Bikerafting – What is it?

Well that’s the question I was asking myself when I stumbled upon the term on Facebook one lazy Sunday afternoon…Several hours later I found myself getting extremely excited at the prospect of new gear, much to my bank manager’s chagrin.

Essentially, bike rafting is simple; Strap an inflatable raft to your bike. Pedal to the water. Inflate the raft. Strap the bike to the front of the raft. Pile on your gear and get paddling. How hard can it be, right?

As with many things in life and particularly in the outdoors & cycling worlds there are a plethora of options to choose from and no single source of expertise.

Put 6 people who have tried bikerafting into a room with a case of beers and you’ll have at least 12 different opinions within half an hour.

Google “bikerafting” and you’ll come up with countless articles and blogs, manufacturers and shops but no definitive “this is how to bikeraft”.

So basically you have to do the hard work and research for yourself. This article is simply my experience and some explanation of my choices.

Seems a good place to start; Rafts. There are two main suppliers of pack rafts suitable for bikerafting. Alpacka and Kokopelli. There are others, but these seem to be the brands with the biggest marketing budgets and therefore the most highly placed Google results.

Having looked at all of the models available at the time (early 2019) I eventually plumped for the Kokopelli Nirvana Self Bailing. I felt this was the best compromise between being light enough to strap to the bike and able to carry my 100kg pie eating and beer drinking body, plus a fully loaded bike. I knew from previous cycle touring experience that my camping gear, food for a few days and other bits could easily clock up 30kg. Add another 15kg on for a bike and I needed something which would be ok with 145kg. The Nirvana is rated for slightly less than this (136kg), but a quick email exchange with one of their techs told me that it could happily deal with much more – they state weight limits overly cautiously for white water – on flat-ish water you can comfortably push this upwards substantially.

There are multiple options for each raft depending on where you are going to be paddling, how dry you like to stay and where you want to carry your gear. I went for the model with internal gear storage in the raft pontoons, accessed via the TZip and a self bailing setup.

One word of warning; These are not cheap. North of £1000 for the raft and then add on a decent paddle (£200), some additional straps and a mid range but lightweight pfd (£100).

When the raft arrived I also invested in a higher backed seat for it. Experience of paddling inflatable kayaks suggested that my lower back would suffer from prolonged paddling with the provided back band. In actual fact this turned out to be unnecessary, but you can read about that in my next article on my first bikerafting trip to France.

Again, further internet research revealed a suitable paddle. I chose a Werner Skagit. A lightweight but strong carbon shaft paddle which breaks down into 4 pieces – something which is essential for strapping to the bike in some sort of orderly fashion.

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My next task was to look amongst my bike collection to see if I had anything suitable for the task. The answer was no, so I set out to research a new hardtail at a decent price which would be tough enough to tackle some trails with a full load, but not too heavy to strap to a raft.

After much deliberation and hundreds of reviews I decided on a Whyte 905 2019 model – again a good compromise of balancing all the features on my tick list;

• Less than £2000
• Less than 15kg
• Rugged
• Looks great
• Tubeless rims
• 1x drive
• Suitable for loaded and unloaded riding so I could take it on some trails and downhills when not touring.

When I went to my local bike shop just for a test ride and a nosey it turned out they had a 2018 model in my size at a significant discount, so I picked it up for £1000 and chucked it in the boot of the car.

A slightly spontaneous purchase but as soon as I sat on it the geometry just felt right. Riding it feels like I’m 10 years old again and can throw it around without fear. Precisely what a hardtail should feel like in my book.

Having only done pannier based cycle touring before I then needed to do some further research and shopping…once again my bank manager was sweating as I opened up a browser.

There are a whole range of bikepacking bags, packs, pouches, seat post racks, fork bags and many other terms used to make you feel cool and a bit special about the process of basically strapping luggage to your steed.

I will detail some of the gear I purchased and used in other posts. My initial setup was an Ortleib Handlebar Pack combined with Apidura Expedition Full Framebag and Backcounty Saddle Pack. A quick email exchange with the guys at Apidura confirmed that I could fit the 7.5Litre Framebag on my new bike and true to their word it fits with no problems – other than my desire to stuff 8.5 litres of gear into it.

My experience of cycle touring has taught me not to mess around with saving a few pennies here and there when it comes to luggage – especially when it comes to waterproofing. It’s a false economy. Buy well and buy once.

I was way too impatient to get going so I tested the setup out in my living room. My original idea was that the frame bag would contain cooking gear and about 3 days worth of food. The seatpost pack was dedicated to my sleeping kit (tent, inflatable mat and sleeping bag). This left the Ortleib handlebar pack free for stuffing the raft into and it’s accompanying accessory pouch for just that – accessories.

With the framebag taking up the space I would normally reserve for water bottles I needed another solution, so I added a couple of Apidura’s Backcountry Food Pouches which hang off the handlebars and wrap around the stem of the bike – just the right size to slip a couple of bottles into for easy access on the move.

Here’s some badly edited footage of me setting up for a test in the living room.

What I learned from this test was 3 things.

1. The fit of the rolled up raft into the Ortleib was too tight and it took me a good few minutes to prize it out of there – not something I wanted to be messing around with on the river bank.

2. Inflating the raft with the included inflation bag was pretty effective once you got the hang of it, but it does take some practise. You can clearly see me struggling a few times with the bag twisted and back to front.

3. With the bike loaded like this I had nowhere for clothes and washing gear to live. I was going to have to ride with a backpack – something I prefer not to do if possible.

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I spent some time adjusting the load on the bike, switching things around and re-packing things but I wasn’t happy with it so I removed the Ortleib handlebar pack and replaced it with a Specialized Handlebar Stabilizer Harness. With that on the front the load seemed much more practical – easy to get the raft on and off the bike without swearing at it.

I also forked out (excuse the pun) for a pair of Gorilla Cages to affix to the front forks of the bike – these were paired up with couple of DOM Dry bags to stash my clothes and wash kit in.

Re-configuring the load on the bike this way allowed me to reduce the backpack requirement to almost nothing – just a dryback backpack which contained those important items I wanted with me at all times – phone, passport etc…

My next consideration was weight. not mine = I like pies and beer too much to compromise much there, but I did strip all luxuries from my load. The only exceptions to this were a flask of Jameson’s whiskey and my Kindle. To me those fit the “essentials” bracket, not luxuries at all.

Now happy with my loadout, I was ready to head to France to put it all to the test in my first bikepacking adventure.

As I said at the start of this article – I don’t think there is a “right” or “wrong” in this – unless you load up so much that your raft sinks. It has been a bit of trial and error for me. Lots of reading of other peoples ideas and just figuring out what works for me, what I am comfortable riding and paddling.