Touring Iceland

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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Ed81
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Joined: 27 Aug 2012, 9:37pm

Touring Iceland

Post by Ed81 »

Hi All and thanks for reading,

My wife and I are planning a tour of Iceland next summer. We are taking our children of 4 and 18 months. We will have 6-7 weeks to spend travelling round but are not too worried about covering huge distances. Before ordering the guide books can anyone suggest places to visit, how easy it is to cycle in Iceland, costs of food and accommodation etc.

If Iceland may be a little ambitious can anyone suggest an adventurous touring destination (we toured Croatia last year covering 1000 km in about 4 1/2 weeks) and have already traveled quite extensively in France. We would also like to avoid long steep climbs if possible.
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megilleland
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by megilleland »

If you wanted to find out anything about Iceland then Dick Phillips was your man. In the early seventies I bought all my Icelandic maps and his guidebook through him. This article suggests he is still going strong.

Did we cycle there? No, we went across Iceland camping for 2 weeks in the early 70s, in a Unimog 4x4 off road vehicle. A really fascinating country if you are into geology and geography, but quite bleak and extreme in places. Have you heard that this volcano is bubbling away.
eileithyia
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by eileithyia »

We sort of on the ground cycle tour leaders back in 1994, with Dick driving and booking the hostels etc., how they were organised I do not know but some were in schools etc. we took our son who had his 1st birthday on the flight home. He was in a bike seat for the trip, sometimes well wrapped up. The roads may well have changed as more become tarmaced but many are still hard packed surface with loose stone. As time goes by the traffic disperses the loose stuff so you have a cleared hard packed surface to ride, but beware the roads where the stone has been re-distributed across it. This makes for very hard riding. We visited part of the interior and the roads could deteriorate to sand, sometimes there was a fair bit of walking.

Personally I loved the west coast and brieda fjord, we spent half a day on an island while the ferry ploughed its way back and forth. I spent a wonderful afternoon photographing the puffins that came within inches of my feet, am sure children will love it. Likewise the bug bird cliffs along that coast. Visiting the interior, the hot springs, geysers and waterfalls is also a must. Your older child will sure.y love these.
Always remember bikes can be transported on buses.
The Icelandic love children, Andrew was well received wherever we went and accommodated in the hostels.
I stand and rejoice everytime I see a woman ride by on a wheel the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. HG Wells
heatonrider
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by heatonrider »

Hi - 4 of us toured Iceland last year and can offer some pretty comprehensive and up to date info:

Western Fjords - brilliant place to go and would recommend.
Snæfell - again lovely and would heartily recommend
Hveragerði - really nice small town with a hospital (private) that does accommodation cheaply - again we were in bad weather so ended up staying the night at the hospital - meals included. Included access to swimming pools.
Ring road - not nice for cycling - lots of people seemed to ride it but did 10K on it and it was busy - there are no other roads for trucks and the tons of RVs so they are all on there.
Arriving - we stayed at the Alex hotel the first and last nights - will let you store bike boxes and have space for you to assemble bikes (no camping however)
Campsites - we camped wild some of the time as there were no sites on the route plus we had some weather which drove us to need to dry out
Food - good supermarkets but generally sparse so we had to carry extra with us when we found it
Road surfaces - generally excellent and far better than anything in the UK - we were on one stretch that was compacted shale type .. in the wet ...
Buses - you can get bikes on buses easily but you might need to book - buses from go from Harpa centre - we booked a bus to the fjords before we left UK and only just managed to squeeze on - they had to get an extra bus and trailer. We rang a bus from a campsite and booked ourselves on for the next day, all worked perfectly!
Costs - it was expensive, we did not eat out except a few hot chocolates and a couple of meals.
Weather - it was challenging (and we are hardy outdoor types ...)
Camping Kit - our mates a Hilleberg GT Nallo and we had a Terra Nova Solar2 ... as a result of the trip we bought a Nallo! They fared much better in the 50mph winds!
Bike shops - only saw anything decent in Reykjavik, rest of the time were not in any big towns (but then they aren't any!)
Photos - if you want to see the slide show of our trip here is the link - there are some maps of where we went included (I did it for my cycling club)
https://picasaweb.google.com/1171190117 ... 6_LS7bzXAQ

Lastly - it is a truly wondrous place and i would not hesitate to go back! They are very family friendly folk and it would be an amazing trip ... just hope you get the weather! If you want to know anything specific just let me know. Enjoy the planning!
eileithyia
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by eileithyia »

Oh yes forgot about the winds, they can spring up from nowhere and be extremely strong, or can turn from tailwind to headwind in an instant. One the sprang up on one of our days caused us to change plans, go a different way, use a hostel and some buses, but we saw some of the waterfalls that were not originally in the plan.
But it is a sensational country when the weather is good.
I stand and rejoice everytime I see a woman ride by on a wheel the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. HG Wells
Ron
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by Ron »

megilleland wrote:If you wanted to find out anything about Iceland then Dick Phillips was your man. In the early seventies I bought all my Icelandic maps and his guidebook through him.

The important word in that sentence is "was"!
I toured Iceland in 1999 and by that time his advice was hopelessly out of date and downright misleading. Unless it has been thoroughly updated since then, best avoided.
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cycletourer
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by cycletourer »

We have done three tours in Iceland, an absolutely amazing place to tour. Can concur with heatonrider that the ring road is best avoided particularly in the south and south west as it is very busy in the summer.
The cycling in the interior is amazing for the scenery but can be hard work on some of the gravel roads due to the washboard surface that can be created by the 4x4's.

To help you here is perhaps our top places that we enjoyed and worth visiting in no particular order.

Myvatn - lovely lake in the north with hot springs, the Krafla eruption lava fields, Dimmuborqir, psuedocraters at Skútusaðir and the Hverfjall volcanic crater.

Jökulsárion - Glacial lake with icebergs floating in it.

Látraburg - sea cliff with Puffins & Kittiwakes.

þingvellir - a rift valley and Iceland's parliament.

Geysir and Gulfoss

Western fjords

Langmannalaugar - hot spring area and wonderful scenery

Kerlingarfjöll - hot spring area and wonderful mountain scenery.

Snaefellnes peninsular - south side beautiful and serene area with wonderful bird life.

Some of these are in the interior and would require going on the gravel roads. You can see more details and information on Iceland here and from our travelogues.

Remember you can use buses to get you to places as they will all take bikes. There is even a bus that goes up and down the 35 on the Kjölur route and in to Langmannalaugar.

There are some routes that you can take to avoid parts of the ring road. To avoid the Keflavik to Reykjavik and Hveragerði you can go via Grunavik. It was gravel road when we did it 2008 but it is now tarmac.

The Reykjavik to Baula bit can be busy and you can't go under the tunnel at the Hvalfjordur fjord so you have to go all the way around the fjord so you could instead go up to þingvellir and then take the 550 over the Kaldidalur route to Husafell and then on to Baula. It is a rough gravel road but there are no rivers to fjord and it is very scenic.

Hope that helps.
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Spinners
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by Spinners »

heatonrider wrote:Hi - 4 of us toured Iceland last year and can offer some pretty comprehensive and up to date info:

Photos - if you want to see the slide show of our trip here is the link - there are some maps of where we went included (I did it for my cycling club)
https://picasaweb.google.com/1171190117 ... 6_LS7bzXAQ



Brilliant! Thanks for the link.
Cycling UK Life Member
PBP Ancien (2007)
heatonrider
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Joined: 15 Jul 2010, 12:12pm

Re: Touring Iceland

Post by heatonrider »

Grunavik is Grindavík I think - really good campsite there with good cooking facilities - we used it as a base to cycle to the Blue Lagoon - hopeless commercial and expensive but figured it was a once in a lifetime ... managed a whole day there and took own lunch ...
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Tigerbiten
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by Tigerbiten »

I did 1,600 miles around Iceland last year on my bent trike and had a wonderful time due to almost perfect weather.
I found most of the ring road not to bad to cycle on. It just got really busy around the sw corner.
The steepest hill I went up was only 17% coming off the ferry. But most hills are only around 8%-10%.
All the tunnels I cycled through where lit, 3 in the N and 1 in the SE, so I didn't really need lights in them.
Campsite worked out to be roughly 50 miles apart, but shops could be 200 miles apart.
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cycletourer
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by cycletourer »

heatonrider wrote:Grunavik is Grindavík I think - really good campsite there with good cooking facilities - we used it as a base to cycle to the Blue Lagoon - hopeless commercial and expensive but figured it was a once in a lifetime ... managed a whole day there and took own lunch ...


Thanks heatonrider for spotting my spelling mistake it was Grindavík that I meant.
heatonrider
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by heatonrider »

Tigerbiten clearly did not cycle in the NW fijords - we spent best part of the day going up and down over the hill in some grim conditions .. would not have missed it for the world!
pq
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Re: Touring Iceland

Post by pq »

My Iceland trip, a few years back, is written up here:http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Northatlanticdrift

Not sure much of what I did would be suitable with very young kids, in fact I'd say with the unpredictable weather, long distances between supplies and the taffic volumes on the ring road, you'd be better off going elsewhere.
One link to your website is enough. G
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