Most available riding days in Canada?

But the winter sledding is pretty good!

I lived in Abbotsford, BC (lower mainland) for 10 years, and 8 of those my sole vehicle was a motorcycle. You need good raingear ! If you follow Ed March (C90 Adventures) you know that you can ride all year 'round pretty much anywhere, if you want to. If riding days means days with no rain, you may have to look elsewhere.

Thanks everyone for your input......

Looks like I should continue to own a sled and consider a south trip during the winter and rent a bike. I rented a S1000XR for a day of riding in Scottsdale a couple of winters ago and really enjoyed that. Thinking Houston should be next.....

I've heard of a couple of folks who find cheap storage down south and keep a bike stored in warmer climes for the winter months. When the Jones hit you fly south for a stretch and scratch the itch then come on home. Repeat as necessary until warmer weather returns north of the 49th. Hopefully, the opportunity will present itself again sometime.

Yes, the guy I bought my F800GS was a WJA pilot and he and his wife did that. Rent a storage locker to keep a couple of bikes and riding gear in and then fly back and forth as available. They had done both Vegas and Palm Springs when I bought my bike.

Nova Scotia will have higher yearly temp averages then Van Isle. And it'll be warmer, longer into the fall. You'll get more riding days around Vic. But it won't above 8 or sunny.

I lived in Victoria for 4 yrs. Only 15 days of those I didn't ride to work because of bad ( mostly freezing roads) weather.. But it rains almost every day from Nov till April, so I had good gear and heated. So it wasn't too cold to ride but riding home from work at 11pm and it's raining and +2c wasn't ideal.

I fell from black ice walking to the bike as I was putting my helmet on... figured it wouldn't be a good idea so got a lift. That was one of those 15 days.

In NS, here will be some winters here that I won't shovel, where one can get on two wheels, but there's usually several days in a row where it could be negative double digits. I'm in the Halifax area.

Double digits C all this week. May have to bring out the lawnmower.

The Windsor area would probably be the worst place in Canada to live for a motorcyclist. What good is a few extra days of warm weather when there's nothing but straight, flat roads and farmland for hundreds of kms. If you live in Toronto you can at least ride into the Muskokas or Kawarthas, no such option for Windsor. Not sure what the riding is like in northern or western Michigan, but you'd have to cross the Detroit area which would be a daunting task on a motorcycle. Personally I would consider eastern Canada even if it's colder.

Trailer yours down. Only takes a day to drive far enough south to ride pretty much year round. Or get a bike down there and park it at a friend's place. Cheaper than renting.

Yeah a day drive south of Whitehorse puts me in the middle of BC, not quite riding country yet. I am like the other 75% of Canadians that live within 100 miles of the US border, mine just happens to be Alaska!

Realistically it would probably be a 3 day drive south from Whitehorse to get somewhere to unload and ride. With that much traveling it makes flying and renting look cheap.
Maybe if I was going for weeks or months, but not for a 10 day trip.

You just need to get a faster tow vehicle!

You can ride every day in Canada. This guy does.

True enough, there was a guy last winter driving around Whitehorse on a F800GS, through all weather. CRAZY!

How about Osoyoos ? Not quite as warm but not much rain either. Cost of living in the lower mainland is prohibitive. Probably cheaper to just store a bike south of the border...if it ever opens again.

I have done the Fly and Ride from GTA but flying out of Buffalo to AZ CA NM and FL . The winter weekday flights were pretty good if you stayed over a Saturday . Ride for a week or so bring back a dirty bike with a couple of thousand miles or more. I don't know when they will get the border open again but I have had some good get out of winter trips for a pretty reasonable cost.

Fair enough. Sadly I made 30+ trips to Anchorage over an 18 month period for work and never got out to ride. Always planned on spending some extra time and going out on a trip but could never get it organized around work.

I was going to bring this up as well.

Okanagan Valley and Kettle Valley area seems warm and dry?

Havent been there in the winter but I heard it's a good spot for easy weather.

Here is what the Osoyoos webpage has to say:
Climate
Osoyoos is located in one of the most unusual geographical regions in Canada.
The community lies in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains creating a hot, sunny, dry climate. For this reason, the area boasts its own climate zone called "Osoyoos Arid Biotic Zone." Canada's lowest annual precipitation, warmest annual temperature, and warmest fresh water lake can be found here. This arid zone is the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert which extends from Mexico into Canada.

Looking at the average temps by month Jan and Feb can be cold but if the roads are dry it is nothing a good heated vest wouldn't cure. I have never been in that area in the winter either so I am only guessing by the numbers. Maybe someone who lives there could give some insight from actual experience.

What happens is we get used to all that warm weather and turn into wimps when winter approaches.

It's a strange thing - on a sunny early spring day you'll see a ton of bikes out on the road at let's say, 5 to 8 degrees with everyone enjoying themselves. Put those same temps into Nov and there's almost no motos out and about. Part of that likely has to do with our obnoxious insurance prices and the remaining portion I believe is that once you've been used to 30+C all summer it feels pretty damn cold to be running about at near freezing. In Penticton (just slightly north of Osoyoos) I find that while you could very likely ride year round our temps rise above freezing in the day but drop below overnight. So you get this perpetual frost/freeze/thaw cycle that makes it very hard to predict what the road surface will be during the day, and in shadows or depressions in the pavement, etc. It's just a bit too sketchy for me to feel comfortable doing it anymore. We also get a near constant layer of low cloud that locks into the valley below the mountaintops and gives a sense of gloom overall to the winter days. We don't get many nice sunny winter days here unfortunately (but you can head up into the mountains and solve that problem easy enough.)

Vancouver Island without a doubt and the lower mainland. I’ve been insured year round for the last 5 years riding here. Plenty of rain and temps below 8 though...not for the feint of heart...I’ve lived here for 8 years and its really only a few weeks a year that you can’t ride. I rode from Victoria to Cabo-Baja in January 2019 - it was a blast....a few days of cold weather riding.

So would it be the same for Osoyoos as far as the constant gloomy cloud cover ? or do they get more sunny days than Penticton ? Also noticed you have a CCM GP450...how do you like it ?