- In October of this year, my husband and I landed upon the island of fire & ice. With bicycles, rain jackets, and enough oatmeal to drown someone, we began our adventure of cycling the ring road.
As true virgins to bikepacking, we had done our months of research, read all the blogs of previous cyclists, and bugged our friends with countless questions on the best tires without compromising weight. Or how many pairs of pants to bring. As any beginner might daydream of their own self accomplishments, we had victorious thoughts of “Oh, this is going to be great. 40 miles a day is nothing.” and “Can’t wait to conquer this tiny island!”
Nothing could have prepared us for what lay ahead on the ‘relatively’ flat road, and no amount of reading books about Iceland could have shown the real beauty and harsh landscape of such a mystical country. Most days my mantra was “one more yellow pole, just one more yellow pole” as the miles crept by and howling head winds of up to 30mph stopping us dead. Inner strength was imperative. But honestly most days, with that inner fire blazing, it wasn’t enough to rotate my tires past another sheep, or even to the next yellow pole. It was the constant support from my husband and lots of hugs that propelled me another mile until the 40 miles a day goal had been hit. It was the knowledge that “here we are out in the middle of fucking nowhere, we haven’t seen a single person all day, yet right in front of me is the one person I love the most, suffering the same road. The same constant hunger, the same insane incline, all because of love. Because that one person loves me enough to endure this. We tallied our small victory at 350 miles cycled in 16 days.
