600 KM GRAVEL CROSSING OF ICELAND

 

In August 2023, Julien Mazard and Loïc Doval set off on an autonomous gravel traverse of Iceland. The cold, the wind, the long stages and the complexity of the route didn't stop the pair from completing this arduous project. Julien tells us about the diversity of the landscapes, the wild places covered, and the difficulty and beauty of the crossing.

 

"The idea was to carry out a long bike crossing, not necessarily extreme but committed all the same. Loïc and I were looking for wild places in the heart of unique landscapes.

 

We were on roads where, for hundreds of kilometers, we didn't pass through a single village or cross paths with anyone. There were hardly any refuges.

 

We covered almost 600 kilometers, a journey that took us through very wild, lunar-like sites, like some sort of immense desert. We traversed a wide variety of landscapes, from enormous plateaus encircled by glaciers to riverbanks surrounded by mountains and waterfalls.

 

Generally speaking, we covered between 50 and 100 kilometers a day, depending on the condition of the roads and the weather. The hardest thing about this kind of expedition is not so much the distances involved as the weather conditions. Despite the cold, we were lucky to have the wind at our backs and the sun at our sides. We started our day around 8am, taking the time to wake up and have a good breakfast (the best meal of the day). Once we'd packed up our tents, we'd get back into our packs, which were never the same as the day before, and start riding. 200 meters later, there was always a bag falling off. We tightened our straps and set off again.

 

The miles flew by, or not! You know when you're leaving, but never when you're arriving. Rivers to cross, headwinds, technical problems, there was always something going on.

 

We had planned for 9 days of autonomy. In the middle of the trip, we found a shelter with chips, snickers and candy. We were so happy, we ate all three at the same time. Our relationship with food had changed a little over the course of the trip. Our load was very heavy, so that we could be self-sufficient while still being able to eat a lot to avoid the risk of hunger pangs on the road.

 

All our stages have a special story, but the very first one will remain a special memory. We set off from Akureyri, a town in the north of Iceland, to reach Vik in the south, in 8 or 9 days maximum. We hadn't planned on more food. On the day of departure, we decided to change our route. We were embarking on something too difficult, with stages where we would have had to push the bikes for dozens of kilometers. What's more, a volcano was apparently ready to erupt. We've already been through a lot today.

 

Leaving civilization behind wasn't as easy as we'd imagined. We made a long tunnel crossing and after a few kilometers, we found ourselves with huge waterfalls, rain, cold, wind, sun, heat to finally arrive at the first kilometers of track and head towards the Highlands, the Icelandic highlands with its limitless expanses.

 

As we progressed, the landscape became wilder and wilder, the mountains took shape, the last houses disappeared to make way for an enormous field of lava as far as the eye could see. We finally arrived at our destination at 11 p.m., a place out of time, in the middle of magma that had lain dormant for thousands of years. We were already exhausted after 8 hours on the bike and weeks of preparation. The pressure was off, the feeling of freedom was clear, and the adventure could finally begin.