The Plant Powered Pedaler

Join host Tom Butler on this episode as he reflects on the challenges that derailed his January goals and unveils some changes he's planning to reclaim his momentum. Tom's not alone in this journey – he's joined by the dynamic Plant Powered Pedaler, Janet Anspach-Rickey.

In this engaging conversation, Janet shares her story, recounting the events that led her to embark on cycling adventures across the United States and around the globe. But Janet is not just an avid cyclist; she's also a passionate advocate for a whole foods, plant-exclusive diet. Delve into Janet's world as she articulates the impact her dietary choices have had on her overall well-being and the joy she finds with the variety of healthy food options.

Discover the unique synergy between cycling and plant-based living as Janet sheds light on how these elements have become integral to her maintaining an active and vibrant lifestyle. As a devoted proponent of health in later years, Janet has made it her mission to guide others in unlocking the harmonious blend of cycling and plant-based nutrition.

Whether you're a seasoned cyclist, a plant-based enthusiast, or someone seeking inspiration for a healthier life at any age, this episode offers a rich tapestry of experiences and knowledge.

Janet's Links
Janet, the Plant Powered Pedaler!
You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/live/MllUazFzK9g?si=N_nxIK-J9VdVksDt
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/271036111641805/
Instagram: @luv2cyclerickey
Magazine articles:
https://www.cyclevolta.com/story/ebike-basics/couple-circumnavigatest-the-us-on-ebikes/
https://www.adventurecycling.org/sites/default/assets/File/AdventureCyclist/MagazinePDFs/20210401_AdventureCyclist.pdf

 Journals:
https://www.cycleblaze.com/edit-journal/415/
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/promise2014

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Consider becoming a member of the Cycling Over Sixty Strava Club! www.strava.com/clubs/CyclingOverSixty

Please send comments, questions and especially content suggestions to me at tom.butler@teleiomedia.com

Show music is "Come On Out" by Dan Lebowitz. Find him here : lebomusic.com

Transcript

Tom Bulter: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 Podcast, season 2, episode 27. The Plant-Powered Peddler and I'm your host, tom Butler, thanks for joining me here as I journal my attempts to use cycling as a way to turn my health around. This season of the podcast, I'm working on being able to do a 400 mile ride across the state of Washington. These days I am just focused on getting through 33 miles that I'll be doing on the Cascade Bicycle Club Chili Hilly ride coming up in 24 days. That means I need to maximize the impact the next three weeks.

Tom Bulter: 0:48

January was not a good month for the goal I have of riding an average of 10 miles a day. I'm going to have to switch things up if I'm going to get back on track. I'm currently 127 miles behind my pace, so instead of 70 miles a week for February, I'm going to work on getting 90 miles a week. That should make up 80 of those miles. One of the obstacles has been that I'm not riding from home these days, so whenever I ride I need to load everything in the car, put the bike on the bike rack, then I drive down the valley to ride. In reality it's only a mild inconvenience, but it has been enough to keep me from riding a few times. Plus, I really don't like the fact that the trail that I do in the valley is so flat. I ran into a county park employee and talked about the bridge that is currently closed down that keeps me from riding from home. From the information he had, I think it's safe to say that the bridge will be closed down for a long time. Not only does the county need to do some work, but apparently the state has to do some work as well before the bridge can reopen. In a few months there's going to be another bridge that opens on the trail that goes the opposite direction, so I need to come up with a solution that will get me through until that bridge opens, and once it's open, there's going to be lots of options for me to ride from home again.

Tom Bulter: 2:02

While the Foothills Trail, which I ride a lot, is flat, going through the valley I was able to find a route that has more climbing, and I can do that by taking a road that runs parallel to the bike trail for a couple miles, and that means that's a better training route, and I think I might also be able to add a road in my route that looks like it climbs up out of the valley and add some more elevation by doing that. The current route has 348 feet of climbing in 30 miles and I think I can raise that up to a thousand feet by taking these alternative roads to the trail. The roads don't have much of a shoulder but there are not many cars on them, so I think it is safe. I think I need a better job of making it easy to get out of the house and on the road, so maybe doing things like leaving my helmet in the car all the time and finding other things that I can just leave in the car, that could be helpful and I might just leave my trunk rack on the car at all times. I would like to understand more about the psychology of getting into a habit of riding more.

Tom Bulter: 3:10

I'm listening to a book titled how to Change the Science of Getting from when you Are to when you Want to Be by Katie Milkman. I'm very impressed with the book so far, even though I'm not that far into it, and after I get done with the book I'm going to try to get someone from the Behavior Change for Good initiative at University of Pennsylvania to come on the podcast. Dr Milkman is co-director of the initiative, but I think she is pretty busy consulting with small places like the Department of Defense, google and the American Red Cross, so I don't think I'm going to be able to get her on the podcast, but I would be happy with anybody from the initiative. I'm excited to be going for a ride for the first time with my daughter McKenna in a couple of days. I hope that we can find a bike setup for her that she really likes. Go back a couple episodes if you want to learn more about McKenna's decision to start cycling. I'm curious to see how long it is before I'm working hard to try to keep up with her.

Tom Bulter: 4:06

I believe this is the next step to having cycling be a major part of our family time together. I am motivated for it to go well. I'm not finding the dietary changes that I'm making to be easy, but I am totally sold on the fact that a plant based diet low in carbohydrates is a solution to my metabolic dysfunction. In addition to information on cycling that I share here, I also want to share what I can about healthy eating. Almost a year ago, I got connected with Janet Antspaugh-Ricky, aka the plant powered peddler. I find her to be a prime example of what happens when you pair healthy eating with cycling. I'm so glad that, despite her power going out the morning before the interview, she was able to join me this week on the podcast. Here's our conversation. I think it's fair to describe my guest today as extraordinary. Welcome to Cycling Over 60, janet Antspaugh-Ricky.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 5:11

Yes, yay, 68 is going to be 69 in March.

Tom Bulter: 5:16

Okay, all right. Well, you look fantastic. I love seeing all your adventures. I became aware of you a while back and have you on the show ever since then. When we were both at VegFest I saw that you posted something and we never got a chance to connect. So I'm glad we finally got a chance to do that and you're here to add to the discussion with the podcast.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 5:44

That was a very busy weekend, wasn't it, tom?

Tom Bulter: 5:46

Yes, I think you were more busy than me. I wasn't volunteering. I know that you were volunteering, you kept me busy. Yes, I'm going to start out this way. What is a memory you have about bicycles as a kid?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 5:58

When I was a little one, I had a big, heavy blue twin and the brakes were the ones that were in your pedal. You just pedaled backwards and the brakes would go on. I remember riding that bike. I must have been six or seven and so it was just a huge bicycle, but I loved it and I would ride it down to the end of the street, which seemed like so far away. And then, as a teenager, my father got us a three-speed Raleigh and very quickly all the speeds broke and it was stuck in third and so nobody wanted to ride it. So I rode it. I rode it everywhere.

Tom Bulter: 6:33

Okay, fantastic.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 6:36

Yeah.

Tom Bulter: 6:37

Now, when you were growing up, was there a big emphasis on a healthy lifestyle.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 6:41

No Standard American diet. Yeah, I've always been really active, though, and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get weight off because I was so active, but it was because of my diet.

Tom Bulter: 6:53

Okay. So if you say standard American diet, the typical American diet, then there's a big focus on processed foods usually in that diet. Does that describe how you grew up?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 7:05

That was the day you know where everything came in a box or a bag. My mom had five kids and she hated to cook. So yeah, processed food yes.

Tom Bulter: 7:15

Now, have you always enjoyed cycling?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 7:17

Yes, but there were, when I married the first guy, my school of hard knocks. I was busy working all the time, so bicycling took a backseat. But then I remember even at one point I was working up in an office this is before I became a physical therapist and I started riding my bicycle to work and I even remember I was trying to sell Tupperware on the side. I was, he spent money and I tried to make it and pay off our bills. I remember I was trying to take Tupperware to work and I was on the bicycle holding the Tupperware bag, you know, with the handlebar, and that's not a good thing to do and it got caught between me and my knee and my handlebar and I couldn't do anything and I ended up kind of wrapping around the pole and I had a skirt on and stockings, you know I was, and I was hoping, oh, I hope nobody saw. And then, wouldn't you know, a couple of weeks later somebody said was that you?

Tom Bulter: 8:14

Oh my.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 8:15

And I was really shook up but I had to work. So I got back on my bike and, you know, my stockings were all ripped and I was bleeding and somehow I got to work and that was the school of hard knocks. But actually I took a bicycle to University of Buffalo where I was in physical therapy school, and it was stolen within. You know, the first two weeks I was putting myself through, so I couldn't get a bike after that, so I just walked back and forth to the campus about a mile each way. But then when I got my first job in Dayton Ohio, I went to the bike shop and got a bicycle, a 12 speed, and I joined the bike shop there in Dayton Ohio and I started riding with all the different rides. One night it would there'd be a ride in a town close by and I'd go to that one and I just rode with everybody because I just loved it so much and I was also playing soccer at that time, but still heavy.

Tom Bulter: 9:08

You hadn't lost a feeling that you liked to bike.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 9:11

Right, it was always in there.

Tom Bulter: 9:13

I'm wondering did you feel like you needed to learn a lot about bikes when you were buying that 12 speed? Did you just kind of go in and choose what they recommended? How was that process at that time?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 9:27

Yeah, I went in I knew I wanted to start riding, I wanted to get on a bike. So I just went in and talked to the owner and asked him what would he suggest? And he suggested that 12 speed rally. And it was a good start for me. But pretty quickly there were these gals that were in their fifties, and at that time I was 30. They were the pros and they could ride and ride and ride. They said, okay, come on, we're going to ride to Cincinnati and back from Dayton. It's about 75 miles one way. And I'm like we're going to ride to Cincinnati. Are you kidding me? And I did, and I thought I was going to die. And when I got to where we were staying that night I said I can't ride tomorrow, I can't. They said you wait, just go to bed. Tomorrow you'll wake up, you'll have a better day than today. They were right.

Tom Bulter: 10:19

Wow.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 10:20

The second day was awesome and I was hooked.

Tom Bulter: 10:23

Okay.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 10:24

That was it.

Tom Bulter: 10:25

Okay.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 10:26

I don't know how I did that, but I rode short rides every day and I must have tried to get ready for it, but I was exhausted.

Tom Bulter: 10:37

Well, that was quite a trip to go from kind of shorter rides to all of a sudden 75 miles each way.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 10:44

So get ready for that. But they could do it, and I thought they're old, they can do it, I can do it, I've got to do it, you know, and so I did. And then I did the tour of the Ohio River Valley, from Columbus Ohio to Kentucky.

Tom Bulter: 10:58

You mentioned going back to school and becoming a physical therapist. How did that impact your view of staying fit, staying active, things like that?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 11:08

I was trying to get fit my whole life and I, you know, I did pretty good. I suppose I would have weighed a lot more if I wasn't as active as I was With that first marriage. I tried to. He was an alcoholic and I was a compulsive overeater and I was so frustrated I tried to, you know, eat my way out of the marriage, you know, out of the misery, and that didn't work. And so when I left there, that's when I was pretty near my highest, I was probably in the 180s. I got up to just short of 200. I just I couldn't weigh myself. After I saw 199 and three-fourths, so I don't know how much over 200 I went, but I was a big girl.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 11:48

That's when I was 23, when I left that situation and I wanted to go back to school and find out if I had any brains left, and so I had been doing jobs that had been so dead end. I was just so bored all the time I had to leave the state. Because the relationship addiction is another one and I, you know, whenever I would get upset, then he would cry and he'd be a totally different person when he wasn't drunk. So anyways, I thought I got to get out of the state. So I went to Ohio. Purdue University is where the boys went because they got to go to college. I was a girl, so why would? My dad didn't want to waste his money on girls because I was just gonna have kids and not be able to do anything with it. So I went to and stayed with my sister's girlfriend. They didn't believe that I was supporting myself because I was a girl. This was in the 70s, like 78, 79. And I couldn't believe it and they wouldn't give me a loan and they wouldn't accept me into the division of undergraduate education. But I could go to the adult education. So that means you got to take night classes. Well, I could take some day classes and some night classes. So I went and met with the dean and I said I'm coming all the way from East Aurora, which was about 20 miles from University of Buffalo. Could I just take them all during the day, even though I'm in the adult education side of things? And he said yeah, and he signed me off. So I took all the courses, took five courses and took all my grades to registration at the end of the semester and they went. Oh, but they didn't think I could carry a full load because I was a girl. So anyways, I did and I did fine. I got three as and two Cs and two of these weed out courses where there's 400 kids in the class and Cs were pretty there and good they were passing, so anyway.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 13:36

So then they accepted me into the division of undergraduate education and then I had to go through three cuts in the physical therapy program. Oh my gosh, was that ever nerve wracking? So we were a small group, maybe 60 of us and they chopped us down to 50 by the end of the third chop and each time you come back after being gone for a semester you look around to see who was it that got chopped. I mean, everybody be freaked out because you get really close with that small number of people. Then I played soccer and I was heavy and it was. You know, it was hard to run and everything, and I contracted mono. I had actually I spent summers doing things like Coing corn in Michigan to get some money together and I worked as a camp counselor, that's, I came out West to work as a camp counselor for a summer and I think I got mono from one of the kids or something, and so I really was exhausted and couldn't concentrate and actually had to decelerate. So I took an extra year, which was wonderful because I slowed down and just taken the courses better.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 14:49

And then I graduated in 1984 from physical therapy school, but I was always. I mean, what happened when I got to Purdue is I made an appointment with a guidance counselor because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just knew I needed to get better educated. So I didn't have to work at these jobs, these menial jobs that I was working at. And when I was waiting to go into her office, I was leafing through the catalogs. And physical therapy I'd never heard of it before and it was. It was doing the kinds of things that I wanted to do.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 15:19

I mean physical education. I always loved gym, I always loved sports, and I thought this is, this is what I want to do. So by the time I went and met with her, I said I know what I want to do. Tell me how to get it. And then it was like well, it's a very competitive field. Are you sure that's what you want to do? And cause? I'm a heavy girl here and I don't know if that influences people, but I think it does. Even when I went to get my transcripts from my high school, the guidance counselor said oh come on, janet, be realistic, you know, but I got in. I got in, I was, I had to interview and they accepted me and I made it through the whole thing and even had to decelerate and I loved it. I mean, I'm kind of a geek, I love reading the science and, yeah, I've always been interested in being fit.

Tom Bulter: 16:03

Well, I just love that picture of tenacity, you know, I mean it's a. It's a situation where you stuck with it and you saw where you wanted to be. You wanted to be in a different place when you pursued it, and I think that's an awesome story of what happens when you stay with it and pursue it.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 16:23

I'm like a pit bull. There you go, don't. Don't tell me no, you know, I'm not asking yes or no. I'm asking how do I do this?

Tom Bulter: 16:31

Right, right. Again. I'm thinking that working as a physical therapist you get to see the difference between people that are active and looking to stay fit and people that kind of succumb to the traditional kind of American sedentary lifestyle. Is that fair to say?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 16:52

Sure yes.

Tom Bulter: 16:53

And so, even in healing and recovery and everything, I'm guessing you had some experience seeing the impact of being fit.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 17:04

Oh, yes, yes, and of course, most of the people that I treated were not fit. I became interested in joint pain. I actually continued to educate myself and I became a diploma in mechanical diagnosis and therapy treating low back pain, neck pain and all the joints respond to certain movements and positioning and figuring out you know what aggravated the joint pain and what alleviated. It was amazing and it could help people avoid the bad things and do more of the good things and allow the body to do what it naturally does, which is heal. So I quickly became bored with the physical therapy shaking and baking hot packs, ultrasound massage, passive treatment for people that wanted to need it to be active. I mean, even if they were not real fit people, they were active people. So in other words, they needed to be able to cook, clean the house. I mean a lot of things that drive in the car, which is very difficult when you're suffering from a low back pain episode. So I took some post-education courses and then continued to pursue this method that I saw gave results immediately. I mean they would. They treat patients right In front of the class and they went over the three or four days. The person is 90, 95% better. That's how dramatic it is.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 18:32

I thought this is for me and so I pursued it and became the faculty and I was one of two women. There was a woman on the East Coast and me on the West Coast. We were the only two women instructors for a period of time, and then now there's many more, which is wonderful, and I've been retired now for 11 years and I still use the method I from Stephen and I. It's wonderful, stephen is my husband. It's just I'm like, because a lot of people can't do it. You can't avoid the aggravating thing and that's why you're not getting better, because the aggravating thing is one of your daily activities that you don't wanna give up, like sitting, so it doesn't get better.

Tom Bulter: 19:18

At some point along the way you started writing, longer writes, I mean you started doing some touring.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 19:24

Yes.

Tom Bulter: 19:25

How did you decide to start doing longer writes?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 19:27

Let me tell you, well, you know, out here it's, there's Seattle to Portland, seattle to Portland. I did 10 times and Stephen has two. Okay, so you know, here we go to 1988, I met Stephen, so I moved out here. I was in Dayton Ohio and then I came out here to spend a couple of weeks with my brother and it just I'm like, what am I doing in Dayton Ohio when I could be out here in the West and everybody likes the same kinds of things that I do, because in Dayton you're gonna do what You're gonna, aren't you getting tired? And I mean I finally found somebody that would do a triathlon with me. But I mean, even in physical therapy they thought I was crazy with all the writing and the soccer and the activity that I did. But out here, it's natural, everybody's out walking and writing and rollerblading and skiing and there's just a lot of active people camping.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 20:23

Stephen was not riding a bicycle, he had, but he felt he was too old. Now he was 40 and I was 32 when we met and I said, well, I've gotta go do this training for this ride. I said, would you be willing to come pick me up in Portland? You know how you always have to find a darn ride. That he said, yeah, I'll come pick you up. So for weekends I would be gone doing a 50 mile ride, because if you can do a 50 mile ride in Kitsap County, you can do STP 200. And you know, you've been over here, it's very hilly over here.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 20:58

So he came and picked me up and of course 10,000 riders, all ages, all shapes and sizes, all different kinds of bikes, are coming in and he's caught up in it. He says that's it, I'm gonna do it. So he got a bicycle and he trained with me and he did the Seattle to Portland the next year. And I said, well, you know what I really wanna do, I wanna ride across the country. And he said, okay, I couldn't believe it. So in 1990, we did the Northern Tier with the adventure cycling maps and that I thought, okay, I'll get it out of my system If I just take time off, work real hard, get all the bills paid, save up and then take three months and cross the country. And it just got me hooked even more.

Tom Bulter: 21:48

It sounds like it did the opposite than get it out of your system.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 21:50

The hardest part was when I came back. It took me about two years to get back into work. Come home, oh, I just hated it. I didn't wanna work. I said, steven, we need to work and get as much money in savings and investment as we can so we can retire and just ride. And that's what we did. I retired when I was 56, he was 59. And when he retired at 59, he went out and got the maps for the trans-American and he took off and rode it by himself and I virtually followed him because I was teaching and I was really in getting enough for retirement. But he rode across the country by himself, okay. And then that I said okay, but you gotta promise to do it when I retire. And that's where the first round the country trip came, the 11,695 mile one, because I added to it yes, I'm glad I'm talking to you because I am hoping in September to do the first leg from Anacortis to.

Tom Bulter: 23:02

I'll stop at the Idaho border on Highway 20, which I think was that part of your route.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 23:10

Yeah, oh yeah, the North Cascades Highway. In fact, we're doing that this summer, are you really? Yeah, we're gonna take the train to Spokane and then ride back.

Tom Bulter: 23:18

Okay, okay, well, later summer or mid-summer, do you know?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 23:24

July.

Tom Bulter: 23:25

Okay, I'm trying to get past the heat. I don't do so well in the heat. Maybe my body will adjust somewhat. But yeah, and then I'm going the other direction. I was gonna say maybe we would say hi along the way, but I think you'll be off the road by the time I get going.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 23:43

Well, I've actually been known to skip the train and just ride to wherever the ride starts. This year we were supposed to do it this last August but the fires canceled the whole thing out and you know it is cooler in the mountains, just to let you know, although it can get hot. But anyway, yeah, we had the trip all reserved, you know hotels and wherever we were gonna stay along the way, and then we were gonna take the train back from well, the leader was gonna take the train back from Spokane. Steve and I were just gonna ride. So I'm not sure what we'll do this year, but we're gonna come back the North Cascades Highway, so we'd probably go out a different way if we went out like along the Columbia or something I don't know, gotcha.

Tom Bulter: 24:23

Yeah, at some point you make a transition to e-bikes. Can you talk about that?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 24:28

So we did the first 11,000 miles in over a year on regular bikes Rodriguez's. And then Stephen said, okay, if I'm gonna do another long tour now he's in his 70s. He's 76 this year, so he would have been like 73 when we did the 2018-2019 12,000 mile trip. He says, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna need some assists. And I said, well, okay, you know, let's go try some out.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 24:58

And so we rode all different e-bikes, but the first one that I rode was over at Seattle Electric Bikes. We went over there and we hopped on the bikes and I rode it and I said, if you get one of these, I'm getting one too, because it just was immediately so much fun. And so for the next year we just, everywhere we went, we tried out e-bikes. If there were any in that area, we'd find a bike store and say, can we try these? And so we rode all different kinds of bikes and we wanted one that was really strong, to where we could load it up as much as we wanted and it would go up to 70 miles with no problem. We actually ended up with the Bulls Crosslight E at Seattle Electric Bikes. We kind of forgotten about it because we've been on so many different bikes so we thought let's go back there and try those. And as soon as we got on them because we tried so many different bikes we knew right away these are the two bikes.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 25:56

Now I think I do a V804 or a Q. Those are a couple of really good brands.

Tom Bulter: 26:04

And when you say that is that keeping in mind that you use them for touring those brands. Those models are particularly good for touring.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 26:12

They need to be able to do lots of mileage, they need to be able to be so sturdy, they need to not be so heavy themselves, because there are times on a tour, like at the down there on the along the Columbia, there's at least three flights of stairs that you have to climb up. Is it at Cascade Locks or one of the little towns there on the bike path? You know, fully loaded, we had to lift the bikes up the stairs there. So there are situations where you there's a walk assist, but you can't use a walk assist to get up steps. There are big stone steps. Have you been down there? I haven't. No, there's so many.

Tom Bulter: 26:54

I'm telling you doing this podcast. There are so many routes that I have on my list to do.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 27:01

Yeah.

Tom Bulter: 27:02

In an interview that I read, you said that once you get started, it's hard to stop. I can hear that in what you're saying, but can you talk more about that?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 27:12

I don't want to get on a train, I don't want to get on a bus, I just want to. I want to ride. I want to see what's around the next bend. Who am I going to meet at the next town? What kind of situations are we going to get ourselves into? Yeah, I just love to ride. I love the tour. There's just something about it. It just gets under your skin. I have a really hard time stopping once we start. Just like you said, there's so many paths.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 27:40

For instance, when we started out on the Trans American in 2014, we did the Trans American. But then he says, janet, we got to do the Gap and the CNO In Kentucky. We turned north, we went up to Lake Erie because I'm from Buffalo. So I thought, oh, I want to see Lake Erie. So we saw Lake Erie. Then we went over to this point where you go down into Pittsburgh for the Pittsburgh spur. That's where we picked up the greater Allegheny.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 28:09

Then we took the CNO right into Washington DC. Right when you come out, there's a hostel. We stayed there and then we found our way down to Virginia and back to the Trans American. We took that back west to where we left it in Kentucky and we went down the underground railroad route that we were on. So we did the Trans American to the underground railroad route to the Pittsburgh spur, to the Gap, to the CNO. So then we went underground railroad route down to Mobile, alabama, and then the Southern Tier to San Diego and then the Pacific Coast right up to back up to home. Because why get on a train when you can do it on a bicycle?

Tom Bulter: 28:53

Oh, I mean, there's a real pattern there of you starting out going yeah, but we got that, one more, yeah, but there's one more here, there's one more here, so that one more trail.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 29:04

Stephen calls it mission creep Right.

Tom Bulter: 29:08

Okay, what would you say has been your biggest challenge when it comes to cycling?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 29:13

Stop it.

Tom Bulter: 29:14

Okay, have you experienced any crashes?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 29:21

Oh, yeah, yeah, In fact, in 2000,. In fact that's why we live in this house now. So you know, good things come out of everything. But it was oh, 2020, covid, october 17, 2020.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 29:34

I was in the rain on a club ride, going down a hill, and I must have my bike must have just slipped out from under me. I don't remember any of it because apparently my head was hitting the road, you know, as I was rolling down the road and I fractured my pelvis in three places, broke my nose, blunt force on my chest and I still have a rib that, just, you know, kind of goes out if I'm on my stomach in a certain posture head injury. So it was a pretty significant injury. And then Stephen had surgery. So I had that on Saturday and then he had surgery that Monday.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 30:15

We thought, well, you might as well, because then two of us will just be laid up and Emma and Dennis, who are two bicycling buddies. They came and took care of us and cooked for us, because we were already whole food plant exclusive and so they knew what to make us and they just graciously came and helped out, because at first, you know, I was just camping around on a walk or I couldn't even put weight on it for like the first week, or gradually as the week went on I could. Fortunately I'm a PT, so within four weeks I was on a trainer, on the deck and riding on my trainer, and within five weeks I was back on the bike, on the road again on the e-bike.

Tom Bulter: 30:54

Wow, that's quite a testament to the power of the body to heal when you give it what it needs.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 31:01

Yeah it really is. It goes so much faster you just give it. You know, the first week I just didn't worry about anything, I just let it heal, and but then you have to sort of challenge it a little bit, but not too much, and it's just to me it's fascinating. Healing is just fascinating. So it was very beneficial.

Tom Bulter: 31:21

Now, you guys were featured in an adventure cycling association article at one point and they said that you and Stephen have, quote checked off nearly every big bike tour. You can imagine and I can understand that.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 31:33

We've done the northern tier, the trans American, the southern tier, the Pacific Coast, the, the, the underground rainbow route, the gap, the CNO. We've done the East Coast Greenway. We did another version of northern tier, going across South Dakota through the Badlands and Mount Rushmore and bike crazy horse, and so we wanted to see some different things. So we've been across the north twice, we've been across the south twice, we've been up and down the Pacific Coast three times. You know, we just, yeah, we've done a lot of touring. We've been over in Europe, we've been to Germany and Austria and we've been to New Zealand. I spent a month last year in Australia just doing rides from Perth. I didn't do a tour, I just was staying there while Stephen was at a retreat. I just love to go explore Can you talk about that.

Tom Bulter: 32:24

What's? What is the difference that it makes like traveling traveling through new areas on a bicycle versus in a car?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 32:30

Well, you learn it, you know it better than the locals, because you're riding and you don't want to be on a main street, so you're doing the back roads. And when I used to, I used to be a physical therapy instructor for this technique, the Mackenzie technique and I would, we would go to a town about a day early because I developed these migraines as I was, my health was not doing great because I, when I teach, I love it, so I give it 150%, wear myself out, and I'd come home and I'd have to treat patients and you know it was, it was just was too much. But I would take the. We had these bike Fridays and we'd go a day early so that if I got a migraine I could at least sleep off that day. But if I was OK, then we could put our bikes together and we would go explore the town and we would know the town better than the people in the course.

Tom Bulter: 33:23

That's awesome.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 33:24

Yeah, oh, it's wonderful exploring a town on a bicycle. It's so much easier to find things because you can stop and start and turn here and turn suddenly and not in front of anything. But you know, and of course we find the grocery store and we might find the library and we would look things up. I mean, google Maps and ride with GPS has just been game changing.

Tom Bulter: 33:49

I'm guessing that there's an element of just being outdoors that's attractive to you.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 33:54

Yeah, In fact the 1990 tour was all camping. We spent one night in a hotel in New England because there were flash flood warnings and Stephen had woken up in a couple of inches of water on his side of the tent. That morning we were just so wet and Saddam Hussein was invading Kuwait. There was such a storm out there thunder and lightning we get in our room and the power goes out. We thought we'd be able to catch up on the news and we couldn't because the power went out. Still, it was nice to have a roof over our heads that night, but the rest of the time we can't.

Tom Bulter: 34:33

You seem to have a great group of people there that you ride with consistently. I see you with them on social media. How did that group form?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 34:44

We have a club, west Sound Sightly Club, and there's a small group of us that like to go on all these tours. That's actually how it is that I switched to Whole Foods because Charlie and Carol, when we went on a tour in Arizona in 2020, they had switched. They were only eating. They were doing no animal products, no processed, hyper processed things like oils, things where everything's extracted out of it except for maybe one ingredient. They were avoiding all that and eating Whole Foods fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes and whole grains. So, ahead of time, contact. Wherever it was, we were staying if it was like a B&B and seeing what they could have and people would accommodate them. So we were rolling our eyes and thinking what are they doing now? What are they into now? But he gave us a documentary to watch Eating you Alive and we watched that documentary.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 35:45

I could not eat an animal. After I watched that documentary, I thought how could I ever eat an animal? I mean, I love animals. Somehow they condition us from birth to see these animals as different than the dogs and the cats and the gerbils and everything. But it just opened my eyes what they're doing to them, how they're mass butchering them and killing them when they're still alive. I mean draining out. I don't want to go into detail, but yeah, I am. I'm so glad that I've gone to plants because there's so much variety in what you can eat and how you can prepare things. You know, you don't need oil to caramelize an onion. It does beautifully just by itself and maybe with a little bit of water it's totally unnecessary. Oil is 4,000 calories a pound. So when you take everything, vegetables are like 100 calories a pound and oil is 4,000 calories a pound. No wonder I couldn't take weight off.

Tom Bulter: 36:49

So talk about that a little bit more. You're talking here about what an influence kind of looking at animals with you as far as making a shift to considering plant-based diet, but now you're known as the plant-powered peddler and so you found some real health benefits with going 100% plant-based.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 37:13

And so I weight dropped 47 pounds, which I had no idea. So I dropped 40 pounds over the years because I finally realized that dieting was not the way to go and the only way to stop binging was to stop dieting. And it was the scariest thing because you always got to be on a diet when you're heavy, because you're always supposed to be trying to get that weight off and I wanted to. I hated being heavy because I liked being active, and physical therapists are so skinny Not all of them, but according to me they were and I couldn't do it and I just it just evaded me all those years and I didn't. I couldn't understand why. And I didn't understand about calorie density and just the fact. Well, the China study was another thing that was pointed out to me, where he found that animal protein causes cancer. And that's what they're learning is that all these processed foods and animal products are destroying us. They're they're causing heart disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia. They're making a set.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 38:13

As soon as we went off all the animal products dairy, salt, sugar, fat, oil, flower I think that's the main ones and animal products but our cholesterol dropped a hundred points our weight. Both of our weight drops mine dropped 47 pounds. Stevens dropped 35, our blood pressure Normalized, our heart rate normalized. I mean it just was amazing. We felt so good, we've got lots of energy, feels like now we're getting younger instead of older. The brain clears. It's just. It's just amazing. And how long has it been? Now, 2020? We July of 2020.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 38:51

I said, if you, if you've ever heard dr Michael Gregor wrote how not to die, how not to age, how not to diet.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 38:59

That that's kind of the series that he does.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 39:01

I listen to him on YouTube and I bought his cookbook and I just started making meals out of his cookbook, because when you can't eat Animal products and processed food anymore, you think what is there? Because that's all we ate and Although we thought we were reading healthy, you know, I mean, we ate vegetables, we ate salads, but what we ate processed stuff too, and I key, I mean even dressings with our packed with oils and salts and and things that kind of coat your mouth so that you don't can't really taste, and so you keep on eating more and more to try to get Satiated and you don't really taste the real food. When you get rid of all that stuff, first you have to go through the withdrawals, of Not being able to taste because your, your mouth is everything so dulled from the oil and the salt. It takes a while to reset your palate, reset your microbiome, so that it starts to crave real food. And once you crave real food, you don't ever want to go back, because it's just amazing.

Tom Bulter: 40:05

I'm hearing a couple aspects of an adjustment period. One is what you just got done talking about is letting your system including taste buds, but kind of your entire body Adjust to having different things put into it, and then also this adjustment of finding different things to eat, and it sounds like you are Well ahead as far as all the sources you found for good foods, foods that you look forward to. You're not like wiped out any tastefulness or anything.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 40:44

You know I'm saying I've actually got more in. Yeah, now you know there's so easy. The Asians, the there's Thai and Sushi that you can make just with vegetables and rice and nori wraps and there's, there's just, there's so much variety. You eat a rainbow of colors. People think that whole food means just lettuce and tomato and it's Mixed greens and onions and mushrooms and garlic. And I'm cooking it out of an Indian cookbook right now. Who's SOS free? And she's lost 60 pounds and I mean the Indians have a really hard time giving up oil, but when they do all their stuff, their spices, they're so wonderful, just toasted, dry in the pan before you add anything else, and then it's just. I have a YouTube channel now and I put to give people ideas and there's a lot of us out there now and there's lots and lots of books. Now there's that Jane and Anne Esselstyn and and Dr Plugwell.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 41:43

Esselstyn is the prevent and reverse heart disease cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic and he's 89 years old now and he's just amazing and he gives heart patients the option of Going whole food and they found that you could reverse your condition, oftentimes eating whole food, plant Exclusive, and you just have to be really strict for a while and you. Just they show how an artery is clogged and Then three months later, after switching to the whole foods, the artery opens up again. So he's he realized that when he would do heart bypass surgeries and Didn't tell people about their diet, they'd be back in three months needing another one. So it's, the diet, is the food, he realized. And Dr John McDougal he was working in Hawaii and the grandparents were doing fine, they ate, but they came from Japan and and they ate the way they ate in Japan, which was a very low fat, not very much meat diet, you know, basically a whole food, plant based diet. But then the next generation, that was more American eyes, they were sick and their kids were even sicker and he realized it's because the diet was changing and becoming more processed as they became Americanized. And so he writes the book, the starch solution, and he studied all the different cultures. And we grow up though. Those of us that survived survived on beans, potatoes, rice. You know, if you look at the different cultures, they weren't meat laden or oil late. It's just since we've become more affluent We've brought those in and it's doing us in in.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 43:32

I think it was World War two. Germany took over Sweden for a while. And so they took all the meat and the Sweden at the heart degree of heart disease went way down Amongst the Swedish people. And then, when the war was over in Germany, left and they got their meat in their their dairy bath. The incidence of heart disease went right back up again.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 43:52

And Dr Esselson tells that story and he says you know, we didn't pay attention and it's just, the research is so Obvious that that's the way to go to avoid the chronic illnesses. And yet you know, we all want to ignore it because we're just hooked. There's a thing called the pleasure trap where our brains are wired because we've, for generations We've been in a lack situation, in a starvation situation, couldn't get enough food, and now we've got way too much food, and so it's very difficult for us to turn off the brain. The brain sees the calorie dense food and it says that's where you get, that's what you need and it's what helped us to survive. But now it's killing us, it's doing the opposite, but we can't, you can't give it up. I mean, it's just, the brain seeks pleasure of voice, pain and wants to conserve energy. So it it wants to take the quickest route to what will fill us without regard to the nutrition of it, and so it's up to us to Make the distinction and shift it now.

Tom Bulter: 44:57

I can hear your passion in that and the impact that it's had on you personally, and I think that you Are an influence on people partly because you I think you're a natural teacher, so talk about that. How does it feel when you see someone either becoming more active or someone walking away from the standard American diet? Based on your interactions with them, how does that feel? It's a miracle, I.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 45:22

I just, I just this is really what I should have been doing instead of physical therapy Although I love physical therapy for what it could do for me and Steven. But I I'm so passionate about it because for 65 years it evaded me and I didn't know what to do and I wanted it. I wanted it so bad and and I had given up and I was just doing the best I could, thinking you know, this is good, this is my life, but it's 65. When I found this and within the first month I dropped 10 pounds, I couldn't believe it. You know, I didn't even weigh myself that much because I thought I'm not going to do the narends scale thing Because it's so discouraging. I just want to feel better, I want to get my cholesterol down. It was more for health than although I wanted the weight loss, you know, and and it worked and it just kept coming off and over 15 months the most I could ever get down to was a 138. That was my weight pressure's goal Because I did all the diets.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 46:21

Weight watchers was one of them. I was a lifetime member three times and I would get to 138. And then then they say, okay, you've reached your goal, so now you, you're gonna eat like normal people. It's like you know, I'm a volumeter. I can't eat like normal people. I can't eat fast food. I can't do Soda pop it would I'm so grateful for because it's terrible for the body. It's just once you realize that and you and you picture this stuff going into this amazing Machine that we have that can huddle my butt across the country, around the country. I don't want to ruin it.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 46:58

And so, and also watching my family, they're all on blood pressure medication, they're all having problems with their memories. My brothers have Alzheimer's, my dad had it. I mean it's just, it's just heartbreaking and their diets and terrible. And like my sister, she lives right next door and I tried to talk her into Getting healthier and she was like yeah, yeah, yeah. And then now she's goes to the doctor. She has she's pre-diabetic, she's breast cancer, she's got high blood pressure, they want to put around all these meds and she comes to me with the head and the head and she says, okay, tell me what I have to do. And she did it. She did it last February. She dropped 30 pounds, she's gone through chemo, she's had no side effects.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 47:47

I mean it's incredible the recovery that you have, even if it's too late and you get things like I mean, for 65 years I could definitely have something going on in my body, but I'm gonna eat this way because your body can heal. It can still heal. So and you'll hear so many stories on YouTube of people that you know they find out that they've got cancer Even after they've gone on the whole food lifestyle track. But they respond better to surgeries Afterwards and they they heal back up, they get over it, they cure it. You know I mean they're not supposed to use that word cure it but they they're in remission and they're doing great and they feel better than they felt.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 48:30

This one fellow. He was in his 80s. He had end stage heart disease and he met dr Esselstyn and he switched to a whole food diet and he is now almost 90 and he's hiking what I mean. He was in stage. He could not even walk. Currently he was so afraid that hit that the big one was gonna hit him and now he's doing all kinds of things again. So he says it's, it's his best life since he's gone whole food in his 80s.

Tom Bulter: 48:59

You know, when you are in the circle, when you're traveling in the circles of people that are making these changes, you just see incredible things. Yeah, you're able to do.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 49:07

Yeah, we're all so happy and you know it used to be we'd get a hotel near, near a restaurant. Now we get a hotel near the, the grocery store, and if there's a co-op, oh wow, there's a co-op or you know on, or one that specializes in organics or something. Yeah, that's what excites us now. Or or or with them. You know they want to do they still go out to eat. I don't I.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 49:30

What I like to do is the plant powered peddler to show people how you can Stay whole food plant exclusive no matter what. So, not last year but the year before, we did a 30-day tour up into the Canadian ice fields, the BAMP, jasper, and we left from Sandpoint Idaho and we rode on up there. We went through glacier, we went through a water ton, so I was staying in the national parks and I would plan and I would carry my food and I stayed a whole food plant exclusive the whole way and I would just, you know ahead of time, I would make sure that there be, you know, a place where I could cook or an outlet. I carried a rice cooker and you can do it and it's fun, it's a challenge, I love it. I get to eat all I want of my food, instead of struggling a restaurant where you know they just can't not put oil and salt in things and ruin them. To me it contaminates them. Now I don't want it.

Tom Bulter: 50:28

You talked a little bit about some of the things that you have coming up, some of the rides you have coming up. What are some trips that you're really looking forward to in the future.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 50:38

Well, I mean, you know this ride back from Spokane. I've been wanting to do that North Cascades highway, again on an e-bike. So that's one of the things that once we got these e-bikes we thought we have to redo everything because it's so much fun on the e-bikes. So there's some of that going on. We've got a ride that's gonna go around the Olympic Peninsula and down to Eugene. That's gonna be in June.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 51:01

I last year I did a I called the two volcanoes and a nursery ride. I want to do that again this year. That's a hub and spoke and we'll go up paradise to paradise lodge. So we we start in Ashford and we ride up to the lodge. I love that ride, it's such a fun ride. And then we go to Mount St Hallens and I think this year we're gonna stay in Randall and go up the windy side.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 51:23

But the last couple years we've gone up to the observatory. This last year we couldn't get to the observatory because there was a big mudslide, but we got to within one or two miles of it because we rode past the close sign Until there was a fell in a truck that said, well, you better not go any further because there's there's uniforms up there they might give you a ticket or something. Okay, okay, he says, but Sunday, where none of us are up there, but we had a lead. So and then the nursery was. There's the Bertridge nursery, in on Alaska, and there the fellow Mike who owns it there he took us on a tour. He just happened to be in the mood and that just was a wonderful experience to to hear how he found his nursery and all the things that he grows there, and that was really cool.

Tom Bulter: 52:09

That's cool. Well, I want to come out sometime and do a ride with you guys. Yeah, I think right now I'd have a hard time keeping up on the hills of the kids at Peninsula, but maybe we'll be kind.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 52:24

Okay, you know, being in a club, we just go whatever speed, whoever's riding with us can go, and we come over to Seattle so we could come over there.

Tom Bulter: 52:34

I love it out there. You know I'm getting ready to do the chili hilly on Bainbridge, which was a little bit similar terrain.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 52:42

Oh yeah, that's kids that county.

Tom Bulter: 52:44

Definitely, we usually do it on the day other than chili hilly you know there's also the possibility of me trying out an e-bike which I have ridden a ways, so that would be kind of fun too. So I'll have to figure out some time to get over there. Okay you mentioned your YouTube. What, what's your YouTube channel and how are other ways that people can follow your journey?

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 53:07

But I will send it to you. I put all my links in my journals. I've got. I'm in the cycle blaze and crazy guy in a bike plant powered peddler in the Instagram has left to cycle. Ricky, yeah, I'll send you off.

Tom Bulter: 53:20

I'll send you that page of the PowerPoint and then I can drop that all in the show notes so people can find it there. Excellent, janet, that's so much fun. I'm having the time to talk to you and and hear your story and your passion, and I look forward to seeing more of your adventures that you have. Thanks for coming on.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 53:42

I'm so glad we were able to connect. That was just so strange that I we couldn't get on because of their power outage. But it's it worked out it did well.

Tom Bulter: 53:51

Thank you again, janet, and the best of times for you and Steven, as you're out and about and we'll talk again later.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 54:00

Sounds good time. Good to meet you.

Tom Bulter: 54:01

You too. Bye now.

Janet Anspach-Rickey: 54:03

Bye, bye.

Tom Bulter: 54:12

It is unusual for someone to eat the way that Janet eats, but I believe the unusual choices she makes are much closer to how we should be feeding our body Than the typical American diet. We are just learning so much about how wrong we have been about the very fundamentals of healthy eating, and these errors have directed the recommendations of how to eat for a long time. I find the most interesting comments that Janet made were about how she enjoys food so much more than she did in the past. I think most people would find that hard to understand, but I have had some of those experiences myself. I am more than a little jealous of the bike tours they have done. It makes my 400 mile goal this season seem quite small.

Tom Bulter: 54:54

I really want to experience new places at the pace of cycling. Hopefully in the future I can find a way to do something like a month-long cycling trip. I'm not ready to get on an e-bike yet, but at some point in 15 years or so I think I will be looking to make that switch. Janet is definitely passionate about cycling and plant-based diets, and I would love to hear the part of your health journey that you are passionate about. You can find my email and the podcast, instagram and the show notes. Take a minute to share your story. I will also put in links to Janet's information in the show notes. Janet's story of her bike accident makes me think about riding safely. I hope all of your rides are safe. Good luck with all your adventures and remember age is just a gear change.