Alaska Trip, take bicycles yes or no?

[T Gibson]

Getting ready to go on our Alaska 3 month adventure, and the last thing on the list is to either take our bicycles or leave them home. We love to bike, hike, kayak, anything to do with getting us away from the electronics and boob tube. We could carry them on our Wrangler toad, which will already have 2 kayaks on it's roof (a must have). Bikes would go into the "toads" trailer hitch bike rack. Just need some advise to those of you who have made the Ak. trip. Did you find a need for them and are there places where you could use them? Thanks in advance for your input... Terry

[Waiter21]

If you leave them at home, you will need them. If you take them with you, you won't use them.

Yes, Take them. Make sure your mount is secure.

[twogypsies]

Unless you're heavy duty riders, don't take them. Many folks in the lower 48 like to cruise around in the campgrounds. Alaskan campgrounds/RV parks are not like the lower 48. They are gravel parking lots.

There's Sue, on the Woodalls Alaskan Forum who posted a picture of a biker with a bear on the road with him. You will be seeing many bears along the roadsides on your trip. Anchorage has trails through wilderness areas and we've read of bears coming upon bikers. Some instances without a good ending.

Also think of how dirty the bikes would get. Have you ever seen pictures of vehicles after driving through construction zones - many miles of construction?

[deSanford]

The dust and dirt will make them unuseable. Leave them home and rent some if you can. Sanford

[Smitty77]

We are casual bike riders, with a crossover street/light dirt trial bikes, for both of us.

I ended up not taking them with us to Alaska. We carry them on the back of our our CRV, when we do take them. I think we would have ridden them maybe twice not he whole trip. And for those times, we did not rent bikes, even though rentals were available.

Now kayak's are a different story. We do not have them, but did rent some canoes on lakes. (We're deciding between a tandem inflatable kayak, or inflatable canoe that also has a transom for a small motor. We'll purchase as our X-ass gift to each other... And it's a 50/50 choice at this time...).

Back to bikes. Unless you stay in say Fairbanks, Anchorage, Valdez, Haines, etc. for longer periods to time then is 'the norm' for Alaska RV trek's - you will not find many places to comfortably ride them.

But again, we're casual bike riders. For those of you that are avid bike riders - it would be like me without a good cabernet onboard... (I'm and avid wine enthusiastic, so this is natural to me...!

Best to you, and do what is right for you!
Smitty

[T Gibson]

Thanks to all that replied, it looks like they will not add to the weight of our train... +1 one on not getting them filthy dirty, pay too much for good toy's.