I got lucky with my airfare, b/c I flew when Air Tango still existed. Total cost for two tickets (TO > Van and then St. John's NL > TO) was $440.

Food was by far my most expensive 'item'. I can't find my trip budget right now, but maybe around $1500 for a 57 day trip.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I just booked a ticket from LA > TO for $262 USD on United, all taxes in.

I've been meaning to check those out. 32Flavours has one of those too and swears by it. You can set them up with no trees with trekking poles as well I believe, not that you'll (shiznaz) be travelling with trekking poles (I assume), but you could possibly rig something up with the bikes. :P

If it were me flying to LA, I'd look at Southwest flying out of Buffalo. It's a pain to get there, but my roommate flies within the US all the time and says that SW is usually WAY cheaper. They have $99 one way flights sometimes.

As for food: I think the $1500 idea is good. It will depend on the length of your trip though. I have no idea how long it takes to go from LA to Van, so I don't know. But, my experience and Tovi's (apparently) is to budget $30 a day. You can go cheaper, but budget that, you'll be sick of PB&J sandwiches quick!!

+1 on the Buffalo idea. I flew to NYC on JetBlue out of Buffalo a couple of years ago and it was fully half the price of the cheapest flight I found out of Toronto.

Tovi,

I know exactly who you are talking about, I went to law school with him. Last time I heard he had changed the plans to possibly either go from Toronto to Halifax, or Van to Thunder Bay. He has three weeks (apparently) and I told him that Toronto to Halifax is only two, and Van to Thunder Bay is four (or thereabouts) so who knows.

I rode with him in the fall and we made it about 25km, after three rest stops and he thought we should turn around. So let's hope he starts training. ;)

On the idea of food I've gotten into the habit of traveling with 3-5 MREs when I'm going to be away from civilization for any length of time. There great for when its raining and cooking is the last thing you want to do or if you do get stuck somewhere you at least have some food energy. I bought a box of US Military ones and that I'm still working through but I know that MEC sells similiar and much tastier versions. Just make sure you get some hot sauce in whatever you eat, there not exactly the easiest things to digest in the world.

Hah! Yigal Rifkind! Hilarious! Yah, he keeps insisting that Van > TBay can be done in 3 weeks, but I keep telling him no. Last time we spoke (maybe two weeks ago), I talked him into doing TO > Hali, which would make an excellent three week ride.

mmm Salisbury Steak in a bag.

You can buy boxes of american MRE's off ebay. Only one of them was good though. I think it was the rice with m&ms.

Has anyone ever felt the need to carry an EPIRB with them while touring?

Sorry, can't help with the question... but I'd love to hear where you found replacement seals. I'm not sure which part is exactly which, but I think the seal is the part I need for my old Judy XC. I gave up on it after calling RockShox and a few local stores but I still have the fork and would like to get it back together again if possible.

American? Good God man if your ordering military ration boilers get Canadian, the US soldiers would practically trade a Jeep for one of my meals.

I think Van to TBay can be done in three weeks, but it would be a hard three weeks, and it wouldn't be much fun. Toronto to Halifax in three weeks is simple. We should suggest Toronto to St. John's. It would add a few more days onto the trip, but at least it's more of a three week trip.

Hopefully he does ride somewhere.

Looks pretty cool, though I originally thought it was a tent to keep my bikes dry in the elements. Looks like a great idea for a tour, but would want it to cover the bike more me thinks.

I got a great deal on the US ones and I got to choose the types that went into the box which made it worthwhile. The honest truth is that if I'm eating an MRE I don't care what it tastes like I want the calories and thats about it. Ours are pretty good though, I never understood why some of the varieties are so horrible, if an army marches on its stomach then Iraq makes sense if there eating most of that stuff. They do, however, give you a ton of calories. I trekked through the jungle in Costa for 10 days once and survived on them because making fires was impossible or inadvisable most of the trip. I was happy to get back to real food but I was able to survive without any problems on two meals a day.

A question for you all since you seem to be experienced in the touring:

How far per day is reasonable? Would two weeks be a reasonable amount of time to do Sydney NS to St Johns with a side trip to Gros Morne national park?

For intake you can't go wrong. NOTE: Dehydrated potato flakes make neat trip flares,

I think I averaged 135km a day, and that was through mountains. But, that's a pretty reasonable ride on most days, in my opinion. So, since I"m not sure how far those locations are apart, I can't say.

http://www.enduroforkseals.com/id46.html

The also have pdf's for a stinkload of OEM manuals as well as pictorials for a number of forks. You can also go to angryasian.com if you have questions about your fork. Excellent resource for fork maintenance.

Enduro responded to my email query about stock instantly.

One way? That's probably about 1100km's of riding (not including little day/side trips obviously). My only distance cycling experience is riding to Montreal last Summer which was about 650km in 6 days (charity ride) which was a fairly relaxed pace, but that was easy peasy.

Similar to any tour done by a roadie, there's the dilema of covering as much km's as possible, versus enjoying where you are and absorbing local offerings/culture/etc. The journey versus the destination, if you will. That being said, unless you're trying to set a record, Van > TBay cannot be done in 3 weeks. You did it in four weeks fully supported, I did it in five weeks, self-supported. I know that I *wouldn't* do it any faster, nor do I think I could (at least by shaving off 2 or 3 days, max). And I had a good aerobic foundation and endurance. As for Yigal, I'm all for supporting / encouraging him, but I don't think he can do Van > TO in 3wks. No way. Even if he tried, he'd be racing against himself all day, every day. Zero fun in that.

Doing Newfoundland sucks, btw. I only did it b/c I insisted on doing end-to-end.

Dreams...shattered!

What sucks about it? Roads? Scenery? (lack of) civilization?

What is a good maritime tour?

The mid to north end rocked. Deer Lake to St. Anthony although the stint from Flowers Cove north to St. Anthony was pretty grim.
$400 return into St. Anthony.
http://cavit8.zidev.com/newfoundland

In my humble opinion, crossing NL by bike isn't a good idea. When you take the ferry to Port-au-Basque (west coast of the rock), you're only road choice is the TCH. Yah, its paved well, but there's nothing on it. Towns are spaced apart way too far for a cyclist. And there's nothing in the way of random gas stations/resto's/campgrounds to depend on. It's quite sparse. The weather changes quite quickly, it's never warm, and the wind blows like crazy. If you think that's just my experience, just notice the forests jutting up against the road. They're all permanently tilted over from the wind! 6 or 7 days is enough to cross it directly, though.

As for Gros Morne, it's wicked wicked wicked. If you asked me, I think going from Port-au-Basque to St. Anthony would make a cool trip. And of course get yourself distracted with day-hikes in the park. They're unreal.

my recollection from Gros Morne was that the road surfaces sucked and it was quite hilly. But I was getting around by car. Cavit8 is probably a better source than I.