Originally Posted by
Bruces
I have a question for you ,I buy ,sell ,and refurb about 5 canoes a week throughout the summer ,and had a fellow from France that was cycling across Canada ask me to find him a trailer so he can haul one of my canoes to Quebec with him ,which is at least a 6-7 hour drive in a car through some very hilly terrain .I did some research and found him a trailer ,but he didn't get back to me until well after I had sold the particular canoe he was after .Was he as nuts as I think ,feeling that it's a good idea to be hauling a 40 lb 16 foot canoe down the Trans Canada highway on a bicycle ?I would think a short in town trip or a few mile highway trip might be doable ,but seriously 4-500 miles just seems insane ,let alone he will need to resell his new $2000.00 pride and joy in a very short time as well .
Yes, that's nuts. But we're talking about a bicycle tourist here, so it goes without saying that he's gotta be nuts, right? I mean, the main site for blogging about bike tours is called "crazy guy on a bike." There's a reason for that.
Thinking somewhat seriously about this, I think a bicycle+canoe tour is definitely doable, but you'd have to do it right. Canoe touring typically involves a portage every now and then, usually less than a mile, often just a hundred feet or so. With a folding bike and dolly you could do much longer portages. I can certainly imagine pulling a canoe full of gear ten or twenty miles, maybe fifty if absolutely necessary.
I rather doubt he intended to tow the canoe 400 miles. He would have been putting the canoe in the water every chance he got, no? Otherwise, there wouldn't be much point in bringing it.
I would not do it with a fragile or valuable canoe, though.