Two Canadians biking across Canada & the United States

[Twotravellers]

Hello everyone, me & my roommate have been talking about travelling across Canada & the USA for over a year now, and we're planning to go for an indefinite amount of time. The reason being is we would like to become nomadic, for me, ever since I can remember I wanted to move from place to place to see new cultures, meet other people, learn more skills, and encourage others to do what they love. Also, we're leaving from Ontario.

We are planning to leave in the summer of 2016 in order to get the most out of Canada before the winter then travelling to warmer climates in the States when it starts to get too cold. Please don't worry about if we'll be in good enough shape, we already are and we have no time limit

We will be using services like Couchsurfing, Warmshowers, WWOOF, helpx, friends/family, as well as camping with a Hennessy Hammock.

We already come up with a list of all the equipment we'll need.

I looked over all the cycle route planning websites like gmap-pedometer.com, Bikely.com, cycleroute.org but I think I'll use a combination of Bikely.com and RidewithGPS.com. Veloroutes.org has great weather/live webcam/google earth output capabilities though.

Thus, me & roommate want advice/tips on things like setting up camp in the rain, food supplies/cooking, protecting equipment, places to put our bikes so it doesn't get stolen and anything else you can think of that might help.

One final thing is we were planning to bike West from Ontario all the way to BC then go down through to the warmer states for the winter and back up to finish the rest of Canada but I spoke with some of my friends and they think that if I'm leaving in July, that I should go East first to see Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland/Labrador then go south and wrap back around next summer through the rest of Canada. Any advice?

[Norsman]

I don't think it matters that much which direction you ride across Canada.  I rode from west to east and had a fairly equal number of days with tailwinds and headwinds.  However if your plan includes a ride down the West Coast of the USA I strongly recommend that you ride from north to south. When I rode that route,in that direction, I only had 2 days of headwinds in more than 40 days of riding.  As an added bonus you would be riding on the ocean side of the roads and be that much closer to the tremendous views on this route.

[jamawani]

Quand on veut, on peut - -

Heading west in early July will put you in Vancouver by the end of summer.
Then you will have perfect weather to head down the Pacific Coast in the early fall
And good weather across the southern U.S.

Heading east, the timing doesn't work out nearly so well.

[Twotravellers]

Oh also I forgot to mention we're coming from Sudbury, Ontario, which is why we're asking for advice/tips.

Thank you Norsman & jamawani! I appreciate the comments

[geegee]

Oh also I forgot to mention we're coming from Sudbury, Ontario

Well that changes everything, any direction out of there would be good. Just kidding, OK maybe half

Heading west would be cheaper and easier for camping. Atlantic Canada is a fine ride and really scenic but there is a lot of backtracking to get down to the States. The US eastern seaboard is an expensive urban mess from Massachusetts southward, with no cheap camping options.

With the Canadian dollar so low right now, I'd stick with your first idea of riding to Vancouver. Riding through Northern Ontario is a tough start, but hey, you're used to it The roads get way better when you get to Saskatchewan. Personally, I would take the Yellowhead Highway via Saskatoon - Edmonton - Jasper over the southern route. The Icefields Parkway towards Lake Louise is probably one of the most spectacular rides in the world. There are lots of WWOOFing opportunities in southern BC particularly the Okanagan.

[Twotravellers]

Also i wanted to mention that since it is getting close to summer we made the decision to prepare for the whole year. Ill see if i can adjust my original post.