We just dipped the tires in the Pacific!

And the journey begins. 8500 kilometers to go to the Atlantic.

Route Changes

We will be riding the Trans Canada Highway (TCH) from Highway 3 in Alberta to White City just East of Regina. From there we will dip South East and follow Highway 48 to Virden, Manitoba where we will start riding the TCH again. We were going to ride the Red Coat Trail through Saskatchewan and Manitoba but the terrible condition of the road with no shoulder to ride on and the high volume of oil related truck traffic put an end to that. We follow the TCH to Highway 332 shortly before Winnipeg and turn South to Starbuck and ride East on Highway 2, which is the Eastern portion of the Red Coat Trail. We will bypass Winnipeg taking the Perimeter Hwy to Dugald Rd (Hwy 15) and head East to White Shell Park.  After turning North on Hwy 11 we turn East on Hwy 44 and head for Falcon Lake. This is the old route across Canada before the TCH was built. Very little habitation on Hwy 44 but very little traffic, too.

View Regina to Virden Highway 48 in a larger map

Cross Canada Tour Starts in Two Weeks

The butterflies are in full flight. The panic has set in and there are a million things left to do.

When I first started this blog I was going it alone across Canada. But one stipulation requested from my wife Brenda, was not to do this trip alone for safety reasons. I was lucky and found a touring partner here in Nelson. I was talking about my up coming trip to my co-workers, (I’m sure they are getting tired of hearing about it) and one piped up she had always wanted to do a coast to coast tour but wouldn't do it alone and asked if she could join me. Problem solved. Karin, who is a multilingual, (will come in handy), a very competitive athlete, a cyclist who can leave me in her dust is now my cross Canada riding partner.

Bringing on Karin has made me re look at route choices, where we will be on curtain dates and make reservations in cities such as Montreal and Quebec City to spend time being tourists off the bike.

We are now cycling in Canada the whole distance, not dipping through the USA along the South shore of Lake Superior. It was decided to truly make this a “Canadian Tour”.

Other big route changes involve cycling the Cabot Trail and forgoing the “Supply ship hopping” route of the South Shore of Newfoundland. The South Shore would have been an incredible experience but involved upwards of two weeks time. I think a Maritime Provincial Tour is needed sometime in the future.