A whole lot of Statistics

This will give you a good idea of how the funds were dispersed per province. I’ll get into further detail in the next section, but you can see the most expensive month was July (1948.29) and the least expensive month was September ($829.95) – there is reasons for that.

Total Cost by Province

(or look at it as a bar chart)

As mentioned in my post Food: What I’m eating on tour I had a difficult time keeping myself nourished, making sure I was getting the right amount of calories and the delicate balance of Protein/Carbohydrates and Calories. This was by far the most expensive part of the trip, and you can see below the breakdown of how much it cost per day below for food. I’d say out 70% of the time I cooked my own meals with my MSR Dragonfly Stove, yet found that for periods of time I would treat myself to Breakfast in a restaurant daily for a week. Canada has excessively high costs for food, and I imagine this will drop in different countries, at the same time losing the variety of foods available.

You can also take a peek at how much how much food was purchased per province, although that number is sort of skewed as sometimes I would have leftovers from previous provinces in the pannier (you know, things that seemed like it would be a good idea, but not, I had 3 cans of tuna, one can of sardines, some rice, 4 packs of Oatmeal and some sauces leftover at the end of the trip).

Along the way, I had the opportunity to sample some of the finer beers in Canada. Leaving with a thirsty mouth, I noticed at the start of the trip I was putting away an awful lot of booze at the end of the day riding, which certainly doesn’t bode well for solid days the next morning, not to mention having to get out of your tent in the middle of the night and relieve yourself. I recall at the start having 2-3 tall cans of beer a night stumbling around gawking at the trees or the sky after a long day of riding, and find a total shift compared towards the end of the trip where I would not even be able to finish an entire beer. If I can take anything out of this trip, I learned how to control my drinking, something that’s always been nagging me in the back of my mind but I was too ignorant to do anything about it.

The amount of booze consumed per province table shows an alternate view.

Now with that being said, I’m not trying to defend my consumption whatsoever, but it was also used as a social tactic, to meet new people, and engage in conversations that would make it past the common 10 questions that were asked of me daily. I had the opportunity to stay with people because of these meetings in their backyards, guest rooms, saving on my lodging costs, as shown in the next section.

As shown in my Gear page, I left with a great setup to be able to sleep anywhere at the end of the day. My Air mattress outperformed itself day after day, giving me wonderful rests, my tent kept me dry from rain and snow, protected me from intense winds, and shielded me from the hot sun when it sometimes didn’t set. The sleeping bag, while too hot most of the time in the summer months, was very welcome in the spring and fall months, with the added protection of my silk liner. I recall a friend who rode with me for a few days in May peering in my tent and wrinkling his nose asking me if I ever had “company” with me at night, as it stunk, of showering and cleanliness always not optimal when in strange locations.

(or look at it by month)

As you can see, I only paid for lodging a few times in the first part of the trip, the rest of the time was all done stealth camping, meeting strangers, or using services such as Warmshowers, or Couchsurfing – great services to meet like minded interesting people. If you have spare room to host a traveler, do sign up, I promise you it will be some of the best times of your life meeting people on their own separate quests. If text and tables aren’t your thing, a colourful bar chart lets you view this data graphically.

One of the things that I neglected to forecast and budget for was overall maintenance and replacement of components. Shirts started to rip, tired became balled, chains broke, and derailleurs inverted themselves inside the wheel forcing me to purchase new replacements. Let’s not forget about me losing stuff along the way!
Although I brought spares of some components, I still was met with surprises of having to dish out more money just to keep moving on the road.

The equipment costs by province view shows a different aspect, however these sorts of things could have happened at any point in time and were completely random. Even new components fail. Luckily, it could have been a lot worse. I did extensive research into the gear I brought with me, and based on reports of other cycle tourists, I came out pretty good all considering.

I did my best to do things on the cheap, visiting museums when they were free, partaking in community activities, but sometimes I couldn’t resist and pay admission to an aquarium, tour a beer factory, or catch a movie.

Most of the time, I took in the nature and beauty of each province or territory instead on spending it on paying for something indoors.

Even though I was traveling by bicycle across Canada, I jumped at any chance to take a ferry or a boat. Sometimes those boat rides were almost 1 day long, taking me to places such as Haida Gwaii, or catching an airplane up to the Yukon Territory so I could ride the Alaskan Highway to the Northwest Territories. I liked that place so much I even flew back there in July and spent 2 extra weeks in the north without my bike!

Average daily costs would drop significantly if I didn’t take those extra air trips.

Mind you, it was worth it as everything happens for a reason and it spared me from some wild weather in the east coast. Check out how it fared out month by month.

For the life of me, I can’t even remember why I categorized costs into the Misc. category, nor can I remember what I actually purchased. Was it stamps and envelopes? Donations to street kids? Throwing money on the ground? I have no clue. Regardless, here’s a few stats by month and by province.

Another way of looking at things is the Daily "Pulse" chart, showing the amount of kilometres cycled on a daily basis. You’ll see that I mostly stayed above 100km on the days that I was actually cycling, with a few abnormalities where I went above and beyond my daily intentions, and paid dearly for it the next day.

Longest Day Cycled: July 14, 2010 – 211.50 Kilometres – Carot Creek, Alberta to Stony Creek

Shortest Day Cycled: April 29, 2010 – 17.97 Kilometres – Prince Rupert -> Ferry -> Queen Charlottte City (Omitting any days I classify as "rest" Days)

Fastest Speed Achieved: October 18, 2010 – 70.8km/h – Bonshaw, PEI

Ahh, Hills, whether they actually look like it or not, have to be some of the worst things about cycle touring. They sneak up 5km before you are supposed to stop, and sap the energy out of you. Even worse when the weather is bad, traffic is busy, or the road is covered in gravel/glass/or other unfavorable substances. Needless to say, I still took statistics on the amount of climbing I did. In total I climbed 99320 metres (325823 feet!).

 

Check out some of the other stats on how I fared out per month in a barchart.

What is really staggering is looking at the amount of climbing that was done per province:

The barchart shows it graphically..

Look at the Daily Chart in the Pulse View

Most Climbed in one day: 1470 metres May 21, 2010 Monashee Pass, BC

Yup, I even monitored how much calories were being burned on a regular basis. Apparently if you are a couch potato bum shoving one burns 2000 calories a day. Here’s the calculations from my Heart Rate/Cadence monitors. In total I burned 631716 calories

Calories per Month

Graphical View is here

Or the provincial look at things:

Graphically it looks like this.. with the barchart view.

If you want to see how it worked out on a daily basis there is an alternative view by looking at the pulse chart..

Most Calories Burned in one day: July 14, 2010 – 10,873