Cycling around Iceland

Storytime:

Back in December, I cycled around famous Iceland’s Ring Road, and I thought some of you here might appreciate the story.

The reason for the choice of season: traffic.

Iceland gets a flood of tourists during the year, so naturally, I wanted to avoid overcrowded roads as much as possible. After a little reaseach, I found out that December has the least traffic. This has to do with the fact that it is the darkest month of the year people prefer to actually see things while sightseeing, go figure.

The plan was to cycle 1500km in 21 days, landing at Keflavik Airport and circumnavigating the island in a clockwise direction.

Straight after landing on the 1st, I was greeted by the strongest headwind I have ever experienced. It was snowing too, just to make things more fun. The first 40 km to Reykjavík from the airport took me 7 hours.

Not an ideal start.

Still, the forecast said the wind was supposed to calm down to 30 km/h over the next few days. And somehow, it actually did. Progress became reasonably good. I even saw the sun for a bit, which felt like a blessing. I started making decent distance, even though the wind never really stopped being a headwind.

That lasted until I reached the mountain range around Akureyri.

That’s when the weather turned to shit: rain, snow, headwind, and ice-covered roads. Not exactly a dream combo, but I kept going.

Then my brand new 4-season tent decided to break. The ferrules, the little metal connectors between the poles, popped out of place and jammed themselves into the opposite pole sections. This happened in four different places: two on the main spine and two on the sides, rendering the tent useless.

I was around the Myvatn area when this happened, and the nearest real town was Egilsstadir, some 200 km away. To make things more interesting, a winter storm was forecast to arrive in about 40 hours.

So naturally, in a moment of questionable judgment, I decided I could beat it to the town.

The storm arrived a day early, and I ended up stranded in the stretch between Myvatn and Egilstadir, which is basically a volcanic desert. There’s almost nothing there. Maybe a house every 40 km if you’re lucky.

So I visited one, which turned out to be a restaurant. The employee said, that they had a farm a couple of kilometers off the main road, and that the family there might let me wait out the storm.

So I headed there, because I didn’t really have another option.

When I arrived, the place looked almost festive. Christmas lights everywhere. All houses on lit up. But there was nobody around, all the doors were locked, and the storm was getting worse by the minute.

Then, by sheer luck ( a common theme ), I found an empty sheep shed full of shit and made it my shelter for the night.

They found me the next morning.

I waited out the storm, repaired the tent poles with tape and went on my way.

If anyone’s interested, I made a video memoir of sorts: https://youtu.be/9Wn_Wra0hlo

If anyone's planning a similar trip, I am glad to share my experience.