Awhile ago I purchased an Alpacka Caribou packraft to aid in my adventures. I chose the Caribou over the Scout (their most basic model) because it was more spacious. The Caribou was designed specially for bikerafting in mind and after using the raft by itself for awhile I thought it would be fun to get a bike and try and use the Caribou for its intended purpose. Being able to bike either upstream or downstream before or after a float opens up a ton of adventuring options. I’ve made a long list of the places I could try and have been excited about the idea ever since. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of good information about bikerafting out there so I had some trouble getting started. The general concept of bikerafting sounds simple enough but trying to figure out what equipment I needed and how to properly mount the bike on top of the raft had me puzzled.
The bike I ended up choosing was the CHANGE 811 foldable bike. I liked how light it was, the manner in the way the frame folds, and most importantly the addition of a downtube (most foldable bikes don’t seem to have one) so that I could mount a seat for my kiddo to ride with me. This wasn’t a cheap bike but the many miles of joy I’ve had with my son on it has made it totally worth it.
I live near the Feather River and it isn’t the easiest river to access without a boat. Being able to zip up and down the Feather to fish key spots in a boat is the most effective way to fish it however that would require being able to convince my wife that a boat and all it entails would be a good purchase. Maybe someday in the future but for now I have a bike and I have a raft. I set my float for a short trip from Grays Beach downstream to Star Bend boat launch.
The bike trip from Star Bend boat launch to Grays Beach along Levee Road was a 15 minute breeze. Once I made my way on the banks of Grays Beach the real work began. I started with inflating my packraft first. Next I set up my fly rod. I’ve been using my Scotts Flex 9’6’’ 6WT paired with my Ross CLA 3 with a Rio Outbound Short line for striper fishing. I’ll probably make the switch to my 8WT Echo Boost in the future because the shorter length is a bit easier to manage. The next step was breaking down the bike. The CHANGE 811 is pretty awesome in that it breaks down in several ways. I kept it simple and just took off the pedals and front wheel. I mounted the bike and attempted to figure out how to properly strap it to the top of my raft. I took my time and struggled for about 30 minutes in the blazing sun fidgeting with the straps. Once I was satisfied with tiedowns it was time for departure.
The float was about 3 miles and I marked key spots that I wanted to try and fish. I was blind casting along the bank as I floated down but didn’t hook anything. I stopped at two key locations: the first spot I didn’t have much luck due to the section being too fast and shallow and the second spot I managed to bring in two schoolie stripers but I was already familiar with that spot and knew that there were fish there.
The true intent of this float was to find and troubleshoot all the potential issues I could run into. One that I found was using the boat ramp after my float. In a boat it’s relatively quick and easy to bring the boat trailer down, hook up, and leave but a bike with a raft on it is a bit different. It takes a bit more time to paddle in, unload everything from the raft, deflate the raft, and then load it back into the car. If the launch isn’t busy it’s fine but if it is then it could be potentially dangerous and I really don’t want to be in the way of people being able to get their trailer down the launch. It’ll be a good idea to figure out alternative takeouts in the future to remedy the situation.
Overall the float went well. I’ll continue to mess with bike configurations to get the best balance on the raft. I was confident that my bike wasn’t going to fall into the river but it was a bit more tippy than I would have preferred. I’m looking forward to floating more rivers and catching more fish bikeraft style.
