I am on the Warm Showers List and hosted a total of 14 cross-Canada riders this past summer. Imagine my surprise when I received an email from a young Quebec cyclist who is attempting to cross Canada IN THE WINTER! He had a nasty spill just outside my home town of Regina, Saskatchewan and needed a new rim along with a new Campy 10 spd chain and cluster (OMG the prices!) He is trying to do the journey in 40 days (despite my best efforts to suggest he should slow down a touch). Oh to be 20 and full of energy again! This remarkable feat is especially noteworthy due to the fact that the daytime temperatures here are hovering around -45 Celcius (-49 F)! Thankfully he has had a tail wind most of the time. He has a Marinoni road bike with very narrow tires but at least it is in good shape now. Perhaps you could give him some words of encouragement along the way. His name is Francois Dagenais-Cote and his email is francoisdc1@yahoo.fr

I do admire the sense of adventure our youth seem to have, but I gotta admit I'm feeling some comfort in my middle age conservatism after seeing those temps, lol.

Ride on young man, ride on.

And here I've been trying to get up the motivation to do my December century this month in similar conditions.

I hope he's heading east!!

That is impressive.

While cycling across Russia last year, I felt a bit smug as I found a bicycle shop in Novosibirsk and mentioned to them that we were cycling all the way across Russia from St Petersburg to Vladivostok. The bike shop owner pulled out a larger scrapbook and told us in pretty good English "you are not the first". That scrapbook contained a page or so from a number of different cyclists who had come through there (some with tales of woe that were well solved by this shop, others tales of adventure). The one that particularly stuck with me was a Japanese cyclist who was riding from Magadan (Pacific Coast, road of bones) to Murmansk (Arctic by Finland) in the winter. Put me in my place then and puts me in my place now when my thermometer says a balmy -19C (-2F) and might get colder before I cycle to work tomorrow.

Update. The guy made it in 47 days! Impressive it certainly is...

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Impressive, amazing, utterly insane!

Puts Ryan to shame in more ways than one.

That guy is full of awesome.

This whole thing is bogus. If this guy was really doing a transcontinental trip, he'd set up a web site, a personality cult, and hit up total strangers for a $4K camera.

Wow. That's just incredible. Way to go unsung dude!

I saw him on the news a few weeks ago when it was -25°C.

This guy could barely walked as a kid and biked the planet's northen tier with his dog. Russia and Alaska during winter!

How did he bring his dog?

A trailer: https://www.amazon.ca/Par-lautre-rout...ges/2760405443

From Link 3: "He carries the tent, his sleeping bag, a small oven, food, clothes and a foam mattress on his bike."

Haha, I knew I forgot something on my last trip...

I am in awe. What an achievement!!! Talk about having some guts and determination, I love cycling but I was thinking today I wouldn't want to be cycling to work in -20'C..... That's some bike tour there.

Someone posted here last year about bringing a microwave on tour, so why not an oven?

It was a phone interview. It's possible the reporter made a mistake. Or that he's carrying a small "Dutch oven" type pot.

There are collapsable ovens and stoves on the market.

Truly an epic ride!
Does anyone know how to get in touch with this guy? Email? Web site? I'd really like to know what type of camping gear he had with him. I'd also like to know how he would dry off his gear when it's -30 degrees out there and it's frozen stiff?
Some of you mock him, but I suspect that you really have no idea how cold it get's up here, and the challenges it creates on your body never mind the bike! Too bad he took a shortcut through Minnesota rather than pass through Winnipeg. I would have loved to have a chat with him.

Toques off to ya buddy!

I don't think anybody is mocking him. (#8 was a sarcastic and funny reference to someone else.) I am utterly astounded and enormously impressed with what Francois did.

No one was mocking him. In fact, he was being held up as a positive example compared to another cyclist, one the subject of multiple threads fed by multiple sycophants.

I am in awe!!!!

check the first post (if the email address is good)

There are reflector ovens that only weigh a few ounces that work quite well with a camp fire. I forget the weight of mine, but it is under a pound (14 ounces maybe). A lighter one than mine could be built, but most of them probably weigh closer to 2 pounds. I have used one while canoe camping, but never carried it on a bike. It would go along with me before some of the items that others carry (chairs and such), but still I will most likely never carry it.

Still the reference was probably an error and he is most likely carrying a stove rather than an oven.

I thought of this post and Francois' epic tour this morning as I checked the weather and it helped me not wimp out on the commute to work. In no way am I comparing the two, it just helped me get going.

My favorite quote from the story is "'Dagenais-Cote decided to do the trip about 10 days before he left. "

While I am extremely impressed with his accomplishment, I would also point out that many here would have had lots of negative things to say if he had posted here saying "I am think of riding across Canada in winter, 10 days from now". It would have been condemned as impossible, and irresponsible. I might have said so myself.