We first learned about bikerafting on the here on bikepacking.net. We had a crazy idea that it might be a fun Saturday to bike the Trinity River Levees from downtown Dallas to Irving with bikerafts attached to our bike, float back to downtown Dallas in the bikerafts, and then ride home before dinner.
It was pouring rain on our trip, but a little rain wasn't going to ruin our adventure! Twelve of us set out on our bikes for what turned into a 6 hour trip, and we had more fun we could have imagined.
With 12 guys, there was a wide variety of skill levels. Anywhere from just got back from New Mexico 3 day tour to have not ridden a bike since grade school!
I planned the route using only Google maps. The put ended up being down a 10 foot tall muddy cliff and we took out on a terrible steep hill. oh well!
Here's the planned route:
Leg 1 - Pedal - 14.5 Miles
Leg 2 - Paddle - 10 Miles
Leg 3 - Pedal - 12.5 Miles
Below is the link to the video/ time lapse. I'm guessing it would have been more stable attached to my bike. Oh well. I'm not sure why the video is not loading in this post, click on the link right below it to go to vimeo to see it.
VIDEO WARNING! a very small percentage of individuals may experience epileptic seizures.
Here's the link to the stills I pulled from the time lapse.
http://shannonfaulk.photoshelter.com/gallery/120929-Trinity-River-Ride/G0000L90A6_Ehh8APassword: Trinity
It was cold, wet and muddy. We ended up cutting the paddle portion a bit short of the planned route. At times it was miserable and at times it was euphoric. When we first got into the river on the bikerafts, I could not believe this crazy idea was working. I had a grin from ear to ear for the next half hour.
It was a long day, when we got back I stood in the rain and cooked 40 burgers. No one ate less than 3!
The worst part of the entire adventure was having to return the bikerafts, knowing we couldn't do it again next weekend. So after sharing our story with many people and realizing there was a definite interest, we decided to start renting our own bikeraft packages. Check us out at bigcitybikerafts.com
