after I'd made the record, I started exploring all these different ways to move across Canada. And I had just been accepted to France for an artist residency, and I was like, oh, well, this is a good opportunity. How do I get myself to France being in Edmonton with the fewest amount of transatlantic miles in an airplane? And, so I figured, well, I can get to the East Coast of Canada and just fly into Ireland where I have a family base and then make my way to France that way. And, another bunch of opportunities opened up and closed because of COVID. So I had a line on a a banned van that had been converted, like a Sprinter van, that had been converted by its previous owners who were a band down in Nashville, I think, and they had built a stage on top of the roof, and they would just drive around the country performing on their roofs. And then super cool.

Liz Pomeroy [00:05:49]:
And then also Via Rail, who is the the national tourist rail line in Canada. They have a very famous, part of their rail line called the Rocky Mountain Rail, I guess. And, it's a very beautiful, tourist attraction where you can get the the train, and it'll take you through the Rocky Mountains and its beautiful scenery and things. But they used to have, for a very long time, a program called artists on board, where they would allow free passage for up to 3 musicians working as a trio unit or smaller, in exchange for 3 sets a day with Canadian content. So you could cover Canadian artists or do your own stuff or a mix of both. And it was a really viable way for musicians to move across the country. As you know, it's an enormous country with, I don't know what, a 6th of the population of the states, maybe even smaller. And, so it's very costly, for musicians to tour across this country.

Liz Pomeroy [00:06:50]:
So that was a really viable option. And so we had explored, the possibility of me being the poster girl for the comeback after COVID and all that kind of thing. And with the opens and closures of COVID, it just all kept falling through on me. And even down to local level in venues, the poor things were, like, being told to get open, then next week, they had to close. Yeah. So all the artists were getting caught in the middle of this. They were booking their shows, then they were getting their, on full tours, nationwide tours getting canceled, like, at the last minute. And I just figured it was a losing game to put your money into any of that at that point.

Liz Pomeroy [00:07:29]:
And I really didn't like, having kind of being shoehorned into a position where me as a musician, it sat on my shoulders to say, you can come to my show, but you cannot, depending on what card you are holding during all of that business. And that just didn't really sit very well with me. To me, music should be a uniting force instead of a dividing one. So coming out of all of that stuff, it felt like the most attainable way would be to bring house concerts to people because curbside concerts were a big thing during COVID where musicians would rock up to your your your driveway and do an outdoor show for you and your neighbors and such. So I was just elaborating on that concept. So, with all of these modes of transport falling through and a background of cycling, I just figured, sure, look, I'll just hit the road with my bicycle. I have a bike. I and I hadn't really done any significant cycling since I got to Canada, actually, because it's quite intimidating over here at the size of everything and blah

Jerry Kopack [00:08:33]:
blah blah. You didn't have a horse at this time either. So I

Liz Pomeroy [00:08:36]:
did not I still do not have a horse at this time. However, funny side note, I stayed with a couple of horse owners and met a number of people riding their horses over this last 2 years of touring. And the seed has been sown for doing across Canada horseback version. So we'll see. It'll probably take me until I'm 60 to organize that. But, anyway, but yeah. Anyway, so that just made sense. So I I spent the remainder of 2021, pretty much the whole year, just researching bikepacking because until that point, I had only ever done supported tours with my dad and my brother, across Ireland and Argentina, a lot of, fundraising for the National Council For the Blind and things like that.

Liz Pomeroy [00:09:19]:
So you would always travel with a with a a convoy, loads of stewards that would close off the road because there'd be 80 plus of you cycling and, you know, a tech and med team traveling with you. So this was an entirely different realm for me.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:33]:
How did you wrap your head around going solo? Like, because it was so different. You don't have a support team anymore. Like, okay. Can I do this by myself? Do I have everything I need? Do I have the mental fortitude, the courage to do all these things?

Liz Pomeroy [00:09:48]:
You know, if I had thought about it too hard, it probably wouldn't have gone. So Fair. Fair. I I think I I definitely have that kind of personality where I just jump in for the adventure and figure it out along the way, even though that goes against the fact that I just said I spent a year, researching it. But what I researched, really, was, other musicians that I had found who had done cycling tours, and I interviewed them to figure out what was the easiest way. There's also a phenomenal Facebook group called Bicycle Traveling Women. Interesting. It's a private group, and you jump in there, and it's it's a place where you can ask all your embarrassing girl questions as well.

Liz Pomeroy [00:10:31]:
Sure. If you're feeling intimidated about tech or gear or saddle fit or hygiene on the road, anything like that, or safety, it's a phenomenal resource, of wisdom. And there's everybody in there. And what I loved about it so much is that there's people in there who have spent, like, 5 years cycling their bicycles around the world, and there's people in there who are 70, just retired, and they're about to embark on their first 3 day, bikepacking tour. And they're in there, and they're, like, dropping comments in the in the thing being like, girls, I'm so nervous. Like, I'm I'm really excited. I'm gonna go do this weekend trip for myself, but my grown sons, the 3 of them are just beside themselves. They're afraid I'm gonna die.

Liz Pomeroy [00:11:17]:
They're telling me not to go. And then all these women pile into the comments being like, forget it. Life begins at 70. Go for it. It's the most creative you'll ever have. It's brilliant. So good.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:29]:
What an amazingly empowering venue to to be able to draw experience and support from. That I I don't know that was it even existed. We will for sure put that in our liner notes at the end of the show for people to reference, because I think that is an amazing resource. And it, kind of, dovetails into my next question. I've done a fair amount of solo bike touring myself, but as a man, I'm sure it's a much different experience for any number of reasons. What do you think were some of the differences traveling as a female?

Liz Pomeroy [00:12:05]:
I kept to highway 3 for one thing. Yeah. If you go a little more north on the west of Canada, for women and especially indigenous women, that's not a good area to be. So I was told in no uncertain terms by a lot of experienced cyclists and people who live in the west of Canada. I'm kind of on the border just to stay south. And, also, one of the musicians I spoke to, that was the route he had taken for the simple fact that the Rocky Mountains are at their shallowest. They're they're not as steep. So it's a much easier pass to go through there.

Liz Pomeroy [00:12:38]:
Sure. So I kept to roots that I knew were safe. I listened to my gut so much. There was one pass in particular, it was called Green Mountain Road, leaving from the grist mill in Caramias going up to Penticton. And, I don't know why I chose to take that route, the 1st year out, but I did. And I just had, like, this sinking feeling in my gut, and, I don't know. Like, I if there's anyone in the room that's gonna pick up on a ghost, it's probably me anyway. I've been like that since I was a little girl.

Liz Pomeroy [00:13:18]:
So, I don't think it was anything sinister. I thought it was I feel like it was more just kinda like a, you know, a, a being thing, like a spiritual thing. But I oh, god. I just had the heebie jeebies about me the whole trip that time. So on the next year through, I went through BC again in 2023 before I went to Europe. So I actually reached out to a friend of mine here in Edmonton whose sister lived in the area, and she is a I think she's a triathlete. Like, she's an intensely fit woman, and she teamed up with me. She met me at the Grist Mill after I'd played the show there again.

Liz Pomeroy [00:13:54]:
And then we took, like, the actual highway, which was so much more beautiful. I was, like, I'm really glad I discovered it. It was, like, spectacular lakes and things like that, and we had a gift of a day. So yeah. So a couple of things I did to kinda mitigate risk, I suppose, for myself was, reaching out to local cyclists to cycle with me for a portion. Oh, smart. I didn't broadcast my actual location in real time on social media. I, I kept a good 2 week or more buffer between posts, which got tricky because I was a musician playing shows.

Liz Pomeroy [00:14:32]:
So I also had to advertise ahead of schedule. Ah, great. The timeline got a bit, like, kinda messy, but things like that. And then my family mainly were the main people I had to appease at home because they were, like, losing it with worry at this prospect of me leaving. So the peacekeeper was a Garmin inReach satellite phone.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:53]:
Uh-huh.

Liz Pomeroy [00:14:54]:
And so I loaded that up with all my close friends and family. So I set the membership, setting to, like, 10 minute increment, bleeps or whatever. And so they were able to follow me all the way along. And every night, no matter what coverage my phone had, I was still able to, as long as I saw the sky, send out a message when I reached my checkpoints and stuff like that. So they were able to keep really close tabs on me. And then also, I had my, I had my bear spray attached directly at my hip. I had a what do you guys call it? I call it a bum bag, a fanny pack. Right? Fanny pack.

Liz Pomeroy [00:15:31]:
Fanny means something different in Ireland. Is this weird?

Jerry Kopack [00:15:34]:
I am aware. Yes.

Liz Pomeroy [00:15:36]:
So, I had that around me, which would have, like, you know, my passport and my money and stuff in. And so, clipped to that, I would have my bear spray, and the satellite phone, and then the air horn, a giant can of that in my, my handlebar feed bag. So there was lots of things, like and it was really, like, there was bears and stuff like that, but mainly, I needed them for farm dogs. Farm dogs are nuts, like, they're a whole other level. But, anyway, I did have 1 or 2 gentlemen, remark on my collection on my hip, and they're like, oh, is that for, like, 2 legs or 4 legs? I'm like, well, whatever needs it at the time. And they're like, oh, understood. Like, it was all just very jesty, you know? So Brilliant. And I and I had a really interesting conversation with an indigenous woman in Hope, BC.

Liz Pomeroy [00:16:26]:
And, we had this phenomenal exchange, but it boiled down to her asking me, did I ever get scared as a woman traveling by myself?

Jerry Kopack [00:16:34]:
Yeah.

Liz Pomeroy [00:16:34]:
And, and no. Like, she's she's done an enormous amount traveling herself too, and she's higher risk because she's indigenous, frankly. And it's it's lousy. But, the 2 of us just agreed, you listen to your gut all the way along. And as long as you listen to that, it should keep you safe, like, just as much as it did.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:56]:
Yeah. Intuition is powerful, for sure. I I thoroughly believe that. And I I read a quote somewhere. I don't know if it's anyone famous, but it said, basically, over prepare and then go with the flow.

Liz Pomeroy [00:17:08]:
A 100%. Yeah. So it sounds like you

Jerry Kopack [00:17:10]:
took some good precautions, but then eventually, I'm sure you kind of found your groove and just went with

Liz Pomeroy [00:17:16]:
it. That's it. And, actually, I was, I was finishing up a show. Oh, I forgot the name of the town now. But, anyway, somewhere in BC. And, 3 very big, burly, very tall gentlemen, were just finishing up in the cafe I was in, and, one of them got the door for me. I was on my way out also, and he remarked again on the satellite phone on my hip, and he turned out to be a retired wildfire rescue gentleman. And he was only too relieved to see that I had that on me because he was like, you wouldn't believe the amount of rescues we go out to do.

Liz Pomeroy [00:17:56]:
And the only level of preparation anyone has is their phone, and that's plan a, b, c, and d for them. And so he was, like, as a father myself, I see that on your hip. I can sleep easy tonight and good girl, essentially. So that was great.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:11]:
That's probably comforting to know that. That sounds like it's it's reassuring that you're you're doing things the right way. You're keeping yourself safe. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Tahverlee [00:18:20]:
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Jerry Kopack [00:19:09]:
So I'm curious. You'll you'll book a show in a in a town, I don't know, 80, 100 kilometers away, and you just know that you've got 3 days to get there. You just kind of rock up with your bike and your gear, and like, hey. I'm ready to go. Like, what what what what are you carrying? How are you transporting all these things? I'm guessing well, let me back up. What instrument are you are you carrying while you're playing?

Liz Pomeroy [00:19:31]:
The first year out, I did cross Canada, Victoria to Halifax. I was 5 and a half 1000 kilometers, and I had a BOB trailer, attached, to my bike. And that had the BOB bag, which was full of my show clothes, my show shoes. I had a total of 4 pairs of shoes with me. Like, the worst

Jerry Kopack [00:19:52]:
Why so few?

Liz Pomeroy [00:19:53]:
Well, you know, just because sometimes you wanna pack light as a girl.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:57]:
Right. But,

Liz Pomeroy [00:20:00]:
well, if you think about it, I had, like, cycling shoes. Right? And they were, like, the kind of bikepackery ones, so they look like runners, but they've got the cleats. And some days, it's really rainy. So you gotta get down to the camp toilets or whatever, and you don't wanna be in soggy feet. So I had my runners with me. Then there's sunny days, so I had my flip flops with me. Of course. And then there's all the show days, so I had my glitter docks with me.

Liz Pomeroy [00:20:23]:
So it adds up. So I had, all the show clothes, some CDs, some cables, a microphone, and my laptop, and a very, very woolly Irish jumper that my dad gave me, wrapped, around the laptop for safety. Plus an extra woolen blanket too for the first half of the trip before I got to Edmonton the 1st year out because it was, like, minus 10 before I left, so I needed the extra warmth. But, anyway, it was quite heavy. And then on top of that was my little guitar. And I don't have a super handy here, but, it's a Lava Me carbon fiber guitar, which was nice to have something carbon fiber because the touring bike is like steel. Right? It's like an, composite. And, so anyway, this guitar for anyone that is unfamiliar with instruments.

Liz Pomeroy [00:21:17]:
So, typically, a guitar is made of wood, and it's made of multiple different types of wood, especially on the neck. So you would have one type of wood on the back and another type of wood glued to the surface where all the strings are where you play. And those two chunks of wood glued together are then attached to the body, which is hollow. So there's all these different densities of wood all changing to the humidity and the temperature at different rates. So I just had now plenty of musicians. Like, there's, like, Juno award winning Jeremy Fisher, who has famously cycled across the country. A few other musicians who just took guitars with them, and they were mostly fine. But I was trying to do these performances at a professional level, so I just didn't want the extra stress of you know, a broken guitar halfway along.

Liz Pomeroy [00:22:11]:
So, the carbon fiber seems to make most sense. And I also looked at doing, collapsible guitars. There's lots of guitars that folds down on themselves, and they go into a very small case. It looks like you're almost carrying, like, a shotgun. But those are completely reliant on being plugged into an amp. So I didn't know what environments I would be playing in. So the additional benefit of this Lavamy is that it's a 1 piece molded piece of carbon fiber. So it's, it's fully acoustic, except but it also has a little microphone built into itself.

Liz Pomeroy [00:22:49]:
So it comes with effects like reverb and, delay, but it also self amplifies. So if you're in an environment where there is no PA that you can't amplify yourself, I can just hit a little button, and it gives an extra boost of volume to my guitar. So all around, it was,

Jerry Kopack [00:23:07]:
it was

Liz Pomeroy [00:23:07]:
a really good selection. Mhmm. And it's it's, 3 quarter size as well. So it's travel size, so it does actually fit nicely within the bob trailer. And then I actually live across the road from a guy who used to be a competitive cyclist, and now he's a machinist. So he was able to, like, what you call it, like, modify the trailer itself and build an extra layer of, bars to keep the guitar nice and safe. So then I just, bungeed it down and then everything was safe with the tarp.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:38]:
Are you happy with the sound quality of this? Is it similar or as good as the guitar you would normally use if you weren't, say, bike traveling with it?

Liz Pomeroy [00:23:47]:
Yeah. I'm really happy with it. It comes with its own challenges, once you plug it in. So I really like it as a purely acoustic guitar. But once it's plugged into a PA system, I ended up having to buy a few extra pedals so I could EQ it better. And then yeah. It's a it's a really good one, and it comes with elixir strings that keep their sound a lot longer than, say, D'Addario's. And I lowered my action too, so it plays really nicely.

Liz Pomeroy [00:24:16]:
So yeah. Yeah. As as acoustic guitarists go, it's small and concise and light and, very fun to play.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:23]:
So remind me again, how long were you were you touring?

Liz Pomeroy [00:24:26]:
The 1st year, 2022, was five and a half months. I left on Earth Day, April 22nd, and then I got to Halifax on the first of October. That was my deadline because I had an album launch, show booked back in Edmonton on the 31st October and still had to rehearse the whole band. So that was 5 and a half months. I did have a knee injury halfway through there, so the 7,000 kilometers turned into 5 and a half thousand. Some of it was done in a car. And then the next year, I was probably out of Canada a good 9 months, and that was for a various amount of reasons. But mainly, I was back in Ireland starting to write the next record, which is, in fact, I got a grant from Edmonton Arts Council to make my next record, which is called Time Under Tension, and it's inspired by all the stories I gathered from Canadians cycling across the country.

Liz Pomeroy [00:25:23]:
Great. So there's, it's really fun. We're working on it right now, and there's, there's lots of fun little, like, cyclist Easter eggs in the in the music. So there's, like, sounds of, like, freewheeling, a freewheeling bicycle, like the sound of the chain going around the cogs and stuff like that. So I

Jerry Kopack [00:25:41]:
love that metaphor. I've never heard Easter eggs. I think that's a great metaphor.

Liz Pomeroy [00:25:45]:
Yeah. Thanks.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:47]:
This maybe this is a stretch. But since you spend so much time cycling and music is such a large part of your life, do you think there's any crossover or similarities between the 2? Cycling, long distance, and and music?

Liz Pomeroy [00:26:01]:
Yeah. Endurance and perseverance. Oh my god. Anyone that, works in the music industry will know it's a long game. It's a game of endurance, and you just have to keep hammering away. And, I I did, an entrepreneurial a music entrepreneurial course in Toronto in 2019. And one of their most favorite sayings there, at, Canada's music incubator was, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? And your goals can be enormous, you know, and it can be daunting when you look at the full picture. But when you break it down to bite sized pieces, it makes it really achievable, and that's the same thing with cycling.

Liz Pomeroy [00:26:45]:
Any distance, and especially once I hit my groove, the day really just fell nicely into little sections. So, like, a sweet day for me would be, like, an 80 kilometer. Now, like, also bearing in mind, the entire weight of this whole cycling rig, not counting my weight, was a £192 at its heaviest. So it really was, like, endurance. Hence, I burnt out my knee because, like, technique and stuff like that. And another cycling tip, that's where, like, focusing on your cadence will really save your bones and your joints. Oh my god. But but, yeah, my day really just broke down into, like, well, the first 10 k is simply my warm up of the day.

Liz Pomeroy [00:27:30]:
And then if I can bust out 40 kilometers before noon, break for lunch in the hottest part of the day, and then get back on the bike, do another 40 k, you're already at, like, what's that, 80, 90 k for the day, and you haven't really thought about it. Right? So so yeah. And then on the heavy days, you might be doing up to I think my heaviest was, like, a 125 or a 130 or something, but that would be a fairly grueling day. You know? But, you know, if you can if you can get, like, 4 or 5 or 6 days in a week doing 90 k, like, sure. You're gonna definitely clear your way along a country pretty quick.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:08]:
With a £190 of of vehicle.

Liz Pomeroy [00:28:12]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:13]:
Were you just eating like crazy? Because, I mean, that is a ton of work.

Liz Pomeroy [00:28:17]:
It's a ton of work. Yeah. For context for anyone that's listening that doesn't know the geography of Canada, Edmonton is north and just inland, essentially, of the Rocky Mountains, which are on the West Coast. So I started on the West Coast on on the coastal side of that mountain range. So by the time I went inland up and over those mountains and got to my home, I, for a stop off, also, I was injured on the first injury. I looked in the mirror and I swear it looked like I had been dead lifting for 6 months. Like, my quads were, like, intense. I was like, wow.

Liz Pomeroy [00:28:53]:
I've never seen myself look like this before. But, but then, interestingly, once I adjusted my technique and focused on my cadence, all that muscle leaned right down, and it wasn't so bulky anymore. But, but yeah. Sorry. I lost the run of myself. I forget your actual question.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:14]:
Oh, I I was just curious. Like, you're just working so hard all day. Like, were you just eating everything? Because some people people I've interviewed on the show before are the people who I've talked to who have done long trips. Like, yeah, we just we can't get enough calories. And they're riding bicycles that do not weigh a £192.

Liz Pomeroy [00:29:33]:
Yeah. Funny. I never felt like I couldn't get enough. Not at all. Okay. I focused on pretty pretty fatty, pretty protein based stuff. Like, my favorite snack, would be, like, a cheesy bun with, peanut M and M's would be the business, you know. And after that cross Canada cycle, with the knee injury, I went to a nutritionist.

Liz Pomeroy [00:30:01]:
And, in fact, props to my my family doctor as well. The first thing he went to was diet and exercise beyond medication, which I love. And the first thing he said to me was, like, k. Get an anti inflammatory diet to fix your knee so you can go back out again next year. And that's exactly what I did. So an anti inflammatory diet, obviously, is cutting out sugars and, wheats and things like that. And so for the couple of months before I left, the second time around, I was essentially doing, like, a keto diet, you know, like, hardly any, carbs or or, like, wheaty, bread y stuff. And I loved it.

Liz Pomeroy [00:30:40]:
My body felt immense and smooth and pain free, and, I tried to maintain that out on the bike. And I remember one day, I think I was in Hope, BC, and I had gotten in quite late. And, I was hoping to catch the supermarket just before it closed, which I did. And I went in and I got, like, the last rotisserie chicken on the stand, and I went outside and it was dusk, and I was, like, a disgusting, sweaty mess. And I just stood out there, like, with my bare hands, like, eating this, like, chicken. I must have devoured, like, a good third of it. And it only lasted. Yeah.

Liz Pomeroy [00:31:17]:
Proper. And, I was taking a few days off in that town anyway, but, like, the chicken didn't last long at all at all. And so I tried to keep up that that type of diet, But I don't think I had given my body long enough to acclimatize to that style of eating with that amount of workload on it. So I just remember the feeling of giving in and eating. I think it was like a croissant or something the next day, and it was just like a light going off in my brain. It was like, ping. Like, immediately, better attitude, better feeling way more, like, mental focus. I I didn't realize how, like, dozy and foggy I was getting out on the bike, which was getting dangerous.

Liz Pomeroy [00:32:02]:
So, I would I would be really keen to explore that again, but I really learned that you need so much longer lead time for your body to acclimatize to start burning fat as calories, before sugars. So yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. Nutrition is so, so key in any kind of endeavor like this as is rest, sleep, recuperation. So where are you sleeping most of the time? Any warm shower stories?

Liz Pomeroy [00:32:30]:
Oh my gosh. Warmshowers. I like I can't say enough good things about it, really. I must have stayed with warm shower hosts across Canada and Europe 40% of the total time. Amazing. Possibly even higher in Europe, in fact, because it's so difficult to wild camp in Europe.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:51]:
Right.

Liz Pomeroy [00:32:51]:
And I tried a couple of the other websites, welcome to my back garden and stuff like that, where they're similar models, but it's more of a attending situation. And I got zero replies on that. It felt like no one was terribly active on that, but Warmshowers is just the best. Like, there's so many people to choose from in almost every place you're going to. Warmshowers actually helped me root all of my schedule, really, because I would reach out in advance and figure out an appropriate distance for me to cycle and then make sure I had locked down places to stay. And any any times that, I couldn't find a warm shower host, then I would camp or I would rely on networks of my own of people that I knew around the place. But, yeah, Warmshowers was foundational to being able to do this tour. I can't I can't thank it enough, honestly, for existing.

Liz Pomeroy [00:33:45]:
It's so cool.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:46]:
I love hearing that. Well, I have really really enjoyed talking to you and I have so many more questions, but that'll have to be for another time. And so, for people who have been listening to our story and join our conversation, how can they find out what you're up to, where you're traveling with a 2 week lag time, of course? Anything's any information about your new album, where should they look for you?

Liz Pomeroy [00:34:12]:
Well, I should be getting the physical 12 inch vinyl of the new album Pendulum City. Vinyl. It's gold vinyl. I Yeah. You can pre order on the front page of my website. It's ostella.com. 0stella.com is how you spell it. And you actually caught me on the 1st day of, like, gym training, because I'm doing another cycling album tour through Ontario this September.

Liz Pomeroy [00:34:38]:
So, again, I'm relying on house concert hosts and warm shower hosts, to host me through all of that. There's gonna be, concerts in Owen Sound in Toronto, in Napanee, Ontario, Waterloo, a bunch of places. They're all posted on my website, and, I'm always playing house concerts too. And when I do house concerts, they're, like, 2 hours long with a 15 minute intermission and always full of music and of stories from cycling across, all of the different countries that I've been through. So, yeah, if you're interested in following along the tour in Ontario, getting your hands on that beautiful gold vinyl, or, hosting me for a house concert, you can reach me at osella.com or at osellamusic on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and I have a YouTube channel as well, Osella.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:35]:
All those socials. I love it. Well, just know that there is a fantastic music scene in Colorado. So if you ever make your way across the border, come this direction because we've got good music and we always need more.

Liz Pomeroy [00:35:48]:
I have heard. You're definitely on my radar. I would love to.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:51]:
Yeah. Good.

Liz Pomeroy [00:35:51]:
Thank you.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:52]:
Good. Well, everyone, thanks for listening to my conversation with Liz Pomeroy. Oh, Stella. If you enjoyed our show, give us a like, a share on your social channels, or just tell your friends. These stories hopefully will inspire you to set off on your own bicycle adventure and maybe make the world feel a little bit smaller, one pedal stroke at a time. My name is Jerry Kopack, and until next time, keep riding.

Tahverlee [00:36:17]:
Thank you for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed the show as much as we enjoyed making it. Wherever you are listening, please leave us a rating and a review as it helps us reach more cyclists and hosts around the world. Visit us at Warmshowers.org to become a part of our community or on Instagram at Warmshowers_org. If you would like to be a guest on the show or submit a question, please make sure to email us at podcast at Warmshowers.org.