Originally Posted by
cooker
Thanks. I may have mentioned I have a forming plan to do a combined sesquicentennial (Canada, Ontario) and 65 yrs (me, next year) fun project of two months of work and tour in northern Ontario next summer. It won't be quite at the level tandempower has proposed for a bike nomad lifestyle, as I hope to use mixed modes of travel including train, ferry, plane, Greyhound, rental car, canoe and bike, working 3 or 4 days and being a tourist the rest of the week. I expect a small roster of friends, colleagues, students and family might join me for parts of it, but for a lot of it I'll likely be on my own. I'm really disappointed the trail won't really be useful as I can canoe, but not at the touring level of expertise, unless I have a more experienced companion at some point, and certainly not solo, and I wouldn't want to capsize and maybe lose my bike in the river. So it will be more hub and spoke cycling, eg spend a few days in one site and maybe ride (or paddle) out and back overnight to a campsite or resort, then take the bus or a rental car to the next hub location, etc.
Sounds like an exciting tour. The solitude you get in parts of it may turn out to be more of a benefit than you expect. I find that when I hike/bike, my attention goes fully to the road, scenery, and whatever goal I'm working on at a given moment, and there is a oneness of purpose in that, which is not as clear when there is social interaction going on; though there always seems to be opportunities for that too wherever you run into people.
This bike route/highway seems to be a great idea. As always I worry about things like adequate shade/trees, but hopefully we're far enough along with environmental reform thinking that a bike highway would never be planned without land preservation and reforestation in mind. I appreciate what the website says about seeing the east coast at a slower pace to absorb more of the details and without a windshield between you and the scenery. This could be happy/healthy version of i95.
Thanks for posting, Machka.