The Art of the Hike-a-Bike

Greg Luesink
Jul 20
3 min read

Life is filled with great combos: burger and fries, peanut butter and jam sammy, movies and popcorn, birdsong in a forest. One of the most joyous, yet rarely pursued, is the hike-a-bike. My friend Nate and I delved into this dark art to a great extent in 2022, pushing our steeds up mountains and "riding" down chonky FSRs, resulting in magnificently "fun" sufferfests.

Jas and I went one step further in April of this year with our Bike-2-Ski up Mt Cheam, lugging a chariot and skis with us the whole way.

As spring rolled into summer, we turned our attention to regular hiking, but our friend Ihor had recently purchased a gravel bike and was exceptionally keen to test it out in the valley. What followed was a series of fun-fests up some local classics.

Exhibit A: Mt Cheam Triathlon

Ihor sent me a GPX file of a maniacal, mechanically-assisted 90km route with 3000m elevation gain, making a loop up Bridal Falls FSR to the Cheam parking lot, with intentions to hike the West Ridge and descend the regular trail, and finish with biking the FSR to the Chilliwack River Valley. On an overcast day, I biked to Ihor's house early in the morning. As we pedaled towards the Bridal Falls FSR to begin our hike-a-bike, the clouds started to spit droplets of rain. This was a little disconcerting, but hey, we were already out there, might as well try! The service road is generally not bike-able uphill (unless you have a mountain bike... in particular, an electric one), and we were frequently relegated to pushing our metal-steeds up the gravel.

After some wet riding through rain and puddles, we stashed our bikes at the Cheam Trailhead before hiking up the West Ridge of Cheam and looping back down the standard trail. We got absolutely no views, but we did get some fun bum slides on snow!

We got back to our bikes, donned our helmets, and proceeded to rattle and rumble our way down the long forest service road. Once we reached Bench FSR, we added one final gravel climb towards the Elk Trailhead, before splitting off down Army FSR and back to my house.

In total, we did over 3,000 metres of vert by biking, hiking, and everything in between for 11 hours... without a single view. Good thing we sometimes do silly things just for the sake of doing 'em.

Exhibit B: Mt McGuire Biathlon

About a month after Ihor's and my expedition, Jas was keen on summiting McGuire... in style. I'd done McGuire bike-hike style with my friend Nate the Great in 2022, so I suggested this to Jas and she was excited!

We invited Ihor to join, so he met us at our house and we rode off into the Chilliwack River Valley for a grand adventure.

After 13k of pavement, we turned onto the Borden Creek FSR for 8k of hike-a-bike. We pushed, pedaled, and plodded up 900m of FSR to a fallen bridge where we ditched our bikes. In my recollection, the road beyond was much too chunky to bike on the way down, and thus was not worth pushing our bikes up. Unfortunately, I was mistaken, and we could have shaved at least 2km off on the descent by riding down instead of walking.

We had about 1100m to gain over 6.5km to the summit, and we took our time enjoying the wildflowers in full alpine bloom. A steep trail punches up to the jagged limestone summit ridge.

My amateur geological assessment is that the limestone "vein" of rock that culminates in McGuire's spikey cow-lick of hair, runs diagonally through the Chilliwack River Valley, forming the many caves that spelunkers enjoy, all the way into parts of the Cheam Range. Notably, the limestone cliffs of Slesse Creek Crag were formed by the courtesy of McGuire's right Big Toe. Neighbouring Peaks of Slesse and Rexford are granitic, as is much of the valley, which makes McGuire's limestone shoulders and head quite unique.

We started walking down the trail, and I couldn't help but pick Jas a wildflower bouquet along the way. Pretty soon, we reached our bikes, and began our bumpy roll down the hill. Ihor's bike was certainly the most well-equipped for rocky roads, with fat 2" tires. Meanwhile, Jasmine's the least-equipped, with 28mm road tires. Jas was an absolute champ, walking some of the steeper sections, and riding when she could. Eventually, we made it back to pavement and enjoyed a nice cruise back home.

The McGuire trip was very fun, despite the blatant inadequacy of Jas' steed. This, coupled with our springtime bike-to-ski up Cheam, called for an upgrade for Jas...

Three days later, we pulled the trigger on a noble steed, one that will undoubtedly be the centerpiece of many adventures to come.