Bike Touring

One of my hobbies over the past 20 years has been Bike Touring, loading up a bike with gear and then riding. The scenery and fresh air are amazing and the endorphins from the climbs feel great. Life just becomes simpler, the complexity of life giving way to more basic needs and worries, food, water, shelter…

Tours

Year	Source	Destination	Distance (Approx)	Duration	Return	Notes
2006	Vancouver, BC	Sunshine Coast Loop	300 km	6 days	Bike	I’ve actually done this too many times to count, this was the first tour
2006	Kelowna, BC	Osoyoos, BC	200 km	5 days	Bus
2007	Ainsworth, BC	Kaslo -> New Denver -> Crescent Valley	250 km	5 days	Car
2008	Edmonton, AB	Sudbury, ON	3,000 km	7 weeks	Via Rail	Trip ended due to a rack breaking and three bike shops not being able to fix it. There is probably around 600 km in gaps from various car rides.
2010	Vancouver, BC	Port Hardy, BC	600 km	5 days	Bus
2011	Vancouver, BC	San Francisco, CA	2,000 km	21 days	Plane
2012	Vancouver, BC	Osoyoos, BC (& Back)	750 km	5 days	Biked Back
2017	Vancouver, BC	San Francisco, CA	2,000 km	22 days	Plane	In theory, the stretch goal was Mexico but the temptation of being home was too strong.
2021	Vancouver, BC	Tofino, BC	260 km	4 days	Ride Share :D	Chain snapped near Ucluelet on the way back, and couldn’t fix it.
2022	Edmonton, AB	Castlegar, BC	1,000 km	10 days	Plane & Car	I bonked out toward the end of Day 6, and should have taken a rest day in Nelson, but rode the next day because of hotel. Upcoming 35°C days, hard to get hotel rooms, and a boring rest day made me want to head home. I couldn’t get my bike packed easily so I flew to YVR in the morning, grabbed my car and drove back that night, and drove back the next morning :D.
2023	Vancouver, BC	Amqui, QC	5,500 km	8 weeks	Plane	This was my first supported tour, with Tour Du Canada, and was an amazing experience. There are about 500 km gaps from 3 sets of car rides.

Highlights

If I had to pick out a favourite segment, I think it might have to be from the Kicking Horse Pass to Banff, along the Trans Canada. It’s a world-class national park, but importantly after spending the morning climbing up and finally crossing the Continental Divide, it is also a 70 km downhill segment, so it feels like a massive victory lap, and you get to go fast and enjoy the scenery.

If I had to pick out my favourite tour, it is probably Vancouver, BC to San Francisco, CA. Cycling infrastructure for touring is just way better on the Pacific Coast Highway, they have dedicated hiker biker sites and no turn-away policies ¹. The scenery is nice and varies over time, and has no lulls.

If I had to pick a favourite campsite, I think it might be Saltery Bay Provincial Park on the Sunshine Coast. There is a place called Mermaid Cove where you can sit on benches at the water, and see the sun set over the landscape and Texada Island in the west. It always feels so great after the ride from home.

As I ride all year in the Pacific North West, I’m very acclimatized to cold and rain². As such, I think I have pretty fond memories of all the storms I’ve cycled through. In some cases, there have been massive tailwinds that let me cover distance, in other cases it’s just exciting to bike through lightning³ and hail storms.

Low Lights?

I’ve never been hit or seriously injured on a tour. Maybe the scariest moment came in 2008 near Whitewood, SK. Setting up camp as a thunderstorm came rolling in, I wasn’t sure how close to tall things my tent should be to avoid getting hit. Overnight, the lightning was so close, and the thunder was the most intense I have ever heard in my life.

Other than that, I had historically found the first few days of tours hard, as often it is seemingly overwhelming to think about all the distance that needs to be done that day or in the days to come. Early in the 2023 Cross Canada ride, another cyclist told me to just focus on one pedal stroke at a time, and that really struck me and increased my (mental) endurance. Often when the urge to quit came, I knew that everything was fine, I wasn’t in pain, hungry, thirsty, or even tired.

Goals

Apart from the destinations themselves, I have in mind several other goals and milestones for touring.

Cross Canada - So in 2008 with a handful of smaller tours under my belt I set off across country still very inexperienced, the trip ended after my rack broke just north of Terrace Bay, and Bike shops in White River, Sault Ste Marie, and Sudbury, ON all tried and gave fixes that only lasted about 150 km. In 2008, the plan was to cycle out east to get in better shape and then do the Rockies. But after 7 weeks I was done, so called it in. While to many people Edmonton to Sudbury seems like “Cycling Across Canada”, I always felt it had a big Asterisk. I certainly feel that Vancouver to Amqui, QC (essentially NB), is less of an issue.
Connected Graph - After 2008 for a long time I had a bunch of cycling around Edmonton (since I grew up there), and a bunch around Vancouver. But I had not cycled between those places. The Kootenay trip was also its own disconnected subgraph (or island). In 2022, I had hoped to connect things, but threw in the towel in Castlegar, BC. This did manage to connect the Kootenays to Edmonton, however. During the 2023 Cross Canada trip, I managed to join the two disconnected subgraphs.

Future

Missing Canada Segments - Both the 2008, and 2023 Cross Canada trips have some gaps, due to flat tires, etc… They mostly cancel each other out, except around Lake Superior, ON where my rack broke in 2008 very close to where my derailleur broke in 2023 ⁴.
Directed Connected Graph - While it’s true that for most intents and purposes my cycling graph is mostly connected, I’m a tad unsatisfied that I haven’t biked either from Edmonton to Vancouver or vice-versa, having only biked from Edmonton and Vancouver to the same point⁵. At this point, having biked to Calgary from two different places, is not quite the same as having biked from Edmonton to Vancouver, or vice-versa. There are a few options for joining the graph including Castlegar to Rock Creek, or Calgary to Edmonton, although having always taken Highway 16 and 5 as a kid, I think I might just do that next.
Final Canada Segment - I will at some point do Amqui, QC to St. John’s NL. In 2023 when the cracks in my frame were discovered, the person who I was with said I was lucky to be able to go home :D. While I potentially could have found another bike in a few days, it would have left a ~400 km gap, that would have been less interesting to do, so part of the reason I didn’t continue was to leave a meaningful tour on the East Coast.
Vancouver to Mexico - At some point, I’ll do the Pacific Coast Highway all the way to Mexico, without tapping out in San Francisco.
Australia & New Zealand - I’d like to do both of these at some point.

Non-Goals

Non-Segmented Cross Canada Trip - I hope to do a Cross Canada trip several more times, but I don’t particularly have a goal to do it all with no gaps in a single trip. There is simply too much randomness involved. Almost everyone in my tour in 2023 had issues such as broken shifters, wheels, etc… You can’t carry every part with you or be prepared to fix every failure. So I mostly view a complete and total non-interrupted run from the Pacific to the Atlantic more luck than say discipline.

Bikes & Gear

Hammer

This was the rig that was used to go across Canada, taken in Ontario.

Portland

This was my Trek Portland (shown on the Trip to San Francisco in 2011) which I used from 2010 to 2021, when the frame cracked on the way to work.

Domane

This was my Trek Domane which I got after the Portland in 2021. This photo was taken in Edmonton, prior to leaving for Castlegar. This broke at the end of the Canada Trip, and was replaced with another Domane.

Notes

In many places if you ride late in the day, the campground can be full, and you are on your own. In the US, depending on the park, not only will they find you a place, often the place will be free since it isn’t a full site. ↩
At least what is considered cold and rainy in the summer :D. No sub-zero cycling for me. ↩
I have taken shelter at times during the storms, in others there has just been nothing around. ↩
The rear chain essentially lost all tension as the jockey wheels would not pull back. It seemed like an internal mechanism problem, but apparently I had just been unlucky and dirt got in the exact wrong place to make it seem like a catastrophic failure. The bike had been given a complete major tune up in Thunder Bay, so just bad luck. ↩
Driving to the top of a mountain and riding down either side, is easier than biking from one side to the other. ↩