Mark will be flying out tomorrow to attempt 1000 miles in 24 hrs around Iceland - it’s never been done before as an Iron Butt ride and looking into it for this Friday is going to take some doing!
The weather is against them as well as the conditions.
He will be hiring a bike to do this on, as to take your own you have to get it to Denmark first, to then be shipped across to Iceland at a cost of £2500! The cheaper option was to hire
His Spot Tracker is set to start from 00.01 Thursday morning and should be tracking his every move until Sunday.
The ride starts at 6am Friday morning and will finish at 6am Saturday morning. Due to the lack of flights he can’t get out of there until Sunday afternoon and is hoping to get to Wales for dinner and the ride home Monday.
I only ask cos I went a few years back about this time of year (22 hours sunlight when I went) thinking it would be warm, no coat or jumper. It was 2 degrees and the wind is an icy wind.
I know I am a numpty - but worth checking he’s not of similar numptyness
Good luck Mark. Enjoy.
Ang - ignore this bit.
And the girls are soooo pretty!
He’ll need a pretty girl to warm him up. Last week they had temperatures of -22 lol it’s freezing, snow, ice and bitterly windy. I have a friend who lives there and he’s been updating us - forewarning :unsure: brrr chilly
Not sure what the problem is with the tracker. It has new batteries, it’s flashing but won’t update since 2.36am. I’ve checked all the settings on the account and they look right hmmm.
1,000 miles in Iceland is a lap around the outskirts of the island pretty much, I believe. Its a lot more tricky than the UK though, with slower speed limits, easier for police to speedcheck and stop you (only one main road!), quite a lot of roads in the north-east are gravel/earth, and the weather & wind can be awful. Oh, and rather remote and not much support.
Our group wore 8 layers when we did it, and took something like 6 days to do a lap. It was supposed to be a relaxing holiday, but every day was an ordeal - though admittedly the volcanos had only gone off a couple of weeks before
Having said that, it crossed my mind whether an Iron Butt might be possible - and I’d love to give it a go too
The weather looks more friendly this time, but always variable. Here’s some interesting links
He seems to have taken 12hrs so far, so looking good to complete in 24hrs
PS - just noticed he’s been out to the lefthand spur of Iceland … that bit was gorgeous, though almost like going off-road at times in some areas! Looks like they resisted going up into the north-east near the arctic circle.
