Despite starting to prepare months ago, the last few weeks have still been quite busy. I fly to Calgary tomorrow morning, and while I've had a list of things to do today, the months of preparation are paying off in that it's a pretty relaxed day - no crazy running around to deal some forgotten item or task.

All of my bike preparation and maintenance tasks were complete a week ago, so this week has been about boxing up the bike for travel and finalizing all of the GPS information.

Boxing up the Bike

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I've never taken a bike on a plane before. As with most things related to air travel it's a bit of pain. Everything in the picture fit nicely in the box, with what I hope is enough padding and protection. There are two potential challenges. Victoria's airport doesn't have an x-ray machine big enough for a bike box so you have to unpack and repack it at the airport. Fortunately, I set everything up so I can get it all back into the box in about two minutes.

The second potential challenge is that airlines aren't clear or consistent about whether you can have anything else in the bike box. I have my handlebar bag in the box for convenience and it helps lock the bike in, but if they require me to take it out I should be able to carry it on as I only have a carry-on backpack. Westjet's weight limit for bike boxes is 100 pounds and my box comes in at 66, so I hope it will be fine as it is.

Navigation

We'll be navigating the route using GPS data purchased from the Adventure Cycling Association (the group that created the route). They used to publish paper maps, but over time the maps have become very outdated and their efforts to update them were hampered by the pandemic. The upshot of that is that navigating electronically is just about the only option.

Using phones to navigate would be nice, but impractical due to the battery life. We'll be going days between opportunities to fullu recharge. A Garmin or similar GPS unit uses far less battery power - almost two full days on one charge. With my battery bank I should be able to recharge the Garmin about 15 times before needing to charge the battery bank. We'll still use the phones sparingly to get extra info as the Garmin screen is small and isn't good at showing the overview. The phones are our backup for the Garmin as we have the maps on them as well, and we both have battery banks with good capacity. We'll be those people looking for places to plug in every time we go inside.

I also printed some notes I've made or copied from other people online about places to eat and camp, things to watch out for, when to plan for longer gaps between resupply opportunities etc.

Tomorrow (Aug. 18)

Andrew and I will meet up at the Calgary airport and take a shuttle bus to Banff. Once in town we'll need to find a quiet spot where we can put our bikes together. After that we'll have some shopping to do for the things you can't take on the plane like bear spray and CO2 cartridges. We'll also need to get groceries as there's no resupply on the route until the second day. We have a campsite in Banff booked for that night, and if all has gone smoothly we'll start riding on the 19th.