Tote A Boat On Your Bike
TOTE A BOAT ON YOUR BIKE
Carry 'Em With You Boats-For Cyclists
JAMES JOSEPH
PUT YOURSELF in this outdoor picture: you’re wheeling through deep country. Up ahead, around the road’s next bend, beckons a lake. You brake by its shore, climb down, unstrap the duffel bag lashed on behind—and 10 minutes later you’re ready for water, for fishing, cruising or just plain funning. Out of that duffel bag has come a boat: a tough-hided nylon-andneoprene inflatable boat that air inflates to perhaps 13 ft., comes ready-for-water with a speedy 3-hp mini-outboard motor and a pair of collapsible oars. The whole works—three-passenger inflatable boat, mini-outboard, oars and the footbellows that makes inflation a quick, 5-minute job—weighs just a bit over 80 lb. and packs into scarcely more space than a sleeping bag.
Tote a boat on your bike? Inflatable boats-for the first time-let the cyclist do just that. The lightweight, low-cost inflatables do more. They promise a new watery fun dimension for cyclists.
Nearly a dozen manufacturers offer no less than 50 inflatable boats from which to pick and choose. And most of them are priced and sized right for cyclists. Typically, a tough-hided 12-ft. inflatable (Avon’s fiveto seven-passenger Redshank) deflates to fit into a duffel bag, weighs just 52 lb. and costs less than $400. The 3-hp mini-outboard to push it (at speeds up to 15 mph or so) costs $140, weighs a mere 28 lb. and fits into the same duffel bag that carries the deflated boat. The whole fun-package goes easily onto most road machines, even the lightweights. Or it can be trailered behind in any of the new mini-trailers for cycles.
While $400-$600 is approximately the amount you’ll have to spend for a rhino-hided nylon/neoprene inflatable and its 2to 3-hp mini-motor, inflatables made of cotton cloth (or canvas), impregnated with natural rubber, come a good deal cheaper...as low as $55 for a four-man, 10-ft. boat. For occasional use, the cotton-natural rubber boats may be just for you. Sears, Roebuck catalogs a rubberized canvas 12-ft. inflatable with three inflatable seats that carries six passengers, goes like gee-whiz with a 3.5-hp mini-outboard, weighs just 52 lb. and costs only $70.
If it’s long life and tough-going you want (and expect), then don’t settle for less than a nylon/neoprene-skinned inflatable. Neither sun, salt water, motor fuel or temperature affects their tough hides. Unlike the rubberized canvas, they don’t have to be pampered. They’ll stand up to years of inflation/deflation. What’s more, they’re so resilient to impact or puncture that they can scrape over rocks, collide with piers and be repeatedly beached without damage.
The inflatables are, when you analyze them, veritable life preservers. Most are constructed with multiple air compartments. Even should their rhino-hides spring an air leak you can patch them on the spot—without even coming ashore. Reason: deflation pressures are so low (often only 2 psi) that the leak-out is slow and so low-pressurized you can slap a patch (which comes with most of the boats) right over the leak and forget it. Even deflated, the better inflatables float. Inflating them, moreover, is strictly no-hassle, thanks to foot-bellows inflators—a small footpump that fully inflates the average deflatable in but 5 to 10 minutes. Deflation—with the new quick-deflate valves now standard for the better deflatables-is not only fast but complete. And that’s vital if you’re to repack the boat on your cycle. In the old days, getting out the last bit of air was a problem. Today it isn’t.
Mostly because of the boom in inflatable boats, nearly every major U.S. outboard maker now offers a minimotor that’ll fit your inflatable, your cycle and your budget. Sears, Roebuck catalogs a 5-hp outboard motor that weighs 33 lb., sells for around $129 and will push the average inflatable to about 10 mph. Shakespeare, the rod and reel company, has just brought out a whole new line of super-quiet electric trolling motors, which weigh a mere 6 to 11 lb., cost $75-$ 125, and will power you and your inflatable noiselessly to where the big ones bite. The British Seagull minimotor is something else again: a singlecylinder go-go outboard that’s as tough and sure-fire (it starts on the first crank) as the better inflatables themselves. Seagulls are sized 2 to 6.5 hp, weigh 26 to 37 lb., cost $ 130-$265—and can be rolled inside a deflated boat, packed into a duffel bag and carried on most cycles, large or small.
