On why cycling with me is annoying

A brief list:

-I will compulsively plan everything. Routes, daily mileages weeks in advance, right down to rest lengths and the order in which I will eat snacks. (It goes banana, Skyr, donuts/misc.) If things don't go according to plan I become irritable.

-I will also often attempt to plan "rest days" with military efficiency. (ie, AM: Breakfast, 5 cups tea, laundry. PM: Lunch, groceries, find internet, clean bicycles.)

-I often can't conceive how others don't love climbing giant hills as much as I do. If I have to wait at the top of a hill for you I can become irritable.

-Rain and cloudy skies make me irritable.

-I will generally mock you if I feel you are doing something inefficiently.

-I'm fairly sure that I'm already doing everything with maximum efficiency.

-If you like black licorice i will tell you that you're objectively wrong. Same with most movies.

-If you want to draft, you gotta keep up!

-When confronted with difficult conditions I will either become irritable OR obnoxiously cheery.

-I will always race you to either set up or pack up camp. I will always win. After I win, I will sit there regarding you with an expression of mixed contempt and boredom.

-And finally, I will force you to photograph me while I pose ridiculously:

Tricked!

Dimmu Borgir! Dimmuborgir!

The DIMMU BURGER

I don't even know

I will also lord it over you how awesome my chair is

...but not quite tall enough, in this case.

Neither will I allow you to pose normally. "Do something goofy!" "Like this?" "NO! GOOFIER!"

Anyway! There is a point to all this: A huge congrats to Adam, you not only held on through a fairly difficult bike trek, but also managed to put up with a cantankerous snob for like an entire month and never let it (visibly) phase you! Well done, and here's to many more miles in the saddle!

PS A) I will also retroactively gloss over the difficult parts in memory, hence "fairly difficult"

PS B) This post is also dedicated to Matt Peterkin, who had to put up with me for 3 months in a shared tent

Reykjavictorious!

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(Apologies for the duplicate title pun.)

Adam was fairly succinct in describing the last few days of riding (actually the very last day was fairly easy, with good winds and relatively low traffic levels) SO I'll skip straight to the pictures!

Black sand beaches!

There was a waterfall!

Still not warm!

Badass!

Two bros, there and back again.

On completing the clockwise circuit towards Reykjavik with a headwind: a short essay.

Boooooooooooooooooring. Wind. Boring. Cows. Car car bus car car bus car TRUCK!

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooring. Wind! Wind. Wind? Wind. Car car bus car bus. Cows. Wind. Cows. Boring.

Batman!

Booooooooooooooooooooooring. Wind. Cars. Wind.

Obligatory food post

Ever since the invention of the internet, people have been posting pictures of their Creme d'Lagoustine stew or whatever, in hopes of making others jealous of their cultured and well-traveled lifestyles. However, here at the Eggplant Curse, we know that's not what you, our faithful readers, are interested in! You want to know what the locals eat, how they cook it, when they eat it, and why anyone would ever catch a shark, bury it, let it rot, and then eat it 3 months later.

Well, we really can't help you out with that, either. There are in general two options at Icelandic restaurants: A) Relatively inexpensive burgers and pizzas, and B) Fresh local cuisine such as chicken, lamb, fish, and whale, which all runs from 30 to 50$ a plate. So forget that. Pizza it is. But what are we eating, aside from pasta seasoned with nothing but garlic salt and oregano?

Skyr, which is basically a thicker version of yogurt with extra protein. It took us a week or so to make the switch from regular yogurt as the texture is a bit strange, but now we eat about 4 of them a day each.

Kleinur, Icelandic donuts. Less sugary than ours, but tasty!

Bulk candy! The magical thing about bulk candy here is that it's all the same price. Mix and match to your heat's content!

The aforementioned peanut-butter and choclate-chip cookie sandwich.

And finally, when Adam talks about our "second ice-cap of the day," he's not talking about Tim Horton's! (Sorry Adam, that joke's been in my head since you said that. You reap what you sow.)
Aside from that, we've had plenty of greenhouse-grown tomatoes and cucumbers, weird syrupy bread, and a strange mixture of yogurt and oats that is actually pretty reasonable despite basically being the definition of "gruel." In short, we've been eating well! You may now commence being jealous of how cultured and well-traveled our diets are. Because you just can't get this stuff at home.

Vik!

After a half-day break of lobster pizza and sunshine in Höfn, it's time to hit the road again. Headed north along the peninsula that Höfn sits at the end of, we can see the mighty Vatnajökull, and several of its glaciers.

Fortune (or the Nordic weather gods) smile on us (this is very rare), and we have favourable winds, and some lovely sunshine. Progress is good, and before long we're 30km out and have found a hilltop to snack on, with more excellent glacier views, as well as of the glacial rivers running out over the long gravel flats to sea.

Progress is so good today that we make it to our original goal, Jökulsárlón, with plenty of time & energy to spare. Jökulsárlón is a glacial lagoon, formed while parent glacier has been retreating over the last century. Icebergs calve off of the glacier and spend upwards of five years floating in the lagoon before they've melted enough to get carried out to sea.

Lovely, but cold & surrounded by gravelly hills. Not ideal for wilderness camping, so we press on to Skaftafell. We make it after 130 km and have earned ourselves an extra day off in the process! Skaftafell is one of Iceland's biggest and most famous national parks, so the campground, though well equipped, is a bit crowded.

We take the next day for some hiking around the park. We decide against a lengthy 15km hike, only to get semi-lost and wander for 14 anyway. We get some lovely waterfalls, vegetation actually taller than us, and only about 6km or so of trudging through gravel wastes.

'This is the hiking equivalent of biking into a headwind. Nothing seems to ever get any closer' - Zack

The next day we pack up and continue south-west. It's a short 70km ride that seems at first like it will never end. A (relatively minor) headwind is keeping the pace sedate, and while the vast floodplains are lovely, they never seem to end. Eventually though, the wind lets up, and some hills become an exciting bit of variety for once! We pull into Kirkjubæjarklaustur. That one's a mouthful, but it literally means 'church farm cloister' - it was originally founded by Irish monks, and the later addition of a cloister completed a name so long, it doesn't even fit on the local road signs. The locals just call it Klauster anyway.

In any case it has groceries and a swimming pool, so we're happy. We've learned there's no reason to use (and sometimes pay for) campground showers, when there's hot-tubs in just about every town.

Some twisted girders are all that remain of a previous bridge after the 1996 eruption caused  huge  glacial floods.

Leaving Vatnajökull behind after almost 200km.

This natural stone formation was thought to be the remains of a church floor.

The next day's ride to Vik is short and sweet - we're once again graced with a pleasant tailwind, and we burn through the 75km in hardly any time at all. After passing through large expanses of bizarre, moss-covered lava fields, we transition to green fields. In the distance, we see a new icecap - the much smaller Mýrdalsjökull.

For lava, it looks pretty comfy.

We're taking a day in Vik before the final 200km push to Reykjavik. Doesn't look like luck will stay with us as far as winds go, but almost there!

Vìk-tory is near at hand

So, here we are in the tiny seaside town of Vîk, with over one thousand kilometers behind us, and only about 200 to go. For the past few days the weather has been relatively good and the riding easy. We´re taking the day off here, so it´s likely that more will be posted in this space in short order, but for now, I give you the all-important Map Update!


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As a bonus, here´s a quick lesson on Icelandic vegatation. This is what Icelandic vegetation generally DOES NOT look like:

Below, your instructor can be seen pointing to a much more representative sample of Icelandic flora.

Thank you for your attention. We´re due back in Reykjavik on the 5th, so the trip is almost done - thanks for following along!

Fjörds forded

Here we are with another Icelandic milestone behind us! Earlier today we passed through the short 1.3km tunnel from Lónsöræfi and passed from the Eastfjörds to the south east coast.

Our trip south began with a tunnel as well: from Reyðarfjörður, we climbed a short way up the fjörd and into the forboding mouth of the 6km long tunnel that connects it to Fáskrúðsfjörður. What would await us? Trolls? Shelob? Or just a dark cold road with trucks threatening to flatten us? None of the above as it turns out, with the interior being a perfectly decent road, and even a pleasant ride, what with it being out of the wind for once and all.

Into the mouth of the beast.

Emergency exit options: front of tunnel, back of tunnel. Start moving.

After this, it was some winding fjörd roads, a pit stop in a small-town burger joint (Icelanders love their fast food.), and on to Breiðdalsvik, a small, pretty coastal town. We're doing shorter runs now. My knees feel alright (thanks Julie!), but only for about 60km or so, and Zack's epic, and also knee-busting ride through the gravel desert seemed to convince him that maybe 60-70km isn't too unrespectable when it's in Iceland.

The campsite was well maintained and free, and also freezing cold. It also has no grocery store, so after a somewhat unsucessful tuna-pasta experiment with what we could find in the local gas station, concocted on Hated Camp Stove (ask Zack about Hated Camp Stove), we spent a shivery evening at the lone exposed picnic table. We played chess (Zack won), and chatted with Franzi, another cycle tourist from Germany, who was completing the opposite circuit from ours a few fjörds north, where a ferry will take you to Denmark.

We also got rained on all during breakfast. The bathrooms were clean though.

Pretty even in crappy weather.

Next destination: Djúpivogur, 1 1/2 fjörds down. The upside to fjörds: super pretty. Downside: when you can see your destination on the opposite tip, probably fifteen minutes away if there were a bridge, but you've got three hours of riding up one side and back down the other before you get there.

View from the Djúpovogur campground. The sun is setting somewhere back there.

After Djúpivogur, we continue south. We're almost out of the Fjörds proper now, with just a few to go. It's sunny now, which is great, because we've had a week or more of clouds, rain, and chilly wind. The wind isn't going anywhere, but hey, nice to see that sun again.

Speaking of wind, our ride through the last few fjörds is turned into an exhilirating ride by 40 km winds screaming off the highlands and out to sea, gusting to 60 km. So riding inwards: a struggle to keep bikes on the road that was sending my stress levels through the roof. Riding outwards: basically as much fun as you can have on a bike. Best worst cycling day ever?

It ends at Stafafell, in the Lónsöræfi wilderness area. Here long gravel flats run out into the lagoons, and behind this we find a beautiful campground in among the grassy hills. We've neglected to properly supply for a totally store-less area, so it's oatmeal and plain noodles for dinner (lunch was peanut butter & chocolate chip cookie sandwiches), but the sun & view make up for it.

Actually, PB & cookie sandwiches are delicious.

Final descent.

Lagoon!

To be fair, we did have some garlic & herbs for the pasta, too.

Next morning, just a short 30km hop to Höfn! We're taking a mini-break for the afternoon here, before setting out to spend the next few days cycling past the imposing Vatnajökull - the largest ice cap outside of the polar regions!

Höfn it thru the Fjords

Map update! We´re taking the afternoon off in the town of Höfn (pronounce the umlaut and my pun will be funny). Probably more later, but for now, here is the route thus far:


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One does not simply ride into Mordor

As with all decisions of great import, I should have listened to Boromir.

As documented previously, while Adam sat in comfort on a bus, I tackled Iceland´s Great Gravel Desert (that isn't what it's called, but I like it) by bike. Flush with confidence and power coursing through my veteran cycle-tourist legs, I set out!

One does not simply ride in to Mordor, not without terrible weather conditions anyway. As the sign shows, the wind was blowing at 8m/s from the southeast. Can you guess which direction I was headed? (Not to mention it was only 10 degrees. Wait, you thought we were having FUN out here?)

Mordor awaits! In memory, the 110km ride splits in to 3 distinct parts - just like Lord of the Rings! So we shall split it up that way. The first 40km, I faced a steady headwind, but I was enjoying the bleak and beautiful scenery. Much like for Frodo and co. in the Fellowship of the Ring, the first third of my journey was touched with danger and hardship, but defined by the spirit of exploration and progress.

Kilometres 40 thru 60 were more like reading any of the later of Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series. In that it was endlessly long, nothing happened, and a conclusion never seemed to be coming any closer. I was well provisioned with food and water, yet the merciless headwind continued to howl and impede my progress. Somewhere along here my morale flagged and I began to curse my decision to ride (Rather than wait a day - ONE FRIGGIN DAY - for more favorable wind conditions).
Perhaps part of the problem was that out here, there weren't even any sheep or birds to yell at (my usual stress relief valve.)

To further muddle this nerdy fantasy analogy, if you try to tell me this wasn't where they filmed the scenes at the Fist of the First Men in Game of Thrones, season 2.....I WILL find you. Anyway. Kilometres 60 through until the end were like reading Storm of Swords, in which life is short and full of pain. After 7 hours of battling the wind, my knees started to give out. I considered stopping where I was and putting up my tent, however I am also extremely stubborn! And still desperate to prove Boromir up there wrong. So I pushed on the last 20km, taking breaks every 5, and finally descended out of the desert and down in to a valley where a hot-tub equipped campsite lay in wait! I'd done it. I had simply rode in to, and back out of, Mordor.

It would be another 80km before I caught up with Adam here in Reyðarfjörður (in my head, anglicized to "Radarfjord"). I was a little nervous about it due to the painful state of my knees - but my first tailwind in what seems like weeks reminded me that yes, cycling actually CAN be fun, even in Iceland!

After a lonely peanut-butter based lunch and brief climb, we're here with a roof over our heads, resolved to do absolutely nothing for a day or two. Except for stretching! Thanks, Julie! And as always, stay tuned for more pretty pictures from Adam and hopefully fewer stupid fantasy references from me.