Bike Touring in Iceland: Days 0 and 1

Adie and Postyn Visit Iceland

Well, I (Adie) have finally gotten around to sorting through the photos and videos from my recent trip to Iceland, the story of which I will be telling over the next few posts. These will be text and images, but expect a short movie about the trip at the end!

Origins

My good friend Postyn and I realized that we would be crossing the Atlantic this summer at approximately the same time, but in different directions. I would have just finished a summer in Fort Collins, CO, doing biology field work, and he, leading a cycling trip from Amsterdam to Venice for the youth travel/adventure company Apogee.

Icelandair is usually the cheapest way to get to Europe, so as with last summer's trip to Finland/Sweden/Norway,  I planned to fly with them. As with last summer, I would be flying with a bike and cycle-touring equipment. This time, however, I wanted to take advantage of Icelandair's stopover offer, which lets you stop in Iceland for up to a week, for the same ticket price as flying straight through!

Unfortunately, nothing is that simple. In the end, Postyn had to fly back to the US (Maine), sort out work stuff, then fly to Colorado via Iceland! And I only flew Icelandair for one leg, the advantage of which was that we got 10 days in Iceland, not 7.

Days 0 and 1

On Day 0, Lucy kindly drove me to Denver airport, where we said goodbye for the next four months. Yikes! I was very much torn between excitement about the trip, and sadness about the length of our separation.

On the night-flight to Reykjavik, I did my best to try to sleep, which I never bother with usually, because it never works. I probably only slept an hour or two in the end, but as we planned to do a half-day's ride the day we arrived, I had to try.

As the sun rose, we descended into Keflavik International Airport.

Postyn was waiting for me at the luggage carousel. Once in the parking lot we unpacked and reassembled our bikes, then sorted our gear. My bike required significant assembly. Because it is so big (29"wheels, long wheelbase, and high handlebars) it doesn't easily fit in a bike box. We then left our bike boxes and extra luggage at the Bilahotel, which is a car rental place that also stores bags. The price was about 6 EUR per day for a bike box containing all of our stuff.

Keflavik International Airport, and setting up bikes...

From there, we had booked a bus into Reykjavik to avoid the unpleasant 45k on a main road. Even though I had booked it for the wrong day, the driver let us on. We were dropped off at the very cool Harpa Center, a big concert hall in downtown Reykjavik. From there we set about buying food and stove fuel, which was easier said than done as it was a national holiday, and almost everywhere was shut!

Lunch spot

After a late lunch in a park, and a brief trip to check out Reykjavik Cathedral, we headed out of the city at about 4:00pm. We followed a series of on-and-off road bike paths, and got a bit turned around in the process but this allowed us to avoid riding on Route 1, the busy ring road that encircles Iceland. In fact, on the whole trip we spend only a couple of miles on Route 1 -- some people go to Iceland just to ride the ring road!

Looking up at Reykjavik Cathedral, inspired by hexagonal columnar basalt formations

Once past Route 1, we rode route F431/F435, a long flattish road heading northeast alongside a big pipe bringing geothermal hot water to Reykjavik. As soon as we were on open road, it became very clear how fit Postyn was! I guess five weeks of cycling every day will do that! Consequently, we began the process of transferring most of what I was carrying over to Postyn! We met a steady stream of cars heading back to Reykjavik after the long holiday weekend, including the incredible and uniquely Icelandic snow-trucks. They are jacked up SUVs with enormous, wide tires designed for driving off-road in the winter snow. And there were hundreds of them!

Approaching the hills

As we began riding the short but sharp rolling hills south of Thingvallavatn, I started to cramp up. We had both basically been awake for 36 hours, and we had run out of water. But Postyn was still going strong! On each uphill, I would have to take a break to stretch out my cramping quads and calves, but by stretching one cramp, would cause another! We scoured the land on either side of the road for streams, but there was not a drop. Without water, we couldn't stop to camp, so we had to press on.

Water, finally

Finally, around 9pm, still in bright sunshine, we caught a glimpse of Thingvallavatn, a large lake. Unfortunately all the stream beds crossing the road to meet the lake were bone dry. It was another half-hour before the road dipped down to the lake. We purified lake water before following the road to the first promising wild-camping spot, unfortunately not before one last hill.

Dinner at sunset, but sunset was 10:30

By 10:30pm we had cooked dinner and pitched the tent, and finally were able to enjoy the sunset. The only hitch was that the stove fuel we had bought was the wrong kind! The threading was correct -- I had checked that in the store -- but unfortunately the stove would not screw down all the way, making it hard to light, and giving a sputtering flame.

I will admit the last 15 or 20 of the 50km we did that day felt like some of the more exhausting I had ever done. But my morale was kept high by the gradually improving views over the same period!

More to come soon!

- Adie