Using eBike for Off-Road Bird Hunting – Anyone Tried It?

[Momo]

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with using my fat tire e-bike for early morning bird hunting trips. I’ve always been into the outdoors, but I never thought cycling and hunting could mix this well—until I tried. The bike lets me access off-road trails quietly and without the hassle of a loud ATV or long hike with heavy gear. Bonus: it's actually kind of fun to cruise through wooded trails on the way to a hunt.

I’ve been reading up on best practices, and I found this really solid guide from Birch that talks about bird hunting setups, gear, and tips:
Complete Guide to Bird Hunting
Some points on choosing terrain and prepping for different species really helped me plan better.

Anyone else here combining e-bikes and hunting? Would love to see how you carry your gear or if you’ve modded your setup (like racks, camo, trailer, etc.). I’m especially curious if anyone’s used a trike for extra hauling capacity?

 

[Chargeride]

A few hunters have commented on my fat tyre offroad bbshd videos, always when something breaks and they realise its a possibility they hadnt considered in their prepping.
Like when a super low pressure tyre popped off and the innertube ripped the derallieur clean off.
That would spoil your day.

 

[Bicyclista]

I have been combining mountain and cargo ebiking with bird photography for ten years. I usually carry four cameras, two in each pannier on the mountain bike, which is set up like an expedition bike. On the cargo bike I split the cameras between the front basket and the rear panniers. Needless to say, for bird photography I am using long telephoto lenses. The cargo bike allows me to take a tripod as well, whereas the mountain bike is good for a monopod.

I would fully test an etrike by taking it on a hunting trip before buying, if possible. The few etrikes I have ridden have weird handling; they tend to pull you to the low side of the road (most roads have camber; the low side is the gutter on the side of the road), and you have to fight steering all the time. YMMV.

An all-terrain cargo ebike, like my Yuba Spicy Curry, has front suspension and 2.2-inch knobby tires. You can get it with two batteries, as I did, doubling your range. The extra long cargo deck plus oversized panniers, provide a lot of cargo capacity. Needless to say, the Yuba Spicy Curry is expensive, but so is a quality etrike.

 

[Art Deco]

The heavy load guys on here rarely speak of off road trails and the off roaders don't usually carry heavy loads. You are asking a lot of both bikes and legs. .
.