Guest Chef

Megan Whyte’s baked brie with fig compote and bread

With more gumption than cycling experience, chef Megan Whyte set off to bikepack from Toronto to Tofino, B.C., as her regular gig, cooking onboard a Croatian charter boat, was on pause because of the pandemic.

“I was riding my bike for eight hours a day,” she says, “and my body was like, ‘What the heck are you doing?’” Leaving near the end of July, Whyte pedalled for two months to cover 5,326 kms on her hybrid khs.

About the same time that she started her trip, she signed up to fundraise for the Great Cycle Challenge Canada supporting the Sickkids Foundation.

“Although the trip wasn’t inspired by fundraising, it was a fantastic catalyst for it,” she says.

Because camp stoves were scarce during the first summer of covid-19, the classically trained chef subsisted on easy meals, such as veggie wraps and overnight oats. Her route plans were also modified. She had planned to ride entirely on the Great Trail, this country’s linked network of bicycle routes, but abandoned it. “They say it’s a cycling trail, but they’re lying,” she says. “Sometimes it would just open up to a giant field and there would be no more signs.” People proved more reliable. On a sketchy section from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., she reached out to cycling friends for advice. They put her in touch with Montreal DJ Jabig. She was shocked when he not only replied, but also created an alternative route for her. Eventually, the two crossed paths while riding.

While Whyte was hanging out with motorcyclists at a bar near the Saskatchewan/alberta border, the server made an announcement about Whyte’s trip and fundraising. The bikers emptied their pockets. She donated $120 on behalf of the bikers from the Irvine Hotel.

Ultimately, she raised more than $1,000, but amassed many life lessons: don’t pack books, bring a rear-view mirror and that bikepacking is serene. “It’s incredibly peaceful to be on a bike for that many hours,” Whyte says.

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