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
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
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
Vince with Bakes behind
Simple enough....so far
At a tricky section where the track had disappeared Fiona has her 3rd drop of the day.
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.
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!!
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.
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.