Iceland Mountain Biking - 17 Sep to 28 Sep

Hi all,

I will be in Iceland from 17 to 28 Sep and I am planning to do some hut to hut mountain biking. Ideally I would like to find one or two other people who are interested in something similar so we can plan our own trip, most likely with a guide so we can find the best single track.

My riding style: I like to ride technical trails but usually get off the bike and walk if very steep or high exposure. Fast is fun sometimes but I am more interested in just having a big adventure out in the mountains with my bike. My main motivation for not joining a tour is I can be slow when climbing steep and I hate feeling like I am slowing the group down but then I find that lower level tours don't have challenging enough terrain for me. My endurance levels are good and I like long days in the saddle, whatever the weather, pushing/carrying the bike where necessary. So, if riding all day, swimming in a hot pool, good food, nice company and sleeping out in a hut sounds like your idea of fun too then please get in touch. Irrelevant but perhaps useful info for decision making: I'm 42 and female.

I would also be interested to hear any recommendations for routes, trails, guides etc.

Cheers!

You are say you are planning, do you have any particular detailed route plans I could critique? To a first approximation, my guess is that this is unrealistic in conception, mainly, but not only, because of the dates.

Hut to hut mountain biking suggests the interior, and it is risky going to the interior on a bicycle that late in the year, at least very far into the interior. I think you'll have to take a tent even if the huts are present on the ground, because a lot of the huts will be locked up already at those dates. Also I'm not sure where you'll find a route you can reliably get from hut to hut in a day. Clearly there are some possibilities, like riding the Laugavegur footpath, which these dates are generally too late for, and the huts will probably be locked up, even if the passes aren't completely snowed in yet.

There is very little single track in Iceland. The reason is that few footpaths are sufficiently well walked to be beaten underfoot even for walkers, let alone cyclists. Paths like Laugavegur are the exception. But probably a guide will find you some, though you'd make it a lot easier for your guide if you came at sensible dates when he could take you along Laugavegur. You'll also find Iceland has a lot of very loose ground and riding a bicycle on anything which is not a very well beaten track or path is difficult because of the looseness of the material under wheel.

The problem with going to the interior at these dates is knowing when is the big snowfall that closes lots of interior roads is going to come. Some years it has already come by 17 Sept, though probably around about last week in Sept is more common, and it can be delayed until well into October if you are lucky. But suppose it hasn't come yet. Probably some of the very remotest/highest bits are already closed at this date (and high bits like the passes on the Laugavegur path), but probably quite a lot will still be open. Nevertheless between 17 and 28 Sept you'd expect a fair bit more, possibly a lot more, to close. So you'd have to keep a close eye on the weather forecast, with equipment to ensure you can do that, and at the first sign of a bad forecast get the hell out of there. And on a bicycle you may be too far in to get out in time, because the buses won't be running to rescue you, and there will be little passing traffic at those dates either. Possibly if you have a guide with a 4wd who can drive you out when the bad forecast is showing, that would work, but it would be very expensive to have that high level of support service.

For most cyclists, the 4wd tracks are quite hard enough cycling. Many of the 4wd tracks are as hard as single track in other places, hard enough to include some pushing.

I think you could try some of the more peripheral tracks at this date, without too much risk of getting snowed in, in the sense of having enough time to get out of there when the bad forecast was showing. But I think you'd probably need a tent. Or maybe you can plan it so you can stay in some guesthouses, if you are the very fit cyclist you say you are. I'd look at some roads like the ones going along the S & W side of Langjokull. You could risk a ride into Landmannalaugar, if it's still open, having had a close look at the weather forecast first, but probably you'd have to take the main tracks, the really excellent minor tracks in the southern highlands go very high and close early. And the hut will almost certainly be locked up at that date. They don't have a definite closing date, and can stay open a week or so into Sept if the weather is OK, but not in general very much longer. Then there is the issue of where you will stay on the approaches, you'd have to be strong not to need that.

Oh yes, need to say, Icelandic mountain huts don't do catering. You'll be self-catering at huts, if you find them open. Have to carry your food. Although Iceland has gained recent fame for foodie culture, only very recently it was terrible and that lingers on in many smaller places. Good food is mostly accessible only in larger towns and posh hotels. And you'll be lucky to find that hot pot either, there are a few near huts in the interior, but mostly it is in villages at swimming pools you'll find the hot water.

I suggest this might be interesting reading for you.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/on-your-bike/topics/bike-packing-iceland-summer-2016-help

Thanks for your input, that's a lot of useful information. Unfortunately dates are fixed this year. Mountain biking is not my main reason for visiting Iceland so the dates weren't chosen with that in mind, though I would really like to try and get some rides in while there if at all possible.

So far, I have the bus into Landmannalauger booked and the huts booked from Landmannalauger to Thórsmörk so the plan is to ride the Laugavegur over 2 days. I know the plan is entirely weather dependent and in the end it may not be possible. For sure I'm not going to argue with the weather and if I have to cancel plans the day before then I completely accept that. Thanks for the other suggestions, I will definitely have a look into those as alternatives.

Oh, and my idea of good food may be different to yours, I don't need fancy restaurants but I am ok at cooking up a feast out of my backpack at the end of a day's riding :-)

Mountain biking is not my main reason for visiting Iceland

That puts a different complexion on things, I assumed you were trying to fill 10 days of biking.

So far, I have the bus into Landmannalauger booked and the huts booked from Landmannalauger to Thórsmörk

That's interesting. In previous years the huts have refused to accept bookings after the last week of August, saying they don't know when the closure dates will be, being weather dependent, and in any case they have never been full so late in the season after the organised trekking tours stop, so bookings were unnecessary. Last year Laugavegur was perfectly fine for walking well into September, but many years the weather becomes dodgy from late August onwards - there's a Julia Bradbury documentary you can find on youtube where she gets motorised assistance to escape from the trail due to dangerously high winds, doing it in late Aug. Only a handful of years ago there was a very big snowfall in the southern highlands on about 8 or 9 Sept. You will observe the "from" date in the Landmannalaugar bus timetable - in practice they were unable to start operating until about 10 days later - you will understand that bus operating dates are an ambition, not necessarily a practical reality.

Oh, and my idea of good food may be different to yours

Actually it may be the same... But given the foodie revolution in Iceland I tend to assume people going there and talking about good food mean the posh restaurants.

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