Bikes for Alaska trip?

If you love to go around on bike and are planning to stay a few days in small towns, you would just ride around instead of walking. A bike on a rack is not much trouble, if you use it, fine, if you don't, well so be it.

In Yukon, tourists on bikes are referred to as "meals on wheels".

Fortunately for the fellow in the following picture, we came up behind him before he lived up to that title. The bear had been chasing him up the hill, then maybe heard my husband honking the horn and it turned off. The cyclist waved his thanks as we passed him further along.

Thanks guys for the heads up. We love to ride our bikes on trails that use to be railroad tracks and of course along the SC & FL coast. Your answers made up our minds, we're leaving them at home.

I live in Anch and Fbks. We took our MH south two years ago taking 45 days, used the bikes once. I wouldn't bother with them.

Bill

We took ours in 2005 but hardly used them. Left them home in 2009 and 2013.

That's a good question and I see some very good answers......we're in the planning stages now for next year(or 2017 summer) to Alaska and I think the bikes will stay at home. I'm thinking 2017 to correspond with tire replacement so I know I'm traveling on good rubber.... :-)

You can rent bikes for a day if you want or need one. Most days you will not find them useful..and yes they will get very very dirty. In bear and moose country it's too easy to surprise a beast. They may still hear you coming but just have too little time to move away. In Seward, Homer, Fairbanks, Anchorage a bike might be somewhat handy, but there are rentals.

If you're casual bikers I definitely would not bring them. Riding in campgrounds isn't like in the lower 48. They're all gravel and one RV after another in a row.

Unless you plan to do a bike trip involving miles, I wouldn't bring them. Also, you will not believe what the rear of your RV will look like because of the dirt you'll encounter. Storing bikes on the rear will necessitate a LOT of cleaning before use.

I'm thinking it depends on what kind of biking. Are you casual bikers that like flat roads? Are you avid bikers that like designated trails or old rail road grades? Or are you off road mountain bikers? http://www.traillink.com has pretty decent information on bike trails nation wide.

There is at least one Alaska travel blog up by a couple of avid bike riders. They seemed to find plenty to do with their bikes.