Another ride report ... first trip Iceland 2021

Timolgra

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Once again escaping covid restrictions by the skin of my teeth I find myself back in Iceland with several days before the group for our first single cylinder only trip.

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Time to go exploring alone

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What! No KTM 640!!
I'd decided to build a strong 525 for this first trip just to see how we got on. The 640 would have to sulk in Reykjavik until it was his turn.

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I have four or five days to play by myself or even with myself before starting the trip and that trip gets off to a quite brutal start!

More on that later :beerjug:

My first campsite has this photo but dammed if I could find them.

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Your photographic skills are not bad :) looking forward to this report.
 
A relatively new species of bastard midges found mainly in the south had found their way into my tent, I'm not generally badly affected by insect bites but for the first of two attacks this year they caused a lot of discomfort!!

Hey ho, a few more days riding around, visiting people and making sure this bike is up to the job takes my mind off the itching.

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I love these days riding alone, taking barely discernible tracks just to see why there has been a route there.

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The bike feels good, so back to Reykjavik for a few last minute tweaks.

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Quick coffee on the way

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Tomorrow the first trip starts so thought to enlist help from the elves, but they were out.

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Including myself there's nine of us for this first trip, which for me is a fairly large group but I know many of them and those I don't appear to be well sorted and well travelled.

Bakes on his own well travelled 525
Geoff with the beautiful ktm 730!
Stu, great rider on a very well prepped ktm 500 plus his mate...
Mark, lovely guy also on a ktm 500 and in a small word has previously met my son.
Andy, well travelled on his 690. Hoping not to loose so much luggage this time :D
Vince, great rider on his 690 with his 'mate'....
Fiona, on a Rally Raid BMW 310 assures me she's well up for it.
Sean, on his wife's CRF 250! Pushed through his limits on this trip and proved to be a real star :beerjug:

There's not many photos and those I do have tend to have been taken during the 'lulls' of this trip but if anyone has some to add then feel free.

Twenty minutes out of Reykjavik and we're straight onto some trails

Geoff

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Vince with Bakes behind

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Simple enough....so far

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At a tricky section where the track had disappeared Fiona has her 3rd drop of the day.

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The next very long trail may prove to be difficult as it's only been open a couple of days this season. The first section is a long steep climb through sand and rocks.

On the approach I was having reservations, Fiona had already dropped her BMW a few times but seemed game to give it a try.:bow:bow
Perhaps the bikes' slightly overloaded but realistically it doesn't matter how well prepped a 310 is, it's still more of a handful than other single cylinder bikes.

In the end I decided yes we do this wonderful trail, after all they'd all signed up for a tougher ride than the second trip.

The long, steep climb up was much more difficult than on previous occasions due to the track being in poor condition.
A few of us are near the top in thick, damp cloud and virtually no visibility.
We turn off our very hot motors and listen for the sound of others.
Silence!

After a few minutes we make the tricky decent nearly all the way down where we come across a scene of carnage.

Fiona's been off a few times and has hurt her ankle (only much later did she discover it was broken!)

The loss of momentum has caused Geoff to drop his bike, he heard a loud bang as he tried to pick it up. The loud bang was his calf muscle!! :eek:

Andy's been struggling to get going again in the steep sand and has burnt out the (year old) clutch in his 690.

We limp back off the mountain and within a few miles stop at a garage and shop to sort ourselves out.

I managed to buy some ice cubes and someone else a pack of frozen peas!

Geoff and Fiona in good spirits despite the pain as they share some relief.

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Andy's clutch is fucked!
Quick phone calls to every possibility but there's no clutch pack in Iceland and no hope of getting one shipped in from UK due to shortages.
Sadly Andy's trip is over, he decides to spend the night here and limp back in the morning....only the clutch completely gave out on the way in the middle of nowhere and needed assistance back to Reykjavik.

The rest of us press on to our first camp with a few of us taking an alternative and slightly more difficult route.

The following morning decisions need to be made.
Geoff's injured calf muscle is bad but he want to continue with a mainly road trip around Iceland and Bake's being the selfless star he is accompanies him.

I suggest a road route for Fiona with interesting places to see along the way and we can meet up the following day.

The next days route proved to be much more difficult!
I couldn't even find out if it was possible on a bike despite asking all the locals, even some who lived nearby.

So we make camp for our first night.

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So this next long route is an unknown.
Last year I tried part of it alone coming in from a slightly different angle but it's marked on more detailed maps so what could possibly go wrong......well its seems no one uses this route in it's entirety and we were about to find out why :D

The first 20 miles were a beautiful flowing trail through wonderful and varied countryside, used by fisherman to get to the lake......where the trail seemed to disappear!

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Hmmm

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There's only one thing for it.

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Many more tricky sections followed where I knew we would at some point we need to cross the river flowing into the lake then head over the mountains in the background.

It's an innocent looking crossing but really I should have walked it first....but didn't.
The bike go's in and it gets quite deep, my engine becomes muted underwater but keeps going and pulls me through the sandy holes up onto the far bank.

Vince makes it across with little trouble.

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As does Sean's mighty Honda, actually Sean's wife's mighty Honda if you remember, so he had more than one reason for concern :D

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Then it's the turn for Stu on his KTM 500, he really is a great rider but the 500 airbox design leaves a lot to be desired.


Having drowned his own bike, Stu leads Mark a different route but with the same result. Yes, perhaps they'd both agree they should have killed the engines earlier but hindsight's a wonderful thing!


Time to strip the 500s

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Talking of hindsight, both Stu and mark also had the foresight to carry spare oil and filters!

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There was certainly no way of getting a stricken bike back the way we came and as we were to find out, no way of getting one out ahead of us either.

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Perhaps a couple of hours later both bikes were dried out, fresh oil and filter fitted and fired back up into life. In an ideal world they'd have several more oil changes to flush the moisture out but of course we're not in an ideal world.....we didn't come here for that :D

Further on we need to walk this on first, not to check out how deep it it but to see how much grip there is!

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Grip is good thankfully.

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Vince makes it look easy


I have no photos of the next climb or decent.
It was a boulder field!
I still couldn't be sure this trail would let us out the other end and wasn't sure I had the energy to turn back without some rest.
As it was we bounced our way up to the top where we could see a beautiful green valley and decent trail far below us.
Hang on and get down then we're as good as out!

Like everyone I guess, my arms were pumped. I was bounced away from what was supposed to be the trail but tried to let the bike run and hit the trail again without falling off.

Then soaked in sweat reaching the valley floor to find a comfy place to lie down and rest awhile and let my heart rate come down.:D

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It was still a long way out to the main dirt road and then another 50 miles to our camp where we met up with Fiona who'd had a lovely relaxing ride:beerjug:

For me, I'd answered a question no one seemed to be able to answer. Is this trail possible.
Yes, but I'm glad I was on a ktm 525, I know my 640adv would also have done it but know I'd have struggled at times.

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Although I don't have photos of that day's more punishing sections over rocks and steps, I did have confidence in my front tyres ability to hit them hard, the same confidence a mousse can give.

For both bikes, I thought I give a 90/100 21 tyre a try up front to help soak up the rocks etc. and reduce the risk of pinch flats
I settled on a MotoZ enduro from Adventure Spec and specifically ordered matching tubes.

Yes, I should have checked them.

Although both bikes would soak up the rough ground well, neither bike would steer! It made riding very difficult and disconcerting, felt like the tyre was rolling.
It was only when I upped the pressure from around my normal 18psi to a minimum of 28 psi that the bike would steer correctly (everything else was set up for a taller front tyre) but of course now I've lost the compliance of using a lower pressure but overall was safer.

When I got home I checked and emailed Adventurespec who were very apologetic, the the obvious moral of the story is to assume nothing...they'd sent 80/90 21 tubes :D
 
Hopefully things will calm down now after an 'incident packed' first couple of days!

Fiona rests her ankle while we take a few hours back out on the trails.

After a great ride through the lava fields there was a loop around a lake which had thwarted my previous two attempts. First effort was with my wife Ange several years ago but she wasn't happy on her loaded bike, then last year it was simply too wet.
Conditions were perfect now and I wondered what all the previous fuss had been about. :blast:D

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Back on dry ground

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Then a fairly long ride including several trails...we're on a time limit.

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We had a ferry to catch.

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Once off the ferry and in the West Fjords we're on a mission!
The football cup final starts in 1 hr 10 mins and I have a plan where we can camp and those interested can watch it.
Unusually, I set the gps and it looks like we're going to miss the first part of the game and I'm sure we've all tried to beat the sat nav! :D

We did beat it but missed the first goal, Vince and I sank a few pints while watching in a bar with some good natured locals :beer:
 
Next morning we set off on the dirt road to see some Puffins!

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Take some shelter from the rain.

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And down to a beautiful beach where I was able to check the tide tables for this area ...... some will know the significance of that! :D

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We wild camp in one of my favourite spots

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I cook up some dinner :drool

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One of the advantages of getting older is the need to get up in the night for a pee.

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As Tim said my clutch failed on day 1. It had been slipping slightly at high rpm on a TET trip last year, when I checked it the springs were in spec, the steels looked OK but a couple of the friction plates were just below the wear limit. New plates fitted, a couple of days out road and trail riding and all seemed well...

Tim and the rest of the crew set off to their campsite leaving me in a B&B. My plan was to set off the next morning (a Friday) to Reykjavik to drop the bike back at the port, if I didn't get it back before 4pm on the Friday I'd be stuck until Monday. I could switch my return flight to the Sunday so fingers crossed...

On the Friday morning I set off, the clutch was still slipping at high revs but I could cruise along at about 50. It was only about 35 miles to the port, so I was quite optimistic - until I hit a steep hill. I ended up pushing the bike to the top, gave it a while to cool down but nothing.

I'd known my UK recovery wouldn't cover me for Iceland but what could possibly go wrong!? I called the KTM dealer to ask about recovery options, nothing available. The dealer gave me a number of someone who might be able to get me and the bike back to Reykjavik - a couple of calls to that number were met with a voicemail message in Icelandic and nothing else. I called a couple of the bike tour companies that operate in Iceland but nobody could help. If the worst came to the worst at least I had all my camping gear :D
 

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I keep calling the number the dealership gave me and at last someone answers. I explain what I need and give him a location from the GPS and the road number, he says he knows where that is and asks me how I'm going to pay (welcome to Iceland!) and says a driver will call me later to arrange pickup. Half an hour later I get a call from Jon Paul who will come out from Reykjavik and claims to know where I am. I ask how much and he says 25000 Kroner (about £140). Jon Paul says he'll be with me in 30 minutes and I sit down to wait...

45 minutes later I get a call from the haulage company. The driver can't find me and can't contact me (it later turns out his mobile isn't enabled for calling internationally - which it needs to be for him to call my UK mobile). I call the driver, and it turns out there's been a case of Icelandic Whispers with my location and he's a few miles away. Eventually he turns up in a high-top sprinter with a tail lift - result!:thumb2
 

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We get back to the Samskip Autoplatz in Reykjavik. The cheery manager laughs wryly in that Icelandic way when I explain why I'm back to drop off 24 hours after I picked up.

We offload the bike and I leave it next to Tim's 640. I pull out my wallet and say to Jon Paul '25000 then?', but he laughs wryly in that Icelandic way and points to a taximeter(!) in the cab. Wrong location, he says, it's now 42000 (£240). I wave cash at him and he laughs wryly in that Icelandic way and says 35000. Honour satisfied I pay the man, take some gear off my bike and leave the bike in Samskip's capable hands.

A few weeks later I get the bike back, and a few weeks after that I get round to looking at it. Most of the clutch plates have disintegrated and been ground up. The oil comes out like grey treacle. Stripdown time - when I get round to it!
 

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unfortunately not a good start to the trip for some. TBH , when we dropped of the bikes in Hull for shipping, I was a bit concerned that some of the bikes and gear looked a bit hardcore, there was my wifes wee CRF sitting there looking tiny and under prepped.

As it turned out sometimes less power is an advantage , the big powerful bikes probably had a harder time gaining traction on loose rocks, resulting in the carnage Tim mentioned earlier.

For anyone thinking about this trip in the future, I can highly recommend it , personally I found it challenging at times , probably due to lack of sleep with the fecking daylight 24hrs a day and screeching puffins, however I met some great folk , loved the wild camping , the scenery was spectacular , and Iceland offers so much different types of terrain to ride on.

Big thanks to to Tim for showing us around .
 
Great pics and report Tim - looks (and sounds) quite intimidating,:eek:

Well the first trip is always going to be a bit more difficult at times, hence I now insist on single cylinder bikes and am quite clear about what may be in store, but of course routes change constantly.... as does luck :beerjug:
 


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