Cycling: Iceland Ring Road

on cycling

This is the starting point to a series of posts that recaps my 2023 summer bikepacking tour circling the Iceland Ring Road route over two weeks.

In the summer of 2022, I did a three week Scandinavian bike tour from Trelleborg, Sweden to Bergen, Norway (~1800km). When I finished that, I felt like I would be satisfied never sitting on a bicycle again. But somehow the itch came back and I found myself searching for the next big route to cycle. And so, I flew the bike out and cycled around Iceland on the Ring Road route for two weeks in the summer of 2023.

The idea of cycling Iceland felt like a natural conclusion to all the Scandinavian cycling I had been doing the past years. My Norway cycling had been a perfect practice run so I felt ready for it. I had seen many amazing videos from other bikepackers on Youtube showing incredible tours in Iceland. And of course, the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) had hyped me up to the beautiful landscapes and nature.

The idea sounded attractive and feasible and it seemed to be something that I was ready to execute on but admittedly this was a really tough bikepacking tour for me. It was my first time touring with the Canyon Grizl (beyond a weekend trip), a carbon fibre bike which restricted me to more smaller bikepacking bags instead of pannier bags. It was also the first time I would fly with the bike to my touring location instead of using the European train network which added its own set of challenges and risks. The route was filled with challenges such as difficult road conditions, remote locations with no bike repair options, strong headwinds, hilly roads, steep climbs, and unpredictable weather. All combined, it made this tour one that I can definitely not recommend as an entrypoint to the sport.

But looking past the difficulties and the challenges I experienced, this was a real gem of a tour. Iceland is full of touristic sights and beautiful nature. I loved the journey and recommend it to everyone. So while it’s not a suitable entrypoint to the sport, it should be a must-do on every bikepackers list.

This post is the introduction point to a series of posts detailing my experience cycling around Iceland. While planning for this trip, I consumed many personal blogs and articles from people sharing freely their experiences and so this series of posts are my contribution back. I hope someone finds this useful!

This recap is broken down into multiple posts. Follow the links below to read through the series.

GPX Files

Here are the GPX files generated from the total trip.