Cycling is a broad church. From BMX to all the mountain bike disciplines, from track to road to gravel, there’s something for most – and that’s before we get into the really fringe stuff, like artistic cycling. All of these are administered by the Union Cycliste International, the governing body of the sport. But expand beyond those parameters and there’s all manner of sub-cultures, some of them competitive and many of them not: bike polo, tracklocross, alleycats. But what if you want to bring a four-legged friend with you along for the ride?
That’s where the sport of bikejoring comes into the picture. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone – neither had I, until the wonders of Instagram’s algorithms sent a video to my colleague Dave Rome’s feed, with him prompting me to look into it. At a first glance, there’s a lot to like – a crowdpleasing trifecta of bikes, dogs and sport. But every sport has its intricacies and quirks and it seemed likely that there was more to it than just a bike rider taking a dog for a run (or vice versa). Cycling is a familiar world; this is like a cracked mirror version of it, everything similar but different, with new equipment and regulations to wrap one’s head around.
Luckily, some of the biggest hitters in the world of bikejoring were keen to share their sport with a cycling audience: Yvon Lasbleiz, the president of the presiding International Canicross Federation (ICF), and France’s multi-time world champion Anne Fulleringer. (Take note, UCI: this is a level of access that we could get used to.)
Canicross – the umbrella sport that bikejoring sits within – is an off-shoot of the winter sledding activities that dogs have been involved in for centuries, but instead of sleds and snow the events are held on “dryland”, with runners, scooters and bikes. The etymology of the word ‘bikejoring’ is a bit unclear but seems to have Scandinavian origins – the Norwegian kjøring or Swedish kjöring is ‘driving’ – and similar events were originally conducted on skis. In 1990, “the first bike-jöring activity took place in the Czech Republic by default,” ICF president Yvon Lasbleiz told Escape Collective. “In order to replace a ski-jöring event cancelled due to lack of snow, the competitors imagined substituting the skis with a bike that was lying around. The goal was to have fun, but mainly, to provide a sporting activity for the dogs.”
Barriers to entry in involvement with the sport aren’t overly more onerous than cycling itself: other than a mountain bike, competitors must attach the dog’s harness to a “shock absorbing line” mounted “under the steering bar and above the bicycle fork”, extending a maximum of 2.5 metres at full extension. The race format is an individually-timed circuit of between 5 km and 7 km – similar to a short-distance cycling individual time trial, but with a dog running in front of the rider.
The governing body – the International Canicross Federation (ICF) – is based in Europe, with a French President, but is not the only institution overseeing bikejoring events. The International Federation of Sled Dog Sports (IFSS), which did not respond to a request for comment, administers snow-based sports as well as a calendar of ‘dryland’ sports including bikejoring. It is not to be confused with the International Sled Dog Racing Association (ISDRA), the executive director of which, Meredith Michener, told me that they were “the leading governing body for sled dog sports in the US and parts of Canada” including 2-dog and 1-dog bikejor. “The bike and scooter classes are by far the areas where we are seeing the most growth,” she said. The ICF, meanwhile, operates globally but with a European slant – according to Yvon Lasbleiz, the leading bikejoring countries are Poland, the Czech Republic and France [he also says that South America is on the rise, and notes that the organisation also has representatives in Asia and Southern Africa].
Sporting institutions are not immune to some administrative tussles, but even so: three ‘International’ bodies each claiming some remit over bikejoring seems a bit out of the ordinary. The distinction, according to ICF president Yvon Lasbleiz, lies in the ICF’s greater care of its canine companions. “We have no connection with the federations that manage the sport of sledding,” he told me. “Our philosophy and our approach towards the dog is not the same.” There is also, he said, no link with cycling’s own big dogs, the UCI (“our sport is a sport in its own right recognized by government bodies in many countries”), other than to adopt its definition of a ‘mountain bike’ for clarity of equipment rules.
Care for competing dogs seems a particularly unwavering tenet of the ICF’s interpretation of bikejoring, with a chapter in its regulations on animal welfare, led by its guiding principles of ‘The Five Freedoms for Animals’, “[affirming] every living being’s right to humane treatment.” Dogs cannot be pulled; the pace of the dog/cyclist team is strictly to be determined by the dog.
Rule 2.4 of the ICF’s regulations gives a neat summary of the desired team dynamic: “Every athlete will run with the dog he has and loves. No pedigree is mandatory. Without our four-legged companions, the practice of this sport, which gives us so much pleasure, would be impossible. As a result, the dog will be thanked and the respect towards the dog will be our GOLDEN RULE! Partnership must reign between a human and a dog.” There’s something I really like about ‘thanking a dog’ being enshrined in a sport’s governing rules.
For one of bikejoring’s leading athletes – Anne Fulleringer, from Ardèche in the south of France – that bond between the human and the dog is a key driver of her enjoyment in the sport. “I started bikejoring 18 years ago. I had adopted a young, energetic dog who needed to burn off some energy. I searched online for an activity I could do with him to meet his needs and strengthen our bond. I was looking for something simple to set up, without necessarily having to join a club to practice,” she told me. “Canicross [the broader category of sport into which bikejoring sits] immediately appealed to me: once you have the equipment, you can go running with your dog completely independently. Later, I discovered that you could not only run behind your dog (canicross) but also cycle (bikejoring)! I preferred my mountain bike to my running shoes, and a passion was born. This passion has never left me since!”
Although there are no rules on pedigree or even size of the competing dogs, there are some that are more suited – and they’re not the little guys. As one example, “the Jack Russell is a very sporty dog but on a bike it lacks speed due to its small size. This requires that we adapt the rhythm of the bike to respect the speed of the Jack Russell and not put it in overspeed and exhaust it. It can really be a great companion despite everything but it can also be a source of a little frustration when you like to ride fast, or if you start competing,” Fulleringer explains.
Instead, a series of cross breeds have emerged as the leading dogs of bikejoring. The greyster – a crossbreed of a pointer and a greyhound – is one of the more competitive types, we were told. Initially emerging in Sweden in the 1980s as a skijoring dog, the archetypical greyster is “1/16 greyhound and the rest a pointer”, according to Lasbleiz. Other common breeds include the Alaskan (a hybrid developed for sled racing around the time of the US gold rush, which is a crossbreed of Nordic hunting dogs and the greyhound), the European Sleddog (a crossbreed of the Alaskan, bred with European hunting dogs like the pointer), and the Eurohound/Scandinavian hound (crossbreeds between assorted sports breeds including the working husky, pointer and greyster).
Fulleringer’s four dogs are slightly muddled crosses of the greyster (German shorthaired pointer is thrown into the mix). “I like their sensitive and playful temperament, their slightly nervous side,” Fulleringer said. “The important thing is to find the dog that corresponds to your lifestyle, your temperament.” There’s Tails (9) and Nerka (12), now retired from competition, and Caos (8 months) “who is slowly learning to become a future bikejoring dog.” Caos won’t be able to compete until a strict 18 months of age, so there’s time for adequate physiological development. Fulleringer’s main racing dog is world champion Tess (5) – a flighty black greyster who Fulleringer describes as “hyperactive and hypersensitive” with a habit of occasionally stopping suddenly without warning. “I always keep one finger on each brake, ready to act if necessary,” Fulleringer explained. “We train to be more agile on the bike and better understand each situation … when you know that your dog is young or of the ‘surprising’ type like Tess then you regulate the pace and always prepare for the worst in order to avoid an accident.”
Sports that incorporate animals do not have an untarnished reputation, with a long history of scandals in horse racing and greyhound racing – but bikejoring seems to have a far more animal-oriented approach. I asked Fulleringer if her relationship with her dogs is that of an owner and a pet or a trainer and a horse: “my dogs are my pets 90% of the time,” she said. “They live with us at home, accompany us on our holidays … but our relationship is strengthened through sport.”
There’s a symbiotic relationship between athlete and dog: the dog is motivated to run and receives positive reinforcement for doing so, building trust in its owner. “We must avoid as much as possible being a character who scares and punishes, a character who would be distrusted or a person who cannot be trusted,” Fulleringer says. That deepens the bond between the two, and enhances the relationship with the dog.
“It forces us not to get upset for nothing, to think carefully about what we want and to always make sure that our animal is well physically and morally. We learn to know our dog perfectly, we spend a lot of time observing them,” she continued. “For me dogs are members of the family. It is not MY dog, it is a being in its own right that I deeply respect for everything they give me on a daily basis even if I am not always a perfect human.”
Bikejoring is a small but growing discipline (Lasbleiz estimates that there are “several hundred practitioners around the world”). That has its advantages in terms of avoiding the corrupting influence of power and money, but also means that its athletes largely pursue it as a hobby rather than a career. Since 2017, Fulleringer has been a two-times ICF European champion and a three time world champion, but is unable to make a living from it. There are some sponsors out there (Wolfood kibble, Non-Stop dogwear, and Bawaw canine massage gel supply Fulleringer with product) but there’s no huge payday, even when you’re at the pinnacle of the sport. In addition to working a full-time job “I’m improvising as a bike mechanic, dog masseuse, and Sunday handyman in order to limit costs,” she says with a smile.
Although the addition of a dog makes Fulleringer’s experiences in some ways different from the average cyclist, she takes her on-bike training seriously. She has a coach that she works with, and cycles alone 8 to 12 hours a week. “It’s not always very pleasant and I’m sometimes tired but I do it because I want to be the best I can be to help my dogs in bikejoring,” Fulleringer told me. “We prepare for short and intense efforts, lasting about 10-12 minutes. I develop qualities in cycles, like many cyclists, with perhaps a little less training volume and a little more intensity.”
That’s in addition to the daily training and exercise required by her dogs – who even when retired “ask to run in front of a bike and spend quality time with me”, sometimes with slower and shorter outings, “a little less traction and a little more free running next to the bike.” Like humans, the dogs have “different qualities and weaknesses” so have tailored training programs to help them get the best result.
For Fulleringer, bikejoring is a demanding hobby with substantial investment of money and time – but one she sees with considerable upsides for both her and her dogs. Reflecting on her greatest achievements in the sport, it’s not the world champion titles that spring to mind first, but Tess’s first time competing at the world championships in 2023. “We had been trying to improve her little behavioural problems for four years,” Fulleringer said, “and during the two rounds that made up this event Tess was very stressed … I gave it my all during the events, staying focused on my little dog, this dog who seemed so small compared to the other competitors. Twice she slowed down by sending me warning signals [but] I still managed to reassure her.” The team crossed the line third, securing an entirely unexpected podium. A year later, Tess and Anne were world champions.
Just as Tess has evolved and improved over the years, the human component of that pairing has too, and it’s bikejoring that Fulleringer credits with a number of important life-lessons: “we learn discipline, perseverance, emotional management, resilience … thanks to my dogs and bikejoring I have changed a lot in 18 years,” she tells me, before adding with a laugh: “I also got wrinkles and white hair.”
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