Introducing Biyaking

January 2009

Get loopy with your kayak and a bicycle

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

By Bryan Nichols

Attention Lord Webster and Lady Oxford, I've got a new word for you. The term, “to biyak,” is a verb whose time has come.

Biyaking is a combination of bicycling and kayaking, preferably a loop. Instead of shuttling between your put-in and take-out locations with a car, you make the trip on bicycle. It's pedaling and paddling, on shore and on the water.

The Basics of Biyaking

The best biyak routes combine a good paddle with an interesting and safe pedal. If you're like me, narrow roads and fast-moving cars are terrifying, so good biyak routes aren't especially easy to find. Nonetheless, many kayaking trips can be connected by back roads, dirt trails for mountain bikes or even paved bike trails. I didn't get into biyaking because I love bicycles – I haven't liked bicycle seats since my banana-seated chopper in Grade 5. However, I do a lot of solo paddling. When you're alone, shuttling a vehicle is logistically problematic, which makes a lot of river runs and longer paddles impossible to do. So I started thinking about ways I could make the connection with a bicycle, which can cruise considerably faster than a kayak and cover terrain a car cannot.

Biyaking Gear

You'll need the usual kayaking stuff, but you'll probably want to pare it down to the bare minimum. Pack light, because without a locking hatch or some other kind of secure storage, you'll need to carry everything you'd rather not leave in your boat when you pedal from kayak to car. In addition to the stuff you're used to kayaking with, you'll also need:

· A good bike lock (for your unattended bike);

· A good kayak cable lock (for your unattended kayak); and

· Safety lights and clothing (if you'll be on roads).

Right now I'm using a Lasso security cable for my kayak, a Lightman strobe (visible in daylight) for highways and one of those Pacsafe locking mesh things that travelers use to secure their backpacks, which allows me to secure my paddle, PFD and a few other things to my kayak. Gearheads and tinkerers: here's a new reason to buy and/or invent new toys. Better yet, biyak shuttling would be simpler if you could carry your bicycle or kayak with you. How about a folding kayak on a bike trailer? Or a folding bike on a kayak? Those are both probably difficult to manage, but there are some interesting loops that could be done with a folding kick scooter or inline skates. Skayaking? Kayootering? You decide.

Three types of biyaking

To give you an idea of the possibilities, here are three examples of biyak routes from Florida, which is well suited for the sport, as there are plenty of relatively flat, slow-moving rivers with roads and trails to connect to them. I'm in Central Florida right now, and since just about every river in peninsular Florida is Class I or tidal, the problems tend to be on the road, not the water. Bicycling (and walking) are something of an oddity down here; you take your chances amidst hordes of SUVs and Lincolns steered by drivers who haven't seen a bicycle on the highway since the great floods back in 'ought six, by golly.

1. The urban biyak route

Paddling through skyscrapers is a change of pace for wilderness kayakers, and a downtown biyak loop can provide some of the best scenery a city has to offer. Ideally you can start in one park, paddle to another, and pedal between them along a smooth shoreline path, whether the shore is a river, lake or oceanfront. Great meals, coffee, culture and shopping options don't hurt either. Not-so-ideal conditions include boat traffic on the water, automobiles on land, and sections of town you can't safely travel through or leave things in. Most cities and a lot of towns were built on rivers or coasts, so yours probably has biyak routes lurking in it somewhere.

2. The estuary biyak

Flat terrain means you can follow rivers here right out to sea, enjoying the transition from freshwater to salt. You get a nice, long paddle downstream and don't have to double back. A good example here is the lower Anclote River, which flows through downtown Tarpon Springs. Starting at Craig Park, you can connect a six-mile (9-km) paddle out the river and down the coast to Sunset Park with a quick, 2.5 mile (4-km) bike ride through mostly residential streets. With parks at each end, launching and retrieving is easy, and the scenery varies nicely.

3. The ideal biyak – a beautiful river and a former railroad

I recently completed a near-ideal biyak loop along the Withlacoochee River. Sections of the river run along the Withlacoochee Trail, a rails-to-trails paved bike trail, which makes for a great long-distance biyak loop.

Here's what my Withlacoochee exploratory biyak trip consisted of: Drive to the upstream end, just under a highway overpass and drop off the kayak. Drive to the downstream end (in this case a small boat ramp in a tiny town). Bike 10 miles (16 km) back to the upstream end along the paved Withlacoochee Trail (there are brief bits of road at each end to connect with the river). Lock up the bike and load everything else into the kayak. Paddle the winding 15 miles (24.5 km) back to car. Then pick up the bike on way home.

Water levels were low on my exploratory trip and I saw just one other paddler for the first 12 miles (20 km), in part because I had to push over several weed dams and grunt across a so-called lake that looked more like a field. So I got a great workout, being self-powered for over 24 miles (40 km) using both my upper and lower body.

A biyak route near you?

Fairly flat Florida already has some very interesting biyak routes, and with just a little work there could be plenty more. Think of it – a new word for the brochures. Save gas, keep fit and enjoy the beautiful new biyak trails!

With a little work, many more biyak routes could open up. A small investment for trails to connect rivers, roads and launches, along with posts to lock kayaks to, would make an area more biyak friendly.

Take a minute to think about your local rivers, bays, estuaries and coasts. Is there a spot that just cries out for a biyak trip near you? If so, let us know in the Wavelength forum at www.coastandkayak.com/forum.

When not plotting new biyak routes, marine biologist Bryan Nichols teaches at the University of South Florida.