Iceland off road trip July 2016

[Tredown]

Just come back from a 1200 mile trip to Iceland with Mark Hatto (Rhayader trail riding)
the bulk of this was off tarmac. lots of deep wide fast flowing river crossings, rocks, sand, gravel, everything you would expect on a volcanic Island.
Mark's no 2 Tim Godsmark led the ride, a Tip Top bloke !! Bikes were 1 x KTM 640, 4 x 690 endro's, 1 x 660 Tenere, 1 x BMW HP2 (they don't like water !!)and 3 x KTM 990's. Four guys from (Newcastle (never a dull moment) one from |Gloucester one from Scotland and two of us from Devon.
mark organised the bikes to be containered out off Immingham, we picked them up in Reykjvik. we were lucky with the weather some mist and drizzle, but quite a bit of sunshine, Dust was more of a problem than rain, with three or four bikes in front of you there was a bit of guesswork involved in seeing the trail ahead. you do need to carry extra fuel, the stations are a bit thin on the ground, and the rural one have a tenancy to run out !!
There are some spectacular sights, waterfalls, volcano's ect, the thing that grabs you the most is the remoteness of it all, even the apollo astronauts trained there.
After 140 mile off road you are ready for a camp site, apart from the ones on the coast they are VERY basic, most of the showers you would not wash your dog in, and of course the water smells of sulphur, it doesn't taste much better ! but that aside the locations are just amazing..
so to recap, make sure your air intake is up high, have anything you need to keep dry in VERY water tight bags, we came across three German's on BMW 650's one lady in the group had got a water crossing wrong and gone under, not only did we have to help them up remove the spark plug, up end the bike to drain the water out of the exhaust, but all her clothes and bedding and tent were soaked. No fun camping after that ! as a group we had to help them over the next river as well, without us turning up I don't know what they would have done. You need the ability to repair your bike in the middle of nowhere, we had two punctures. Take LOTS of money (Its expensive over there and a card for your fuel(tell your bank as well as they stopped mine in case of fraud)
take extra fuel can, wet weather gear, and in our case sun cream!
Its one of those bucket list trips, but I would go back, next time at a more leisurely pace, we had a lot of ground to cover to use our 7 days on the bikes to the maximum, and we certainly did that.
Thank to Mark and Tim for putting up with us all, I look forward to the next trip with them.
Tim Selwyn
(Tredown)

[ross rider]

Hi Tim
Great to here you had a fantastic trip with us is Iceland, I will be back in Iceland tomorrow with another group some riding big GSA so should be interesting to see how they all get on.
Will post pics on FB for you to see.........
Thanks again for booking with us and hopefully see you in Morocco next spring trip dates will be confirmed in October
Mark
www.trailridingrhayader.co.uk

image_2016-07-20.jpg (48.69 KiB) Viewed 1648 times

[Redmurty]

be there tomorrow (thumbs)


on a wee DR350 :woohoo:

spoke to someone over the weekend who had just come back from there he said the dust killed his rental car in 3 days :whistle:

cheers Spud

[ross rider]

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image_2016-07-20-2.jpg (44.36 KiB) Viewed 1648 times

Another Iceland pic
www.trailridingrhayader.co.uk

[ross rider]

image_2016-07-20-3.jpg (36.85 KiB) Viewed 1648 times

Another Iceland pic
www.trailridingrhayader.co.uk

[The Sarge]

Great write up Tim, very tempted to get a trip in next year if I get my place up and running in time :whistle:

Sarge

[Tredown]

Hi Sarge, Rob and I are looking to Coming over to see you
Tim