Bikejoring? Meet a P.E.I. woman riding the trails with her dogs
Emma Spence is teaching her dogs to pull her along while she rides her bike
With tongues out and tails up, Odin and Spartan run ahead of their owner, Emma Spence, attached by harnesses to her bike.
In recent weeks, Spence and her dogs have been turning a few heads on the Confederation Trail, as they've been trying out an activity called bikejoring.
Similar to dogsledding, bikejoring involves dogs pulling a rider on a bike.
"They are just kinda slow right now," Spence said. "I'm hoping to speed them up and get them into the actual pulling of it.
"But, so far, it's a great way to explore around the Island and me and the dogs are both getting out on all nice sunny days."
Learning the ropes
Spence learned about bikejoring when she came across some photos on Instagram and decided to give it a try. She ordered harnesses online and has been training the dogs for about two weeks.
"They listen to me quite well," she said. "If they weren't I'd be pretty worried I was gonna go for a little woodland adventure into a ditch.
"I didn't know what was going to happen at first. I was fully prepared to jump ship."
Spence has been sharing photos and videos of her adventures on her Instagram account, which is dedicated to her dogs.
She said she's had some surprised reactions from people she's met on the trail.
"I've never seen anyone do this before, except for online," she said. "So I think that it's not a very common sport to do."
Keeping active, exploring the Island
Spence said her dogs need plenty of exercise — she walks them for several hours each day — and she's glad to have another activity she can do with them.
"I can make so much more progress with them on the bikes than I can just walking with them. Like the other day I went from Forest Hills all the way to the Morell bridge and back, and if I was walking that would have taken me a lot longer."
Spence expects it will take a few more weeks of training to get the dogs up to full speed. At that point, she wants to starts exploring more areas of the Island.
While her bikejoring adventures have just begun, she's already thinking ahead to next winter, when she hopes to try the same thing on skis.
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