Iceland Bikepacking

Wifey and I spent 3 weeks cycling into the Westfjords, all around the region and then back into Reykjavik. 600 miles (900ishkm) in total.

Iceland is not for the weak. 3 weeks is actually a bit too long. The weather is no joke. It's easy to handle snow or freezing rain as long as you have a Gore-Tex jacket, but there is literally no way to handle 80+mph wind. When it's a headwind you cry, when it's a sidewind you fall, and when its a tailwind… you just have a lot of fun.

Food is quite challenging to come by especially in the more remote regions. If you go into the West Fjords or any F roads I definitely recommend bringing freeze dried food to supplement.

Camping is very easy in Iceland. Campgrounds are plentiful – they usually have showers, wind berms and sometimes a kitchen. If you tent it the whole time the wind has to be a serious consideration campground or not. Our little ultralight tent struggled with the wind. The poles are quite bent now and If you are not careful with your placement it will 100% break.

If you do go to the West Fjords make sure to hit up the West Fjords bike shop in Ísafjörður. We had a situation where the rear derailleur hanger snapped in the middle of no where. We weren't interested in single speeding it 60+ miles with 8k elevation. We were about 180 miles away from the bike shop and seemed to be quite stuck. But our guys at the shop coached us on hitch hiking (surprisingly very easy to do in Iceland) so that they could easily pick us up and fix the bike. With their help we literally didn't miss a day of cycling. Amazing.

Also watch out for the Arctic terns. Little white birds that hang out near the coast – they will attack you and will do so for 0 reason. Not nice.