brownbs

Hi Guys
My wife and I are planing our first tour in Nth America our May, June July and August. We normaly go to Europe for our winter but we thought it was time for a change, we live in New Zealand for the rest of the year.

We ride a Rodegez 8 ball tandem, which we love. We have two plans. Plan A to ride from Denver to Edmonton via the Adenture cycling great parks route. Plan B to do 5 week loops out of Denver and then get to Edmonton some how and do the same there.

Plan A. Our freind in Denver said the snow is the heavist it has been for 6 yrs and some of the roads may not be open late May. That is why we devised plan B.

Plan B. Would be good as we could head Sth into Utah and catchup with other friends at Aspen. But to get from Denver to Edmonton on the ground as we would would like to see the country is a problem. Non of the car hire firms appear to be able to do a one way hire into Canada. All the railways appear to run east west and not up north and not go into Canada.

Surly we aren't the only people to have ever wanted to do this.
Any help advise would be most appreciated.

Take care

Brian & Sue

Sheik_Yerbouti

There are issues in going from the US to Canada by rail. It was done on purpose as Canada feared American invasion for a good amount of time.

If you're planning to make your way to Canada, why are you planning to visit Edmonton? Other than the Mall there isn't much there for cycling except for farms and oil refineries. Western Alberta and Eastern BC on the other hand has the Mountains. I would make an effort to ride through Banff and Jasper.

Oh and in Alberta, and South of Alberta in the US the weather in fairly unpredictable in May and less so in June. We can get snow in both quite easily.

brownbs

Thanks for such a quick post.

Shame about the railway thing tho. Now I can't see the USA invading Canada

We have friends at Fort collins in Colorado we want to visit hence the Denver conection.

We also have friends at Devon outside of Edmonton who we want to catchup with and thought we would use them as a starting and finishing point and head as you say to Jasper and Banff etc. I'm sure Joann can direct us to the interesting places, as she is a outdoor lady.

We plan to leaving Fort Collins around the end of June and and Devon around mid August. I have a date with the Southern European alps mid August till the end of September.

Thanks again for your input

Brian & Sue

Machka 

You can fly from Denver to Edmonton.

Sixty Fiver

Brian and Sue... Edmonton is a great city (despite what the Cowtowners say) and the area around Devon is beautiful.

If you get into Edmonton proper feel free to look me up if you need help with anything... I may be riding through the rockies in July or August but we have not set a date on that yet.

ubermensch84

Only in South Park

I wouldn't mind conquering BC myself. Maybe even trade them Texas for it

prathmann

A rental car would give you the most flexibility to see the country and decide on your preferred route. Couldn't you split the trip up at the border - i.e. rent a car from Denver with a drop off near the border, then bike over to Canada and do a second one-way rental from there to Edmonton. Usually one-way rentals are best done to/from airport locations so as to reduce the drop-off charges.

Ryan McEachern

Rent a one-way car in Denver and drive it to an interesting city on the stateside close to the border, Maybe even drive as far west as Washington State to make it a real beautiful trip? Use a bike trip across the border to an interesting city on the Canada side of the border as one of your planned excursions. Rent a one-way car in the Canada border town and take it to Edmonton and you are on your way.

If you could come far enough west, Amtrak has good service north/south on the pacific side and Vancouver is a beautiful spot to explore and will have many options for one-way rental to Edmonton, as well as rail options too.

As for the USA trading Texas for BC, I am not to excited about the idea. How about we give you Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI in exchange for Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California? It would be much nicer for us mariners to be able to transit the Pacific side up and down without messing with customs all the time, and I am sure the folks on the Atlantic feel the same way.


Edit - Prathmann beat me too it.

ddez

Go easy there Calgary boy The mall is in top 3 largest in the world and whether you like malls or not its something to see at least once.We have miles of bike trails in our river valley parks system. Only thing better about Calgary is its closer to mountains,neither hockey team is any good

Iowegian

You can take a Greyhound bus from Denver to Edmonton. It takes about 2.5 days and might not be what you want but they are probably one of the few options that can handle a tandem.

The snow so far has mostly been in SW Colorado and yes, it has been heavy. You are probably right that some passes may still be closed at the end of May down there. The rest of the state hasn't had nearly as much snow and it's been a pretty light snow year so far. That can all change come March/April but I'm guessing that SW Colorado will continue to get the bulk of the storms this year.

Almost any pass with a paved road will be open by June with the possible exceptions of Independence pass and Trail Ridge Road. Those usually don't open until June in a normal year. A lot of the roads up high will be very wet and sandy in May and June and you can still easily get snow then as well.

Dan Burkhart 

Yeah. Can you take a submarine ride in any mall in Calgary?

neil

You can bus it, but you'll have to box up your bike. That's really the only public transit option. Driving can work, but you'd either have to pay through the nose for a bike rack, or rent an oversized vehicle that can fit both bikes inside...neither is very desirable. Rail connections require a big detour to the west coast.
Clearly this is due to the unqualified success of our east-west rail system. (Seriously, this was a very real concern during the age of railways. In the modern era, it hasn't been a concern, but roads are the way people, goods and troops are moved now, so that's what has been built.)

acantor

But check first. Coach Canada, which, since last summer, operates double-decker "Mega Buses" between Montreal and Toronto, will not accept bicycles as luggage! You can ship a bicycle in other ways, but you cannot take it with you on the bus. (I wrote CC, and suggested that they install bike racks on the front of the buses.)

ubermensch84

As a Californian I don't think I would put up too much of a struggle against that. I would be sad to see Las Vegas go but have no problem losing the actual state of Nevada

Wogster

How about this, we trade Quebec for Hawaii. We get some much needed Sunshine, they get enough political material to keep the political analysts on TV going well into the 43rd century. My cousin, who lives in Edmonton, said that Albertans finally found a good use for Ontario, it keeps Quebec 500 miles further away....