Ep. 71 - Ryan Stoyer, Bikerafting on the Buffalo

Bikes or Death

When I contacted Ryan Stoyer about coming on the podcast it was with the idea that we would talk about his unique lifestyle and how it allows for him to life a more fulfilled life. I still like that topic, but Ryan had other ideas. After the official BoD instagram invite was sent, his reply was an enthusiastic yes, followed by a suggestion, "how about we go bikerafting?". My response was equally enthusiastic and I gave no thought to the fact that I'd never been bikerafting, or had a raft, or new how to build a route, etc etc. But we had 5 weeks and that turned out to be the just enough to assemble the necessary gear and courage to tackle new adventure territory. The plan was to create a bikerafting route and share our experiences through a podcast.

As I learned more about Bikerafting, I learned that there is a lot of interest in this re-emerging sport. The first recorded bikeraft trip was in 1987 by Roman Dial, but it seems to be growing in popularity in recent years. So the focus of the podcast shifted from being about Ryan and our trip, we also tried to provide some information that may help you prepare for your own bikerafting or packrafting trip! We discuss where to get packrafts, what to look for, how they handle, how to pack, how to plan a route, etc. It was a huge learning experience for me and I'm excited to share what I learned. I'm a complete newb and my tips reflect that, which is why it was good to have Ryan who brings more experience. It came in handy on the river and on the podcast.

The route my friend Connor Thomas created in NW Arkansas is a real beauty. I will be publishing that route soon!! Unfortunately, you can't plan the weather and we got Cold and Wet every day we were there. So our trip had an extra element of Type 2 fun sprinkled in to keep it interesting. I will let the podcast speak for itself, but I can tell you that every person on that trip had a great time and the ones that didn't have packrafts are all now wanting some. Bikerafting was a little scary to me at first. It doesn't make sense that a 195 lb guy + 55 lbs of gear can float safely down a river on a 5 lb inflatable raft. Call me crazy! Any initial fears I first had were quickly squashed and I found bikerafting quite to my liking, and as Ryan says, "It's a great rest day after a long day on the bike". Not only that, but it opens up so many possibilities both with routes and with scenery.

I'm glad that Ryan challenged me to do this. It was barely on my radar, but I'm not one to shy away from a new adventure. I equally enjoyed getting to meet and learn from Ryan. He is a wealth of information on a variety of topics that I find fascinating and meaningful.

We cover a lot on this episode! To make it easier for you to enjoy and refer back to this episode at a later time I've included timestamps in the show notes so you can quickly find the topic/s you're interested in. Timestamp:

13:45 - Talking Tiny Home 22:15 - Maker Space - Elijah, GA 26:10 - Ryans First Bikepacking Trip 33:25 - Ryans First Bikerafting Trip38:30 - What is Bikerafting 44:15 - Rockgeist fanboy talk 47:20 - Resources for renting, buying, or building a packraft 48:33 - Renting backraftings from https://backcountrypackrafts.com/ 51:00 - What is it called? Bikepack Rafting or Bikerafting? 52:15 - What kind of features to look for in a packraft that will work for bikerafting 57:45 - Creating a Bikerafting route 62:40 - Our Bikerafting Trip 65:00 - Packing a packraft on a bike 83:00 - Continuing our Bikerafting trip Day 2 85:00 - How to pack your gear and bike on your packraft94:15 - Description of the water on route98:10 - Trip Continues - Day 3106:20 - Random tangent about Psychotropics 120:00 - Beginning of the End