Bainbridge Bike Camping

A few weekends ago we took a bike camping trip to Fay Bainbridge Park on Bainbridge Island, WA. From our home on Vashon this was a 20-mile, 1,000 ft elevation gain trip each way (on e-bikes of course!). Legs were 5-8-7 miles broken up by ferries. The PNW is absolutely gorgeous in July; we both grew up here and the summers still never cease to delight us. E was a total trooper the whole way, chatting with us about the scenery and reminding me to slow down on hills (he’s not a fan of fast). If it were up to him we would have stayed in downtown Seattle all day to admire the excavators and backhoes along the waterfront construction zones. His squeals of delight almost convinced me!

Though our family doesn’t have a car and our commute used to include biking 14 miles round-trip per day, we have only left the island once since quarantine started 4 months ago, so our legs were a bit out of practice even for e-biking!

Waiting in line for the Bainbridge ferry we connected with some other family bikers on an Extracycle. The Seattle Freeze does not exist for moms who bike with kids! Turns out we are both members of a local group of cycling moms called Team Mama Bears. They had two kiddos along and showed us an awesome scenic route up to the campsites.

The Hauling Setup

Mom’s ride is an HSD P9 Performance. I ordered the HSD in September and it arrived in June, worth the wait! I love this bike! Tiny, powerful, smooth, and strong.

Dad’s ride is our bike mini-van, the Riese and Muller Load 60. The weekend prior I drilled holes into the side of the cargo box so I could attach more cargo to the outside with Voile straps. This hack was so fun to do and it was immensely gratifying to haul a tent, poles, and a hammock-tent on the sides using this system the very next weekend.

Gear that helps us haul a TON of stuff:

Voile straps
Rok straps (every house should have these! Seriously an amazing product.)
Ortlieb panniers
Swift Industries panniers and front box
Problem Solvers bow ties
Extra bungees
Extra carabiners

Fay Bainbridge park has a few biker/hiker only sites that are first-come, first-serve. Those are right on the beach. We prefer trees and privacy and a guaranteed spot for camping so we had sites 28 and 29 booked up on the hill. The campers from site 27 never showed up, which worked out great because that is the perfect spot for a hammock! We have an epic family hammock tent by Clark Outdoors which can hold 2 adults and one child with a 3-tree triangle setup.
*There are also some really cute little cabins at this park, I will definitely book these sometime in the future.