Truthfully while I’ve done plenty of long distance bike rides that involved camping, I’ve only once ever actually gone bike packing. I’ve done lots of trips where other people carry all the stuff and I’ve done rail trail trips where we stayed in inns and hostels and carried our own clothes etc.
Sarah and I tried to go bike packing during the pandemic but they closed the parks. Instead we stayed in airbnbs. See Going with the flow, from bike packing to airbnb-ing on the Simcoe Loop Trail, sort of .
My one bike packing/camping experience was also on a rail trail, organized by Mallory, as part of her Duke of Edinburgh Award program. We packed food, tents, and sleeping bags went cycling in Quebec on the Petit Train de Nord, a 200 km rail trail through ski country. Families used to take the train from Montreal up north to the ski hills but no more. Now people drive and the railway was abandoned. It’s been remade into a terrific cycling/cross country ski trail through some lovely little towns and beautiful countryside.
Sarah and I are going to try it again this summer on the Simcoe Loop Trail. Wish us luck!
I’m telling you how little of this I’ve done so you can wonder why I’m even thinking about riding my bike and camping across Canada when I’m done being dean.
Not seriously, but not not seriously either.
Check out Mat and Ali who are currently doing it.
Here’s the logo of the Great Northern Bikepacking Route.
And here’s the map.
How long does it take? That’s the bit that makes me nervous.
Mat and Ali’ write’s site says, “They’ll be leaving mid-May 2024 from Victoria, British Columbia and traversing 10 Canadian provinces and 3 United States, ending in St. John’s, Newfoundland in late fall.”
So maybe, maybe it’s a three or four summer thing, where I do a section of it each summer?
Also, it makes me wish I lived in a smaller country!
Do it!!! I have ridden across north America twice, but I don’t do the camping part. It would be great if that appealed to me; at this point in my life, it just doesn’t. But the cycling? Yes! We went from Anacortes in Washington to Boston. We went over the top of Lake Erie & came back to NY at Niagara Falls, so we at least got in a bit of your lovely country. We have, on shorter trips, spent time riding in Nova Scotia and PEI, and have also ridden from Vancouver to Seattle. My second cross-country began in San Diego & finished in St. Augustine.
It’s an incredible way to see places and to meet people. It’s a good way to get out there & help us all remember how much we have in common, which to me seems a way to soften the harsh political divide we suffer from these days.
We liked it so much that we leave next Saturday to go to the northwest (Washington, Idaho and Montana, probably) to ride wherever we feel like riding, for as long as we want to. Oh, on e-bikes this time. A completely unstructured trip. We plan to spend about 5 weeks out there.
I hope you can find the time & inclination to do your trip. It sounds amazing.