Bikejoring

[paintedpennypony]

Does anyone else here bikejor with their dogs? If you’re unfamiliar, think mountain biking with your dog pulling you.

I’ve been bikejoring with my ACD x golden retriever mix and husky x malamute x GSD x ACD mix for about three years now. I run both of them in a dual harness set up so I can exercise two birds with one stone. It’s an amazing mental and physical outlet for high energy dogs and will get them in excellent shape.

It’s very easy to get started if you’re interested. All of my equipment is from Alpine Outfitters. I dare say pulling is intuitive for dogs so there’s not much of a learning curve. Just lots of fun!

[S1969]

I think my dogs would love it but not sure where I could ever do that safely. Where do you live? Do you go on mountain bike trails? How do other cyclists feel? Curious about those details. If I lived in a very rural area I think you could host about go anywhere.

[paintedpennypony]

I currently live in a rural area and run the dogs on a hunting lease near my house. I sometimes take them on beginner mountain bike trails/ multiuse hiking trails that are wide enough for two dogs to run shoulder-to-shoulder. The beginner MB/multiuse trails are the MOST fun and the dogs love it!! When I started bikejoring I live in a mid-sized city and would take them on paved bike paths, parks, and dirt roads near town.

The dogs get very focused and it’s easy to teach them verbal commands. My dogs know whoa, easy, and “this way” when we’re turning or going in a different direction. When they get distracted and want to sniff, a stern “leave it” gets them focused on running again.

When I lived in town I never got the impression that we bothered anyone. My dogs picked up on the verbal commands quickly and whenever we would get near someone I would give the other person a very large berth. Both of my dogs were reactive when they were younger and sometimes I would have to manage that when we would be biking, but mostly they were dialed in on running or would be too tired to be reactive if we came across another dog towards the end of the run.

[DiamondJubilee]

My Greater Swiss loves to bikjour with us!! I’m a complete ammy at it and just use a regular dog harness, and only take her on some easy biking trails or just around campgrounds.

She is not built for speed at 118lb, but can have quick bursts of speed and I have taken her on 5-10km rides. She starts off at a gallop but after a little bit settles into a nice jog. She does pull me for the first while and I let her come back to me at the trot and not pull when she tires a bit, so perhaps not quite the true bikejouring. Its a great way to tire her out as she does have endless energy (or so it seems to me!). She is a pulling breed so it is in her genetics, though only small bursts, not meant to go for miles.

She is quite reactive on leash if I walk her (as in she wants to meet and greet every dog she sees or try to chase squirrels or anything that moves) but is very focused when she is bikejouring. She doesn’t pull towards other dogs then and keeps on trucking. I never actually trained her for that, it seems to come naturally to her when she has a job. She did pull me sideways once off my bike when I hit a popular trail downtown Toronto as the squirrels literally sit at the edge of the bike trail and are not scared of anything! It was too tempting to her lol!

She was super easy to train and absolutely goes crazy when she knows she is bikjouring with us. It really is her most favourite thing to do! Maybe I should look into a proper harness and lead…

[DiamondJubilee]

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Just a quick video from a campground I was staying at. I’m not quite a good enough bike rider to video her while we are starting as she is quite gung ho. This was about 20 mins into the ride.

[GoodTimes]

Unfortunately my 11yo Aussie x Bernese isn’t able to do much long distance running anymore. When she was younger we did a lot of canicross and skijoring. We never tried bikejoring as she never quite had to stamina for those longer runs when the temps were above freezing. Skijoring was definitely her forte.

Hopefully we have a few more years with her. We’re a one dog household. But once she passes I would like a GSP. It’s been many years since I’ve had my own bird dog to hunt over. But for the majority of the year when we aren’t out hunting we’ll definitely be partaking in the “joring” sports. My local ski club allows dogs on the trails during the week.
There are a few easy mountain bike trails in the local county forests that usually aren’t busy, so we could definitely bikejor on those. But I’ve also considered that it may be better to use one of the setups that have the dog at heel on a shorter lead. The only trail that we can get to from my house without driving tends to be busier, but it’s flat and wide (old rail bed).
I have an old kids mountain bike. Way too small for actually biking, but I like the idea of easily being able to get on and off, or putting my feet down while biking with a dog.