You head off to your fave campsite, and try to book a site that's not too close or too far from the kibo. But that can be a guessing game. And if the distance ends up being too far for one's gimpy abilities, that has left me having to start up the van for each bathroom run.
I had a Schwinn commuter folding bike. Then a few years ago, we added a 20' ebike wheel kit to it. I happened to get this one from Green Cruiser/Solo Rock in Toronto, since Clean Republic didn't have this wheel size at the time. They have kits for the 20' wheel now.
Now I can just rotate down and fold the handlebars and flip down the pedals. That gives the bike the footprint of a kid's bike with nothing sticking out. Even with my bum arm, I can leverage the back wheel up onto the rear of the van, then follow with the front wheel and roll it back. I can get 2 @ 8' kayaks in beside it with room to spare.
I'll admit the ebike is heavy, even this small one. But no heavier than electric scooters that I looked at. And you have a bike.
I had a small powerful torchlight (note to self - it needs to be replaced) on the front for nightfall bathroom runs.
As well obviously I use it to take park roadways to meet the guys at the waterfront.
In this scenario, I compress my walking poles and stow in the carry bag. Even short, the poles are too long for my carry basket or panniers. So have attached a long braided strap to the bag so that i can ride with it cross body. I have in a pinch stuffed the compressed poles under the 2 bungies that are around the battery on the rat trap. They stick out funny, but are pretty solidly on there. That way after I lock up the bike, I have a way to walk around.
In addition to camping, I pack this little ebike for daytrips to visit relatives where we might want to go to a neighbourhood park, etc. Or if the young lad and I want to go to an outdoor conservation area type location. It's definitely something he and I can manage from loading to unloading.
I'll try to share a few pics of the small bike in situ in coming weeks.
For now here's one of the other half and I doing reconnaisance at the Sauble River. Back story - we took our old canoe, a solid fibreglass barge of a thing, back to his mom's cottage. Getting it down to the river involved the painful procedure of loading it on top of the van for what ended up being a lame paddle where the kids where too hot and wanted to bail early. In addition, the boat launch was packed with trucks, people queuing up to put in their boats and jet skis, etc. And you can't park nearby. And there's a parking fee and a computerized meter. It would sure be a lot easier if we biked the canoe down.
At home we use our Wike Bikes kayak cart to get down to the little lake in town. Saves loading the canoe on top for sure a short 'portage.' With this in mind, we have a couple of options for making better use of the old canoe up there.
1) We can put in up near the falls. If we lock up the ebike near the dock first, one of us can ride back up to the falls and bring the van down. By using the ebike, it can be a fairly fast trip and the boaters wouldn't have as long a wait.
Or 2) We can tow the canoe with bike straight from the cottage, lock up all the bikes when we get to dock, and hop on the bikes and tow back when we're done. It really depends on where you want to start and end up.
We have a 2nd seat post hitch. We supplied a small portage cart when we brought the old canoe back. We can buy another tow bar from Wike, and have a 2nd towing arrangement up there.
I did find in the past that pulling the old canoe behind the folding bike was hard. The small bike frame didn't have the heft of the trike to resist sway of the canoe. It threw my stability off. I'd have to try it again. My stability may be a bit more solid in the past couple of years. We have a different way of attaching the canoe to the tow bar. As a fall back, the other half can tow the canoe quite easily with his un-motorized bike.
But as you can see, there are a number of options that make using the canoe an added bonus to the trip, rather than regretting that you can't use it.
So just sharing the evolution of our thinking and practical findings on summer tripping with the bikes.
Cheers!
