^Feel bad about this. I didn’t think I accused @TulsaJohn of being wrong, but his point is respectfully taken and I do request that he and the Forum accept my apology for my tone and for the implication.
My surprise at the idea that bike touring could be considered an extreme sport (and therefore excluded from coverage) I suppose comes from my own experience with travel insurance as a resident of Canada. (Buying it, not claiming under it, thank heaven.)
Government single-payer health insurance covers lawful residents of Canada for care in Canada only (with only minor exceptions.) For care beyond our borders we’re on our own. The taxpayers don’t subsidize people who can afford to travel. Going abroad without medical insurance, even (especially) slipping across the border to fill up the car in the U.S. (thus evading Canadian carbon taxes) is foolhardy. One hears of Canadians having heart attacks a half-mile from the border post and ending up with bills of half-a-million dollars. So we know our onions on this.
http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/travelin...te_under60.pdf is the certificate of insurance from Royal Bank of Canada's travel insurance product. It's what we've used for all of our foreign trips and since we get it automatically with our VISA credit card, it's always in force and is handy even for travel to other provinces in Canada where certain types of emergency care are covered only for residents of that province -- ambulances, for example. We're both now over 60 but since the "under 60" would likely apply to most bicycle tourists, I'm linking to it because it's a bit simpler. The actual insurance is provided by an insurance company; the bank and VISA are merely the agents. Similar insurance is widely available from the other banks, CAA (AAA in Canada), and other "personal lines" insurance companies. (Spoiler alert: "available only in Canada")
All emergency medical care is included, anywhere in the world, as is the cost of repatriating you (or your body if things don't go well) and your traveling companion, by air ambulance if necessary. If you need emergency surgery, it will be paid for. If the surgery can wait until you fly home and have the government pay for it, the insurance company will expect you to cooperate with their case manager to make this happen.
**The only excluded activities are professional athletic contests (including training for same), rock climbing or mountain climbing where technical gear is required, motor racing (including training/practice), and space tourism. (Hey, someday...) Note that hang-gliding, parapenting, dirt-biking for recreation, and flying as a pilot are NOT exclusions. I have seen one contract that excludes bungee jumping, but this particular one does not. There is no mention of "extreme" sports as a category, likely because it's vague. The ones mentioned specifically are the only excluded activities.
Illness or injury occurring because of criminal activity, chronic alcohol abuse, acute intoxication with alcohol, or any use of illegal drugs are excluded (and this includes abuse of your own prescription drugs or taking drugs prescribed to someone else. Duh.) Drunk driving is not a good idea anywhere. Breaking your neck from falling off your hotel balcony while full of free liquor is not a good idea either. (Happened to a woman from Manitoba recently.) Rebellion, war, riots, and bad things in countries about whom Canada has issued a travel advisory are also iffy.
The rest of the exclusions are mostly various definitions of care that was not an emergency, that you couldn’t have deferred until your return home. If you have a pre-existing condition, emergencies arising from it are likely covered but you’d want to make sure your idea of “stable” jibes with the insurance company’s definition – laid out in the certificate. A Canadian can therefore tour abroad exclusively by bike and be covered for the time contracted for with a simple, generic travel insurance policy. Just stay out of trouble and don’t be foolish (as in booze, drugs, crimes, and riots.)
This coverage is cheap enough to provide as a bundled benefit with enhanced-value credit cards without most of us noticing the annual fee or bothering to shop around.
Two key points about why this works, to stress for non-Canadian readers:
1) You have to be a lawful resident of Canada and covered by your province’s single-payer plan for the entire duration of your trip. This is the crucial back-stop of travel insurance here: the insurer can repatriate you in the secure knowledge that you will be insured by our government when you get home. They don’t have to call around to try to find a hospital and doctor who will accept for on-going care an uninsured person injured or ill abroad, who might not even be legally allowed to re-enter Canada. A minor detail is that while all citizens and legal permanent residents are eligible for single-payer, you have to re-enrol every few years in order to "be" insured. That's how they weed out people who aren't legal residents. And....
2) Government insurance lapses to zilch, nada, once you’ve been out of Canada for 6 months even if you plan to return home eventually. If you’re still abroad after 183 days, you are no longer an insured person under Canadian law – you’re like a person who has emigrated -- and are therefore ipso facto no longer covered by the travel insurance plan either. So, travel coverage is limited to 183 days out of country. Full stop. (The "free" credit-card coverage is limited to 28 days for one trip but you can buy more without much fuss.) For a bike tourist on an extended voyage, this would be a significant hurdle to consider, but it’s all about the time abroad, not the activity s/he’s doing.