RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Where you've been and what you done
jim-500
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by jim-500 »

The next morning we got as close to the glacier as we could but heavy rain/flooding meant we struggled to actually get up to the ice line...fortunately Iceland allowed me to get really close to a different glacier late in the day.

Nyx had to catch a flight back to England this afternoon so we headed back towards Reykjavic...

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After dropping Nyx at the airport, I started the 7hr drive to the ferry port on the far east of the island.

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This turned out to be an amazing 700km drive along the south/east of the ring road...crossing huge bridges and navigating around the glaciers...

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I managed to spare a few hours to check out Vatnajökull in the east of Iceland...even getting the chance to get a cheeky packraft/mountain bike ride in...which allowed me to paddle right up to the Ice...amazing experience!

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Then it was foot to the floor all the way to the ferry port...I ended up crossing the eastern peaks at 4am in thick rain/fog...

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But we both made it back to England over the next couple of days, knackered but having had an awesome time. I can only recommend Iceland...there's nowhere else like it in europe, huge distances without any sign of people/towns, river crossings, amazing landscapes, everything from twisty road rides to singletrack...adventure bikers paradise. Hope you enjoyed the ride report...and we'd be happy to help out if anyones planning to head over there this summer/in the future. (thumbs)
kev.t
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by kev.t »

brilliant (thumbs)
jim-500
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by jim-500 »

kev.t wrote:brilliant (thumbs)
Thanks Kev B)

So currently we're hanging around in a tent on the west coast of Canada waiting for a ferry crossing...

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But before I can get onto posting the Canada Ride Report I figured I'd do our Taiwan leg of the trip.

We were in Taiwan at the time the big Japanese earthquake occured and were riding in the mountains when many of the aftershocks and landslips happened...it also rained hard (think 8hrs of solid rain) on some of the days we were out there so we were navigating cliff top passes where half the road had washed away on occasions! Overall though...Taiwan has some of the most incredible mountain roads we've ridden...beautiful place and very cheap day-day.

As always here's a selection of taster shots!

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jim-500
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by jim-500 »

Also we're having troubles with our air mattress/mat...has anyone tried the thermarest ultralite beds? Pricey, but we still have a few months left camping...I had shoulder surgery just before we left and it's really starting to get sore so figured I might have to spend out on a decent bed! :S
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zimtim
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by zimtim »

First off great report really enjoying it, (thumbs) (thumbs)

I have a bad back and invested in one of these mats

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Exped-SynMat- ... vkWeR09ZmA

packs nice and small.
But you do realize you've opened up a can worms asking about sleeping mats :whistle: :whistle:
jim-500
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by jim-500 »

zimtim wrote:First off great report really enjoying it, (thumbs) (thumbs)

I have a bad back and invested in one of these mats

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Exped-SynMat- ... vkWeR09ZmA

packs nice and small.
But you do realize you've opened up a can worms asking about sleeping mats :whistle: :whistle:
Thanks, looks good...how tall are you? I'm 6ft2 ish and on the mat we have at the moment most of my shin/foot overhangs. I always find the problem is rolling over...I have to use my arms to do it which since the shoulder op is a painful process...either need a wider mat or something else entirely.

The ultralite beds look interesting, but I've never tried one.
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zimtim
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by zimtim »

I'm a relative short arse by comparison, at 5'7.

The dimension of the Long Wide version are pretty good
9 LW Specification
•Dimensions: 197 × 65 × 9 cm
•Weight: 810 g
•Packed: 28 × 15 cm
•R value: 6

You could try and find a retailer local to you to hive one a quick go on the shop floor. :pinch:
jim-500
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by jim-500 »

zimtim wrote:I'm a relative short arse by comparison, at 5'7.

The dimension of the Long Wide version are pretty good
9 LW Specification
•Dimensions: 197 × 65 × 9 cm
•Weight: 810 g
•Packed: 28 × 15 cm
•R value: 6

You could try and find a retailer local to you to hive one a quick go on the shop floor. :pinch:
Yeah all the advantages of being lanky when riding off road go out the window when it comes to sleeping in tents. :laugh:

Found a stockist in kamloops I think so hopefully go check it out...cheers for your help zimtim!

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Finally got a bit of downtime on the ferry to the north of whistler...which is good as in a few days we're aiming to ride to 8000ft up the west coast mountain passes! :ohmy: ...hoping the little dr200 doesn't run out of grunt!
jim-500
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by jim-500 »

Right back to the RR! B)

Taiwan was somewhere we had both wanted to ride after seeing videos of mountain bike trails running through the central mountain ranges...but it was a hard place to buy a bike and there was very little rental available either. In the end we managed to find 125 scooters for around $9 per day...the bikes were well used but worked fine and since every one else is on a scooter anyway...we felt right at home among the bustling traffic. Taiwan turned out to be the wettest portion of our trip but also one of the most remote and exciting rides...we took these little scooters through landslides, huge industrial cities, up to almost 10000 feet and down tiny rainforest tracks! The fact food and fuel were uber cheap and everywone was incredibly friendly made Taiwan a bit of an unexpected highlight!

So we got into Taipei late in the evening and decided to check out the 101 tower...

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Not quite as high as the Burj Khalifa we went up earlier in the trip but still a cool bit of engineering, especially the huge pendulum which sits in the middle of the tower to take up the movement from earthquakes/high wind!

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And our first bit of Taiwanese food...this was $4 and tasted as good as it looks!

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The next morning we paid £50 each and picked up our scooters, we strapped the bags to the back and headed east towards Hualien City via Taipei's special scooter lanes (the whole country has a network of side lanes for scooters to keep you out the way of normal traffic...it works really well most of the time and seems to be a much safer idea than the truck/car/scooter traffic jams we encountered in India)

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Today was a long ride, but we had time to snap a few pics of some interesting places en-route...

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We stayed the night in a cool little couchsurfing style shack just outside Keelung city, the host was great and communicated with us through a translator app on her iphone...the whole village was built into the side of a mountain from scaffolding and stone... we found some cheap food and went to bed shrouded in thick mist!

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We woke up the next day to find that the mist had cleared and instead it was rainy and wet, we had been warned that heavy rain could lead to the closure of some of the mountain roads so we got up early and headed south asap hoping to beat the closures....on the way we met up with a scooter club from Hualien ...since it's hard to import full size bikes here, loads of people ride maxi-scooters and it wasn't uncommon to see 700cc scooters being ridden like sports bikes!

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We carried on further south to Yilan county...

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The city here looked like something from Fallout...all industrial buildings, heavy flooding and construction work...Unable to ride as far as Hualien this evening, we took the oppurtunity to have a play in the river beds and flooded tunnels surrounding the coastal inlets!

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Next we go offroading in the rainforests surrounding Taroko National Park!

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ollydog
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Re: RTW in dribs and drabs - off-road Ride Report - Iceland, Iraqi border, Korean DMZ, Alaska + beyond!

Post by ollydog »

really enjoyed these pics,
thanks steve
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