I went on a little trip over the last week. It involved 30 miles of cycling and 75 miles of paddling. Since everything is foldable, I took the train to get there and back. Â
The kayak is a Pakboats Puffin Saco. It’s 12.5 feet long and weighs 10kg without the optional top deck (which I left at home for this trip). It paddles very nicely, and is quite stable even with all my gear protruding out the top like that. It does require occasional maintenance, but everything is repairable and parts can be obtained from the manufacturer. Setup takes about 30 minutes.Â
This was my first attempt at bikeyaking, and I can say it overall worked really well. I did have one mishap though. I tried at first to enclose the bike in a watertight plastic bag (I used a granite gear portage pack liner taped shut), but this ended up having unintended consequences. After setting up camp one day, I heard a rush of air. It turned out that the bag had created a mini greenhouse effect in the sun and heated one of the tires so much that the sidewall split.Â
Before next time, I need to find a better solution to protect the bike from water in the unlikely event that I capsize. It might be as simple as using a Mylar blanket or white plastic bag over the clear bag. If anyone has other ideas, I’d love to hear them.Â
arjwrightdotcom on
Oooh.. pics answered a few queactions I’ve wondered. I’ve got a packraft, but haven’t done it with my Brommie yet (there’s a crazy hill before and after where I’d raft, so I use a different bike to get there).
Your setup confirms that wish for an Oru or similar folding kayak – still wondering about a mount for the front carrier block for that 😅
tw0sp00ns on
great post, i have wanted to bike-yak some day. saved for future reference
5 Comments
I went on a little trip over the last week. It involved 30 miles of cycling and 75 miles of paddling. Since everything is foldable, I took the train to get there and back. Â
The kayak is a Pakboats Puffin Saco. It’s 12.5 feet long and weighs 10kg without the optional top deck (which I left at home for this trip). It paddles very nicely, and is quite stable even with all my gear protruding out the top like that. It does require occasional maintenance, but everything is repairable and parts can be obtained from the manufacturer. Setup takes about 30 minutes.Â
This was my first attempt at bikeyaking, and I can say it overall worked really well. I did have one mishap though. I tried at first to enclose the bike in a watertight plastic bag (I used a granite gear portage pack liner taped shut), but this ended up having unintended consequences. After setting up camp one day, I heard a rush of air. It turned out that the bag had created a mini greenhouse effect in the sun and heated one of the tires so much that the sidewall split.Â
Before next time, I need to find a better solution to protect the bike from water in the unlikely event that I capsize. It might be as simple as using a Mylar blanket or white plastic bag over the clear bag. If anyone has other ideas, I’d love to hear them.Â
Oooh.. pics answered a few queactions I’ve wondered. I’ve got a packraft, but haven’t done it with my Brommie yet (there’s a crazy hill before and after where I’d raft, so I use a different bike to get there).
Your setup confirms that wish for an Oru or similar folding kayak – still wondering about a mount for the front carrier block for that 😅
great post, i have wanted to bike-yak some day. saved for future reference
Wow 🤩
Great Idea! There exist some ultralight kayaks called Packraft which seems to be quite well adapted for this practice