Winter crossing of Canada by bike | Brave the cold in memory of cyclists who died on our roads

On his bike, Louis-Joseph Couturier crosses Canada, in the middle of winter, in honor of cyclists who died on the road. And more than the cold or the storms, the subscriber to great adventures especially fears the wind.

This project goes back a long way. In 2020, as winter approached, the Quebec resident set himself the goal of crossing the country from coast to coast to raise awareness about road safety. Mr. Couturier himself lost a friend in a road accident while she was traveling on her bike. “She was a very important person for me,” he confides.

Mr. Couturier, now 34 years old, then left Gaspé in the hope of making it to Vancouver. In the cold of winter, he had cycled for two months, covering some 3,000 kilometers. However, when he reached Thunder Bay, Ontario, his momentum was stopped dead in his tracks. Like a chain landing, the yo-yo of health restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic has ended its journey. A dream put on hold.

New directives from the Ontario government have been announced, plunging into illegality the travel he had started during a relaxation of health measures. “I was exposing myself to fines,” said the man whose adventure could hardly be considered an “essential trip”.

A vague soul, Mr. Couturier therefore packed up, bringing his tent and his bike home to Quebec. “I experienced absolute depression,” he remembers. In fact, this trip helped me in my grieving process. [de mon amie]. »

New beginning

On January 10, after a longer break than expected – Mr. Couturier hoped to get back in the saddle in 2021 – the journey resumed. The veteran of sporting challenges flew to Thunder Bay, the same place where he had to stop four years earlier. Without missing a beat, he reassembled his bike, then set off straight from the airport.

Joined by The Press in Fort Frances, Ontario, not far from the border with Manitoba, Louis-Joseph Couturier had just taken two days off after a… hellish streak.

“Everything that could go wrong went wrong,” summarizes the student at Laval University with a touch of humor. Already, he was expecting a difficult segment. One of the “hardest of the entire crossing”, even. But after 350 kilometers without supplies, a snowstorm and broken equipment, all in a Siberian cold reaching -25°C at times, the observation is clear: “It was very, very difficult. »

Worse still, as soon as he got back on the road, the thirty-year-old suffered further misfortune: a broken derailleur hanger, which he had to order through a bike shop. All that remains is to wait for him for five days, stuck in the meantime in a small town in western Ontario. “When you embark on an expedition like that, you know it’s part of the game,” he reasons.

The winter factor

Such a crossing always represents a major challenge, but it is even more so when it is done in the middle of winter. “Everything is more difficult. I weigh more and there’s more friction [des pneus sur la chaussée enneigée]. And I take it wide, so I fight in the wind,” he says.

Being dressed as he is, the breath of Aeolus is therefore his greatest enemy, especially since by crisscrossing the country from east to west, he faces the prevailing winds. This is why he particularly dreads his imminent arrival on the Prairies, where he will be fully exposed. Even more than the monster climbs of the Rockies? “Oh yes, yes, yes!” he answers without hesitation. The height difference doesn’t worry me too much. Not bad less than the wind. »

During his trip, Mr. Couturier raised funds for the organization Accès transports viables, which promotes sustainable mobility. And faithful to the tradition he established during the first part of this adventure, in 2020, he dedicates each week the kilometers spent in the saddle to a cyclist who died on the road.

To get the ball rolling, he paid tribute to Robert Faucher, who died in Quebec after a fall in the summer of 2023. “May you inspire me with your greatness of soul as I begin my entry into the Prairies. Rest in peace, hands still on the handlebars and a smile on your face,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

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