How difficult will It be to bike across Canada?
 

I'm only 20 and have never toured in my life. :twitchy: I've always had the dream to travel. After I was employed by a Norco bike warehouse, I have the opportunity to get a lot of supplies for cheap. I'm planning on doing this trip sometime next May/June. This is the route I was planning on doing. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/ed...RwWdCOF43-CC5M Now this route is most definitely not set in stone. If I need to I'll gladly cut out some destinations to cut down on some km. Before I do this tour I was planning to start off with some weekend trips and week long trips to get some practice. I am basically asking for as much information as I can get on this subject. What it will be like, how long it will take, how much $$$ can I live off of a day. Anything will help me; give me some reading material, reference me to some good blogs. Thanks so much in advance! :thumb:

Just saw this thread.

Can't access your route description - it says one needs permission.

I just did Winnipeg to Vancouver so I can comment a bit on the western half if you plan to follow the trans can. Your idea about training with smaller trips is sound. It will help you get used to your bike, see what works and what doesn't and generally get in shape before setting out.

Cost is a big variable. If you hotel/motel expect between 70-100/night. If you camp in campgrounds between 10-30/night. If you stealth well... less. Food is sort of the same. Eating out is expensive but sometimes nice. Shopping is as shopping is. You just need to calculate your days and from that develop a budget with some wiggle room for unexpected stuff.

A fast crossing west to east is about 8 weeks, I would plan for 10 or more and be happy if it cost/takes less. Better to have left overs than come up short. Also plan on how to get home! May may be a little early, depends on weather patterns (this year we had a great spring and a crappier summer it seems). June, July, August sounds good as a rule of thumb though.

Here's a link to my website from the trip. Let me know if I can help as we are in the same geographic region. There are a couple of us who plan to do local weekend trips and perhaps you can join in (if you want). Last year we also did some day trips up and down the Fraser Canyon/Coquihalla for fun.

WECANRIDE 2016:Cycling across Western CanadaTo Raise Awareness about Dementia - Home

Cheers,
Dale.

Hidden behind a sign-in page.

I can't see your route either.

However, what I will say is this ... based on my years of cycling long distances in Canada ...

-- it's a long way, so you'll want to do some training before you get going.
-- get used to riding in wind
-- get used to riding in all sorts of weather
-- give yourself lots of time

Most people prefer to ride west to east and one of the reasons for that is that the prevailing wind tends to be from the west. No guarantees, however.

If you start in BC and work your way east, aim to start the weekend before the May long weekend. That's when campgrounds open so you'll have places to stay.

Where possible, stay off the TransCanada highway. The TransCanada highway tends to be the least scenic part of Canada and also tends to have a lot of traffic. You can get away with riding the TransCanada in Alberta, and probably will want to do the Rocky Mountains to Calgary leg that way, because it has a wide shoulder ... but outside of Alberta, ride somewhere else. Especially through Manitoba. Do not ride the TransCanada in Manitoba.

I'm not familiar with the eastern part of Canada after Dryden, ON so I can't comment on how you're going to handle the Great Lakes.

Some good friends did it last year and I accompanied them on the first leg, Victoria to Calgary. It took them about 95 days, if I remember correctly. We started on June 1 and they finished around Labour Day weekend. They didnt ride the Northern Ontario part, but went through the States. The TCH in northern Ontario has the reputation of being hellish.

I personally would try and stay away from the Trans Canada Highway, but in some places it might be unavoidable.
I would recommend trying to include the Jasper to Banff highway as it is a truly spectacular ride if you have good weather.

I think there are lots of good trip reports on crazy guy on a bike.Read some of them it will give you an idea of what to expect.

Go for it.

We had also heard the same thing when we were planning our ride to Winnipeg this summer. We even heard it again from folks living in Saskatchewan. Actually, the Trans Canadian Highway in Manitoba was better or as good as the road is in BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Manitoba did a lot of road work in the past 10 years, and they are still working on it. We had planned on taking an alternate route, and were pleasantly surprised when we entered Manitoba. However, we did not ride east of Winnipeg, and I don't know the road condition there.

As far as scenery goes, the plains are the plains. It is really a beautiful place to ride, but the road will not make much difference.

Trans Canada Highway between Bandon and Sidney, Manitoba. Most of the eastbound lane in Manitoba looked like this. They were still doing a lot of work on the west bound lanes. 99+% of the trucks pulled into the far left lane when they passed us if they could. When we asked a truck driver about it, they told us they didn't want their turbulence to be dangerous for cyclists. This was much the case in all provinces. We also got a lot of encouraging toots from the truckers.

http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/y...33_reduced.jpg

They were just repaving the trans can in Man west of Winterpeg when I went through. I rode about 50km all by myself in the westbound lane. Not bad. I would say the Fraser Canyon or Coquihalla has the worst shoulders (narrow in parts but doable). The rest of BC good.

The TransCanada between Brandon and Sidney was all right in 2004 too. I took this photo on a 600K randonnee I rode that year.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2336/1...29ab6211_z.jpg

It was the bit between there and Portage La Prairie that was pretty bad ... so bad, in fact, that the police stopped us and told us to ride on the other side of the road, facing the traffic, because there was something of a shoulder on that side of the road. They informed us that riding on that side of the road was illegal, and chances are we'd be stopped by other police officers but if we were, we were to give them some details so that everyone was on the same page.

And beyond Winnipeg to the Manitoba/Ontario border, it was even worse.

Time it will take (measured in days)=(total mileage/average miles/day) + (number of days you don't ride)

x1.5, when you realize on your first tour you move nowhere near as fast as you do bombing around known routes at home.

As far as cost per day. I read on the blogs that North America, in general, is pretty expensive to camp in even. Stealth camping cuts costs but increases the risks in different ways. One of my favorite blogs to read eat really well and say they live on around $40 a day when free camping. I don't know what the hiker/biker scene is where you are travelling, but where I live it doesn't exist. Staying in a campground which is really an RV park is about the same cost as a fleabag motel, easily doubling or more daily costs.

It can add up.

An average sort of day last month looked like:

Subway breakfast foot long (half breakfast/half lunch)+coffee $8
Snacks through the day, coffee+one gatorade $10
Can of beans, can of Spagetti O's (don't judge me!) $4
Campground $25
Total $47

That's partly because I did not pack a cookset. You could go cheaper if you did not eat out as much and cooked cheaper staples.

I found Subways to be plentiful long the route and a good fit for me personally as I am a vegetarian and sometimes find it hard to get a decent protein meal in obscure parts. The breakfast sub gives you egg and cheese and veggies so you can slack off on pop tarts later on.

Initially, for planning, I had budgeted $30/day + 50% reserve for overage's and unexpected's which was just about right. I found groceries in MB and SK to be more expensive than BC (shipping I guess) with a can of beans sometimes costing $2.90 compared to $1.25 when I budget shop here.

Did you eat them cold out of the can? :)


I love to cook on tour. House-made chorizo, fresh garlic, local zucchini and red onion with sauce (canned, unfortunately) over penne on the first night of last month's trip.

Ok, that looks good!

Yes, cold.

I also like to cook and find it a real bonding type activity in camp when in a group but can go pretty spartan if I want to. Sometimes it's just eat to live. I did 5 years as a youth in Army Cadets and we always had old style rations (cans) which I discovered you did not need to heat to eat. The only thing I didn't like was canned precooked bacon with the white fat globules - I traded that away for canned peanut butter. Back then, with 1/2 hour to do lunch or supper you had to choose between rest or cook. I'm afraid it stuck with me...

Apparently, no matter what temp you make the beans on the outside they will eventually achieve a preset uniform temp on the inside.

I forgot. I also packed a small jar of peanut butter which I took a scoop of with my spoon whenever I felt a bit peckish. That's a cheap long lasting high energy food.

If it were me I would not take the 17 from Kenora to Thunder Bay. I would turn south after Kenora on the 71 and go toward TBay on the 11.

I have never toured through the area, but I am from NW Ontario and the 17 between TBay and Kenora is not a fun road to drive (narrow and twisty through rock cuts) so might be even more hair raising to bike. This might add a day or two to your trip, but could cut out one of the bad spots.

It is good all the way into Winnipeg now. I'm not sure about further east. I took a cursory look on Google Map Street View of Hwy 1 east of Winnipeg, and it seems that they did some work on the eastbound lanes; good shoulders there also. However, the further east you go the the road seems to get worse. Google map photo work was done in 2009.

Just looked at your route and... you do want to make it a challenge (cough cough). You're adding a lot of extra miles on top of a trip that is already pretty big.

Take what I say with a grain of salt as you may be fit and fully capable of anything (what do I know) but I see some issues I'm curious about at least.

1. You want to take the sea to sky from Vancouver up to Lillooet. Nice, but that sustained climb up from Mt Currie eastward is rated as one of the steepest in N.A. It's awesome... going downhill! The good news is that road was basically overhauled in 2010 as a secondary route during the winter olympics.

2. You take a dog leg from Lillooet to Cache creek, bypassing the 99. That is a beautiful piece of hwy you are missing with scenery, a good campsite at Marble Canyon and a nice clear lake to swim in.

3. What's up with the loop between Savona and Kamloops? Something in particular in that region or just a meander?

4. Kamloops to Jasper is straight forward. This is called the northern route, as opposed to the central (via the #1) or the southern (via the #3). Small towns every so often. Pack one days food just in case the store you anticipate is closed but you won't starve. Otherwise fine.

5. Icefields Parkway is awesome but again, a long detour from Jasper to Banff to Calgary to Edmonton on a cross Canada tour. That's the only downside but if you are leaving early look at weather reports. An alternate may be turning east at Saskatchewan crossing through Rocky Mt. House and heading north to Edmonton from there.

6. You drop south from Saskatoon to M.J. and then back up again? Something in particular to see? I can attest that large prairie cities like M.J. and Regina are not that exciting. Otherwise, you will see the same stuff on the 16 all the way.

7. Dogleg to Steinbach? Just curious why as I work in a Mennonite facility and Steinbach is a known city from that perspective.

After that I'm lost as I have never been east of Winterpeg.

I would recommend the Icefields Parkway, but it is a long way back up to Edmonton. If you don't have a compelling reason to go there, I would angle up through Drumheller and towards Saskatoon that way.

Yep. Drumheller and the badlands are also a nice feature to see.

Curious as to the thinking behind some selections. Maybe there are relatives or maybe its a case of trying to hit every major point on the map.

I always though an aesthetically visually pleasing long prairie ride would be a Calgary - Edmonton - Winnipeg - Calgary Triangle following Hwy's 2,16,1 or variants thereof. It just looks nice on a map.

If the Op wanted a nice smaller trip as a trial he could do Surrey to Hope, up the Fraser Canyon to Lillooet, then back down the 99 through Whistler and the Sea to Sky to Surrey. Excellent loop route with lots of scenery. He would see that big hill anyway.

Crossing the prairies I would prefer a northern route, I find the southern treeless Palliser triangle just a bit too bleak.But that is personal preference.

It was... consistent :)

It's quite a trip. My father and I went on a Quebec to Toronto and back when I turned 13. First 200 miles felt like a bad idea, but we kept on going. We stayed at 3 hostels and a hotel when we arrived in Toronto. We backtracked a week later after the saddle sores went away. Even with cushioned unders and a gel seat I still got them. Training a year for it, worked a lot of core exercises. By end of training I could do 100 pull ups and glad I did. We also ate a lot. We packed super light. One drybag for each of us for two extra sets of clothes, hammocks, sleeping bags and cooking ware. We sored them in the back of the seat with salt water bottle and platypus drinking reservoirs strapped to our chest instead of our back due to sweat build up if I had put it on my back. A lot of planning went into the ride. I slowed down my father, but did 120-150 miles a day on average. I thought it was pretty good considering. Then I watched the documentary Inspired to Ride and thought the distanced covered in a day is amazing for those people who trained through their lives. Been a fan of Juliana Buhring ever since.

Can't help on most of the trip, but unless you have a real compelling reason to go to London, I'd just skip that leg, and drop straight down to Toronto. All you will be missing is a few hundred KM of farm land.

Your route once you cross in to Ontario is a stones throw away from my second home. I have seen cyclists try to tackle some of those roads there, and I have thought about it myself also. The roads are scary to drive in a vehicle at times - let alone on a bike. A few people here have commented already that the roads can be crazy. You are riding through much of the Canadian Shield in the area around Winnipeg to around Thunder Bay. The Trans Canadian Highway, and any of the major roads for that matter, are cut where they can put them.

To add to the hazard on the Trans Canadian Highway is the truck traffic. You will find a lot of logging and mining trucks traveling through there - some think they have wings so reaction times are non-existent. The 2 lane roads like that are no place to be riding through. People do it, though, so to each their own.

From a fitness perspective - I would not recommend taking on such a long trip without a couple of riding seasons under your belt. You need to learn about your body on longer distance rides. Light cycling for fitness doing 20-30 miles every weekend or a few days a week is no comparison to packing in miles day after day, week after week. I am going to assume you have clipless pedals. After being in the distribution chain for bike parts I am making the assumption that you have some time cycling to some extent and you have good equipment. However, you need to start riding enough that you find your limits and weak spots. You need to do that for at least a full riding season to build your body up in the process, then use the following season to fine-tune.

The background to my above comments on learning about your body are the fact that I jumped through a few hoops adjusting myself and my gear to cycling. The first year I found a lot of "weak areas" and "limits" and ended up with the "phone a friend" call of shame to bail me out of a century ride attempt at 80 miles. After making the gear changes and building myself up to it the following season I was a lot better. The turning point to my end of the season was a 116 mile day tour (combined with a hiking trip in the middle) I completed successfully, only to have some pretty major knee problems shortly after that made riding a nightmare. I fought through, for better or worse, to close out my riding season with my mileage goal and finish the year with my winter backpacking trip in the Appalachians before I had my knee looked at. I started this year with an atrophied leg and several months of physical therapy trying to fix a problem my cycling caused. I never knew I was causing it until I had a problem and went to the doc to figure it out. The long and short of my problem was I was using platform pedals where I could only extend my legs to push the pedals. I couldn't pull up or move my feet/legs in any other direction or I would loose contact with the pedals. I built up the muscles and tendons to do that - and never balanced that with opposite motions.

So, my point in short - you need to get on the bike and get your distances/loads up to figure some things out. You need to know how your body is going to react and the only way to do it is to get on the bike and see what happens. Everyone is different. I do hope you work towards your goal and conquer it. Just prepare so you can succeed, and not shoot for the moon only to fall well short.

I would change your route through Southern Ontario at Espanola, make for Manitoulin Island and spend a day or two there, it's really more scenic and conducive to cycling than highway 69 south of Sudbury. In fact on HWY 17 in Walford you can get off on to a side road and then head east through to Lee Valley Road, a spectacularly quiet stretch of road that goes to Espanola instead of suffering on 17 any more than you need to. Many people suggest heading through the states along the south shore of Lake Superior but I haven't ridden there so I can't vouch for it.

If you take the time to go to Manitoulin and cross to Tobermory I'd suggest checking out the national parks in the area, there's flowerpot island and singing sands which is a lovely beach on Lake Huron. If you're going to London to visit someone I'd take the Lake Huron shore line for a while. If you don't have any reason to go to London it's not really all that scenic. Collingwood and the Blue mountain area are nice riding with short steep hills everywhere. I'd suggest criss-crossing the Niagara Escarpment on your way down to the Falls, it's lovely cycling outside of the major cities, the province's roads are largely set up on a grid system around here. If you skip London, come down the Grand River once you get close to Orangeville, there are a number of really nice rail trails here and lots of quiet country roads. If you don't mind riding gravel you can find all kinds of neat places. Niagara Falls is pretty but the city itself is kind of a massive tourist trap. The parkway along the river is nice riding from Lake Erie but fairly busy after the city of Niagara Falls. Lots of traffic but some spectacular scenery worth checking out. Lots of wineries too. If you want specifics for route ideas I've ridden quiet a few nice routes in this region.

As for fitness the first few days of the ride will quickly acclimate you to riding but doing a few weekend trips and a lot of other riding will certainly help. If can at least get some good hill climbing and 100km days under your belt you'll likely be fine. It's not rocket surgery go camping and biking, people have been doing it for over a 100 years.

Also I just noticed you've got your routes going along highways 400, 401 and 403. There's no bikes allowed on these highways so you're gonna have to pick a different way. I use ridewithgps.com to do my routing, but strava and other sites work well too.