A Guest Blog About a Dog! (And a Bike!) by Rachel Clayton
With the sun setting beyond the rolling green hills, I let another big, wild breath of air linger in my lungs. This is what I ride for. These are the moments I live for. My bike is loaded to the brim, but feels light as air as I cascade down the loose trail. Dust kicks up in my wake. I’m lost in space and time, completely at one with my bike when I hear it. Footsteps. No, galloping feet. Four galloping feet, pounding towards me from behind…
I know what you’re thinking. Bear?
Nah, not this time. Not anytime actually because I live in the UK. Those galloping feet belong to my awesome trail dog and adventure buddy, Benny. Since most of my bike-related trips involve my partner and Benny, any bikepacking trip for us is better described as “dogpacking”. Yes, his feet really do make a racket when he’s running along beside us. I’ll explain why shortly, along with a few other things that you might find helpful if you’re hoping to take your four legged friend along for the ride.
TRAINING
Obviously, some dog breeds are better suited to a life on the trails than others. Take Benny for example, he’s a border collie, chosen specifically because I knew the breed is full of smarts (like, seriously clever) and even more full of energy – ideal for a trainee trail dog. And train him we did. We started getting Benny used to the bikes from a very young age. When he was a small puppy, we adapted a child’s bike trailer and carried him with us on rides. We wanted him to get used to us riding and the sound of things like hubs and brakes. We’d also speak to him a lot to get him used to listening to us whilst on bikes. Hearing instructions on the trail is so important for everyone’s safety.
As Benny got bigger, we trained him to run at our back wheels, beside our bikes, or ahead of us – all depending on the trail and the speed we were riding. We also taught him simple emergency commands like “over”, to which Benny will move off a singletrack trail and over to the side. But there’s one last mighty important piece of knowledge that we imparted onto our trail dog… where the toilet is. The last thing you want to do is bag up a poop in the middle of nowhere and carry it for miles. Nor should you just leave a poop on a public trail or track. Sure, you could try to stick flick it out of the way, but that’s a risky business. So, Benny is trained to leave the trail and do his business somewhere away from it. He’ll typically veer off into long grass or wooded areas and that’s our signal to give him a moment’s privacy.
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ROUTE PLANNING
Benny is now 2 years old and he’s pretty fit and healthy. He can cover upward of 30miles a day, with regular stopping and plenty of snacks. That’s probably a lot for a dog, but not loads for a bike. So it’s fair to say that when we all ride together, it’s not about covering as many miles as we can. Instead, we look for fun and challenging trails, impressive views and interesting rest spots like rivers, lakes and waterfalls.
Notice how all of those involve water? That’s intentional, because a dog needs regular access to it. We do carry extra with us, so if he’s looking hot we can share that with him, but he seems to prefer natural sources to tap water anway. We also include plenty of elevation in our routes. Don’t forget, energy expenditure works in the opposite way for bike riders and dogs. Whilst we’re puffing and sweating our way up a hill, they’re plodding along beside us, wondering what’s taking so long. Equally, whilst we’re ripping down that beaut of a decent, legs out like an aeroplane (just me?), our dogs are busting a lung to try and keep up. We’ve found that hill climbs are Benny’s time to rest, so we include lots of them on our routes. Lucky us.
SET UP AND GEAR
The addition of a dog can add more kit than you’d expect. Aside from carrying additional water and food (dry biscuits and snack sticks) for Benny, he also has his own gear, like a collapsible bowl. Another thing we’ve learned the hard way is to carry something that protects Benny’s paws. That’s right, Benny has trail shoes that he’ll wear if he’s running on gravel or fire roads for any stretch of time.
We also choose to sleep in a tent so that Benny, humans and bikes are all self-contained overnight. The tent we use is the Big Agnes Blacktail Hotel 2, which has plenty of room inside for the three of us, plus an optional vestibule for bike and gear storage. Within that tent, we sleep on inflatable mats. Surely a disaster waiting to happen when one of the party has sharp claws? That’s where Benny’s second item of footwear comes in. You guessed it, Benny has tent socks.
When you add the extra bits to your regular bikepacking gear list, there’s quite a bit of kit to carry, even between two people. So, do we have bigger bikes? Longer wheelbase for more rack space? Somewhere to stick the dog himself if he gets tired?
Unfortunately not. In fact, I ride a Hope HB130 – that’s a full-squish mountain bike. Despite the positioning of the rear shock, there’s enough space for bags on the frame and the bike. I load it up with the Apidura Dropper Saddle Pack (specially adapted for dropper posts), Apidura Backcountry Long Top Tube Pack 1.8L, Revelate Designs Jerry Can and ORTLIEB Handlebar-Pack (15L). That said, our set up is obviously designed for everyone’s comfort – a luxury that’s only made possible because we split the kit between two humans.
We never strap gear to Benny or have him carry a bag. The added weight would be bad for his limbs and joints, which are working pretty darn hard already.
LIMITATIONS?
As you can probably tell, the three of us won’t be winning any awards for speed and we won’t be covering huge distances in a hurry. But that in no way detracts from our experience of bikepacking or the epic rides we can have. Benny loves the trails and we love having him there. Yes, there are compromises to make and extra kit to carry. Yes, there’s the endless search for water and obsessively checking his paws for blisters. It’s all worth it though. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that an adventure isn’t complete without Benny in tow – his trail boots pounding the dusty trails as he chases to catch up. Why had he dropped so far behind, you ask? He’d probably just nipped to the loo.
