Locomotives and Roses: Iceland On A Bicycle: Day 1 (Reykjavik to Þingvellir)

Day 1: On A Bicycle In Iceland (July 17, 2013). Reykjavik to Þingvellir.

I brought my Surly Long Haul Trucker from the states. The nice folks at Omnium Bike Shop in St. Paul, Minnesota tuned and then boxed my bike for a modest and reasonable fee. Also reasonable: Iceland Air's rates for bringing along a boxed bicycle. In fact, the computer system used to charge those fees at MSP when I checked in wasn't working ergo my bicycle flew to Iceland for free.

The box arrived almost unscathed (the lovely folks at the TSA felt the need to poke a few holes in the bicycle box in addition to opening the whole thing... thankfully nothing fell out).

Boxed bicycle with a bit of TSA damage and TSA tape.
Nothing happened on the flight so their damage must have kept us safe.

Bicycle in box.
I took quite a few pictures so I would have a good idea of how to disassemble it again.
(No disassemble.)

Unlike previous trips I've taken (some solo, some not), this time I was a bit nervous with some trepidation. Iceland was going to be my first solo loaded bicycle tour. I wasn't entirely sure where the trepidation came from, but I remembered reading a blog about bicycling in Iceland which can be summarized as: Iceland was definitely not the place to try your first solo loaded bicycle tour.

Oops.

My plan is to go into detail as to what I carried (and total weight), but I think I'll do that at some other point.

I had two rear panniers, a rack pack, and a handlebar bag. I also put my freeze-dried food into a Bónus grocery bag that fit perfectly beneath the rack pack. I was concerned that I was carrying way too much stuff because the back half of my bicycle was quite heavy, but at the same time since I had never done anything like this before, I wasn't quite sure what constituted 'heavy'. However, while I was walking my loaded bicycle to the hotel office I lost balance twice. Both times I was barely able to keep my bicycle from crashing to the ground (either I was/am in need of serious weight training or the bike really was heavy)... and one of those almost crashes, I think my bike was held up more by a parked car than by me (the car was not scratched).

Loaded bike ready to go outside of my Reykjavik lodging.
(The car in the picture is not the one my bike fell on.)

Before the trip, I watched lots of YouTube videos involving cycling in Iceland. After watching Day One of Wade Shepard's trip, I was worried about the Ring Road leading out of Reykjavik and decided that I was going to completely avoid it. Reykjavik has a lot of bicycle/pedestrian paths... some will take you in the general direction of where you might want to go, others dead end at the water or in the middle of an industrial zone. After a few of those dead ends, I finally made it out of town.

Here's my route.

More Alaskan lupine on my way out of Reykjavik.

Mountains in the background are on the western side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Europe is somewhere on the other side.

Route 435 east is very straight, slightly uphill, and very little traffic (about 8 cars in 9 miles). Road right is scenic, but on the left side you follow a pipeline for 13 miles (thankfully not a Keystone XL type of pipeline... just geothermal).

After 9 miles of straight, the road curved and I began my first minor climb of the trip. Mid-Atlantic Ridge! (Or at least the geology was a result of the ridge.)

The first few climbs were quite tolerable and I felt like I was in decent shape to tackle whatever Iceland had to offer. But then I came across a few climbs at 16% and one at 17%. I walked the bike, but made sure that the few times a car came by (only twice) I was on the pedals (yeah, I'm vain).

-----

On the opposite side of climbing I also had my first descents. If I opened up the brakes I found myself accelerating much faster than normal... oh yeah, all that extra weight. I spent most of the time descending while heavy on the brakes. So much so that my forearms began to hurt and I had to take a few stops to just give my hands/forearms a break from the brakes.

I had one short, not so steep, well paved, and straight descent so I decided to open things up to see what would happen. In just a few seconds I found myself descending at over 40 mph. Mental notes were made to not open up on again... especially if the road had any bends in it.

After a few turns and a stop at a blue sign (road map) provided by Iceland in which I discovered "towns" with roman numerals, I came to Route 36. This was another road I was trying to avoid because I had figured it would have significant traffic. I had even heard from a few people that the traffic was messy for cyclists because it's the main Reykjavik/Þingvellir route... turns out traffic in Iceland might be better described as "traffic." (For those familiar with Wisconsin state-line cycling, the traffic was about the equivalent of 213 between Beloit and Orfordville. Or on a Trek Wisconsin bicycle map, Route 36 would have received the color green.)

I made it to Þingvellir without incident and paid for camping which at 1400 ISK was one of the most expensive campsites of the trip (about $11).

I'm trying to think of other things from Day 1:

There were 4 other cyclists at the campground. One was from California and this was also his first day ever of loaded tour riding... he had about twice as much stuff as me. Had I forgotten something?

The buses from Reykjavik Excursions have free WiFi. I took advantage whenever they came into the parking lot.

I hesitated about 14 seconds at the store and decided to get an ice cream cone. Celebrate the first day.

Even though it was cloudy, my solar panel was still charging my battery pack and I was able to charge my iPod.

There isn't one fissure that splits the continents, but a whole bunch. (It's not like peeing on the continental divide in America... or for the lucky few, on top of Triple Divide Peak.)