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ASTRONAUT'S ON BIKES

Iceland Divide - Part 2

By TheBikepack

February 5^th, 2023

We are The Bikepack, a Gothenburg based bicycle crazy adventure seeking duo 🤠🤠🚲🏞️🏜

Our core belief is that it doesn't matter how far, steep, or fast you go as long as you ride a bike – we ride to inspire and promote this awesome way of traveling, commuting, exercising and having fun.

We are on an adventure crossing the vast volcanic deserts, lonesome landscapes and never-ending ascents of Iceland. This is the Iceland Divide endeavor, a 600 km bike ride conquering 7 000 meter ascent. A self-supported voyage where we carry all food, equipment and gear to maneuver the wilderness, cycle the glaciers and outride the storms for 10 days, give or take.

We are glad you are coming along for the ride and hope this will be a bit of inspiration for more adventure, exploration and riding your bike!

See you out there!

We lava the lava...

We woke early of our own accord. We stopped and listened to our bodies, expecting to find soreness from yesterday's long cycling but what we really found was excitement, the sparkly feeling of going on a trip as a kid. The cabin was cold but our sleeping bags were toasty at least. One thing we had really invested in before going was a blazing hot sleeping bag - securing a good night's sleep or at least a night without freezing.

(Pro tip - a down sleeping bag is a great way to pack light and small but still bring a warm sack. It is true that they often come on the expensive side but nevertheless in our opinion a great investment and a piece of gear to keep for a long time if you take proper care of it.)

Breakfast was enjoyed by the shelter of the hut as we looked out over the beautiful landscape and the rain that had slowly started to drizzle outside. Today’s leg of the journey would take us further south, closer to the majestic glacier of Vatnajökull as we were facing a decent bit of climbing.

We set out on our way after assembling all the gear and stowing our stuff back on the bikes. The hut was looking at us from over our shoulders when we rejoined the dirt road taking us onwards. The weather was offering rain and wind, something we would become more than accustomed to in the coming days.

We made it to a fork in the road, where our actual route was but a faint sliver of a trail, a path onwards in the volcanic sand that would have been impossible to spot if our GPS would not have told us it was there. We consulted our maps and concluded that it looked like the two roads were to reconnect later during the day so we made the decision to stick to the 4x4 trial for now. Far from the best road we had seen but at least a road we actually could see, this made us laugh a bit about the situation as we pedaled on with a good mood.

The road took us through a changing landscape, giving us vulcano sand dunes and minutes later rocky landscape as far as the eye could see. This was however no match for our carbon fiber steeds, our mechanical eternity machine, our Orbea Almas. We had carefully picked out the tires for this trip, the widest we could get on the bikes so that we as best as we could would “float” over the sandy parts and not dig into the dunes when riding across. We also intentionally chose a wheel with thick tirewalls, puncture proof and the biggest threads we could find to make sure that the wheels stayed intact when riding the sharp lava rocks. This also offered the best possible traction on sandy, slippery roads and climbs, something we would see alot alot off.

The Botni hut

We made it to the Botni hut (Location: 65°16.166N - 17°04.072W) near the NW edge of Ódáðahraun lava field right about lunch. This was a welcoming shelter and the opportunity to get out of our, by now, wet gear and let them dry a bit. The hut was beautifully situated right by a crystal clear pond in the midst of the lava rock landscape. A beacon of light and warmth in the barren landscape of dark and sharp rocks. We boiled water from the lake for the dry food, sat down and soaked up the stillness. No cellphone connection and no worries in the world, just two great friends, a delicious lunch and the drizzling rain outside the hut.

Most of the huts are kept by The Akureyri Touring Association (ATA) and there’s a fee to stay - make sure to bring Icelandic cash so you can support the great people keeping these huts going in these very very remote places. https://www.ffa.is/en/huts/botni

FUN FACTS:

Vatnajökull means “Glacier Of Lakes” and is the largest and most voluminous ice cap in Iceland, and the second largest in Europe. Vatnajökull has an average ice cap thickness of 380m, so on average it's as tall as the Empire State Building (381m). As we are making references to New York, the area of 7900km2 makes Vatnajökull 2313 times bigger than Central Park - 2313 Central Park’s of ice is as thick as the Empire State Building on average - how wild is that?! A fun fact is also that Vatnajökull is where HBO shot parts of the “beyond the wall footage” of the Ice King and wildlings.

Astronaut's on bikes 🪐

We set off on our way with renewed energy from our delicious hot food, continuing and re-joined our pre-planned path. The route was marked out with short sticks with yellow paint on top or stacked stones as small pyramids. The rain and fog made it tricky to follow more times than not but we slowly became better at judging what piles of rocks meant what.

The track became more and more difficult with heavy sand and increasing amounts of stone, sometimes looking like shark teeth ready to eat our tires. A puncture now was nothing we wished for and we managed to stay clear with a little bit of skill and luck.

Fortunately, the landscape once again changed and so did the weather slightly. The rain that had kept us company for most of the day disappeared, leaving the fog ahead of us ticker than ever. The landscape started to convert into this literal moon landscape with smooth black sand, big blocks of volcanic rocks laying around and big mountain ridges on both our sides in the milky fog.

There we were riding on the moon, dead silence, thick fog black sand as far as the eye could see, feeling like we were the only two people that’s ever set foot on this barren land.

Must have been the lower gravity of riding on the moon that made it feel effortless as we coasted onwards filled with curiosity and amazement!

The astronaut spirit took us far and long and we rode until late in the evening when we found shelter from the strong wind in a “moon valley” where we could put up camp/our moon base. It was starting to get dark and we were both exhausted from a long day in the unforgiving wind and rain.

We raised our tent, got our evening snack and got ready to retire when two headlights popped out of nowhere in the far distance. We had to look both once and twice before we could establish that it actually was a car coming our way. This was the first sign of life all day and we were nothing short of surprised. For a moment we wondered if we were in the middle of the "Icelandic Rally" but that was not the case… Turned out to be Sergio, an Italian dude, working as a guide who was out exploring the Icelandic roads on his day off!

He stopped the jeep, got out and greeted us with shouts, wild gestures and a big smile just like only an Italian could have done.

Italians on the Moon

Sergio was amazed to find us out in the middle of no man's land, he showed us on the map where we were and we laughed together at the coincidence of stumbling on each other in a wild place like that.

He insisted on giving us his water before he jumped back into the jeep and raced onwards leaving us in the lava-sand valley in the fog, once again feeling like the only people in a million miles.

Satisfied and tired, we huddled into the tent and it didn't take but a minute before we both were sound asleep. There we were in our warm sleeping bags, in our small tent, in a lava desert valley, somewhere in the middle of Iceland, with the wind howling outside the tent and we’d never felt better!