Background
Last September I got a marketing email from Lauf, an Icelandic cycling brand. I don’t have a Lauf. . . I must have gotten on their mailing list at some point, not sure. The marketing email was a promotion for The Rift, a gravel race through Iceland’s lava fields and backroads. I was in Canada with friends at the time, psyched on biking and feeling excited on traveling more. Fuck it. . . let’s sign up.
I’ve not been much of a ‘racer’, especially not much of a bike racer; but the idea of a destination race excited me. It’ll be an excuse to travel, to get out of your normal rhythms, I told myself. I drove into town the next day and signed up.
I convinced my parents to join me in Iceland, it turned into a purposeful trip, one centered around this event but I hardly felt compelled to treat it as a race. Sure, I wanted to show up and give my best, but if I was being honest with myself I wasn’t training. I went to the Alaska Range in May/June, skiing and sitting in a tent, hardly bike training! But when the time came around to leave for Iceland I was psyched.
A few weeks before the trip I had a realization: shit, it might be raining, and cold. I’m a pretty fair-weather cyclist at norm; if the forecast is cold enough to warrant additional clothing, especially specialized bike clothes like thermal tights, overshoes, etc., I’ve historically just chosen to not ride! But now I’d chosen to travel to a far northern gravel race, on a specific day that wasn’t dependent on the weather. Rain or shine, this ride was happening! I scrambled to acquire some colder and wetter weather clothes, adapting what I could from baselayers and shells as well. We’d make it work. Shit’ll buff…
Trip Report
Before leaving on the trip, I was hanging out with my buddy Tucker talking about the trip to come. I expressed my concerns around my bike showing up unharmed, amongst other things. Control the things you can, embrace the things you can’t, Tucker urged. Or at least that’s what my brain held onto. Embrace the things you can’t. . . how does that work?!? I’m a details-guy, patience and ‘radical acceptance’ have never been strengths of mine. But it was time to learn, and practice. . .and wow did this trip really teach me a lot on those subjects.
Arrival
My overnight flight to Iceland went pretty darn smoothly. Jetlagged, for sure, but no major hiccups! The bike bag arrived, I re-assembled the bike at our rental house. . . all was good! After a nap I got out for a brief ride, eager to stretch my legs but also start building momentum for the week ahead. We arrived on Saturday, the race that I had come for was a week away.
My rough ‘plan’ for the week was to get a few longer rides in earlier in the week leading up, then rest and ‘taper’, if I could call it that, and show up Saturday ready and prepared. But I wasn’t just going to sit around all week. . . this trip was centered around the race but it was also about travel. I wanted to explore!
I rode around for a few hours, learning that 50F and slightly rainy wasn’t that bad! With some gloves and a windbreaker it was manageable. . . maybe I’d be able to return all this specialized rain/cold biking gear after all!
Reckoning
With a full night’s sleep and a weekend day ahead, I wanted to get out for a long exploratory day. We were staying pretty centrally in the ‘Golden Circle’, a concentrated zone of attractions and roads. I mapped out some different loops, not quite sure what I was getting into but open with options. I did a little research ahead of time on the gravel roads that I had mapped, Gemini AI telling me one of them was quite rugged. I had a backup plan that was more tame. . . let’s go poke!
The forecasted weather for the day was cloudy, a bit breezy, and did have some rain forecast. Hmmm. . .
I made it to the gnarly gravel road that I had research and it indeed was pretty gnar, 15%+ grade with large river rocks and washboard. Yeahhh, no thanks. I turned around, not needing to endure that suffering. I pivoted to a slightly longer but easier gravel loop that would take me north into the Icelandic highlands from Geysir.
Off the main road I found lovely dark, volcanic gravel with blooming lupine flowers. This was the Icelandic experience I’d seen in the marketing email! With podcasts in tow and hours to kill, I was psyched.
Things changed quite dramatically, though, once I hit the highlands. The clouds became denser, the mist became stronger, and a nasty sidewind developed. Within an hour, I went from having a lovely adventure ride to damn, this is kinda. . . fucked. I put on what layers I had and settled in for the grind. I was on my own, not in any place that I could receive help. I had supplies to repair my bike, had sufficient food and water, but I was essentially on the Moon, both aesthetically and logistically.
Maybe half an hour after I crested into my ‘no-fun zone’, I washed out in a particularly thick, sandy spot that ate my wheel and tires. I landed on my front wheel, breaking one of the spokes in half. Fuck. The wheel still spun straight but I had just bought these new carbon wheels! Dang it! Embrace the things you can’t control. . . Well, I kinda could have controlled this? Ish. . .
I threw the spoke in my jersey backpocket and kept pedaling. At this point, a mechanical coupled with cold rain was not going to be a good mixture. Keep forward momentum, I kept telling myself. I had maybe 10-15 miles left of gravel until I hit pavement, then I’d be on my way back towards the house.
Travel was quite slow, with the cold, wet, and wind. I messaged my parents via my inReach that I was alright, though I was going to be back home later than I had anticipated.
“I’m okay, ride is just taking longer than I thought. Weather has been bad” – 7:46 PM
After another 90 minutes of suffering, though. . .
“Any chance I could get a pickup on the road? Weather is bad. Head north on road 36 and 52.” – 9:35 PM
I’d been in my “no-fun zone” long enough. Suffering for another 15-20 road miles in a headwind and getting even more wet than saturated seemed unnecessary if I had an alternate option. My parental heroes whisked me off the road in the dark, saving me some painful miles. I was quite cold, very wet, and ready to just be done. A hot shower and meal were quite welcomed. . . though I knew that sleep was going to be hard to come by.
Adjusting
After a poor night’s sleep, my focus turned to repairing my broken wheel. Before leaving on this trip I had just bought a new wheelset from a local friend-of-a-friend, which donned fancy (but I’d come to find out, proprietary) spokes from Polymer Workshop. Fancy gear is great, but it’s also hard to source. I’ve never broken a spoke before, so this was a learning experience for me. I researched, as I couldn’t sleep, spoke design and interchangeability. Turns out, this specific kind of spoke had a very unique mating interface for the hub. Thankfully, it was on my front wheel, but still. . .
I made my way into Reykjavik in the morning and stopped at a local bike shop. I forgot the spoke with me, but asked the mechanic if they could replace the nipple on the spoke. The mechanic graciously took a look, but before long he returned and broke the news to me: your spoke is fractured, not just at the nipple but it’s entirely broken. Since it was a proprietary design, I’d have to source an entirely new spoke.
Well, shit. That wasn’t going to happen in Iceland. Especially not within the next few days. I kept asking him what could be done, if I could ride the wheel down one spoke. I knew it wasn’t advisable, but I was trying to troubleshoot what could be done. This was Monday, the race was Saturday. Was it already over?
The mechanic went into the back, returned with a wheel. For 15,000 krona I could set this up for you, he offered. I did a quick conversion on my phone, that’s 1,000 dollars, I can’t do that, thanks for the offer though, I said. I was converting currency incorrectly though, it was 100 USD, not 1,000.
I took a breath, trying to let go of the disappointment of my fancy carbon wheel breaking, at my own doing. My mind spun a bit at the though of this heavier wheel. Would I be slower? Would it impact my race performance? Why am I even focused on ‘race performance’?!?! Let’s do it, I told him. It was a great solution; I came to learn that it was an extra one of his wheels, not even the shop’s. He said he’d set it up tubeless for me and mount my tire, I just needed to go to an ATM and get 15,000 ISK in cash. Deal.
Embrace the things you can’t control, control the things you can.
Well, maybe I could have controlled my entry into that sandy pit a little more. Not maybe, I definitely could have. But more than anything, I had to take control of my headspace for the rest of the week. I’d had a pretty rough ‘training’ ride, where I got very wet, cold and generally uncomfortable, a road pickup from my parents, and a shit night’s sleep. I’d broken a fancy wheel. . . yada, yada. There was a lot of negative to focus on. But my bike was functional again! I was bummed, and a bit anxious, at throwing money to solve this problem, but the problem was solved. Back to the cottage…
Routines
The weather Mon, Tues, and Weds was generally the same: wet and windy. My routine settled. I’d wake up around 9A, ride for a few hours, then sign on for remote work in the evening when it was daylight hours back home.
Thursday I had my first dry ride of the trip, which brought a true smile to my face. Wow, riding can be. . . pleasant! I rode around the lake near our house, checking out different spots of Thingvellir National Park. I let the difference of this heavier front wheel fade from my focus, it wasn’t important at this point. I was here, in Iceland, doing the thing I came to do! Which was. . .
Well, what was that? Was that the race? Was that riding around and exploring? Was it spending time with my parents?
It was all of it.
It’d be a lie to call the lead up to race day as ‘peaceful’ and serene, hahahah. Shenanigans, things going wrong, etc. But I was healthy, here with my parents, and race day looked ~fairly~ dry. Friday rolled around, I prepped my bike, and set out food and clothes. Here we go!
Whiff
The race was scheduled to start around 715A in a town that was around 45 minutes away from where we were staying. My Dad and I made our race day plan. I’d wake up at 5A, eat some breakfast and drink some coffee, we’d leave no later than 545A and be off. I packed up the night before, just needed to get the morning fuel in the body and. . .
Hey dad, can you unlock the trunk?
I thought I did?
Ruh roh, the car wasn’t responding. The doors were unlocked but the trunk wasn’t moving. I hopped in the driver’s seat, to try and start the car.
Shit.
We had a plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) Kia vehicle, which we’d been plugging in throughout our trip. Our first experience with a plug-in vehicle, to be honest.
Lights are off, huh.
It was around 520AM at this point, we had a very limited time window to troubleshoot. A quick Google search revealed this particular model of car appearing ‘dead’ overnight was a common issue. Great. I jumped into troubleshoot mode, trying to figure out if there were sequences of buttons to press, if the steering wheel needed to be tugged, something. No jumper cables in the car, great. My Dad tried calling roadside assistance, but at 530A in the morning in semi-rural Iceland. . . yeah, not an option.
6A rolled around and I started to try and do mental math in my head.
How far is the start? 60KM? Damn, I couldn’t quite make it there in time even if I rode from here.
It would be a series of hitch-hikes, and it was 6A in the morning. Unlikely to pull that off.
Taxi wasn’t an option, unfortunately. Hailing one would take at least a few hours to get here from Reykjavik even if we could find one to accept our ride.
And we didn’t have any friends in the area; we were by ourselves.
I kept on trying troubleshooting measures, using Gemini as my guide. Around 630A it was pretty clear: our battery was entirely dead and the only way to get this cary running was a jump from another vehicle. And time wasn’t on our side.
Around 7AM I turned to my Dad and let the air out of the balloon. It’s over Dad, we tried. It’s alright. We can slow down. I wasn’t making it to this race. We’d tried what we could, but there wasn’t benefit in fretting about it anymore. What had happened, happened. Yes, we’d need to get the car working again, but we could stop trying to fit that into a compressed timeline. It was time to slow down, reset, and pivot.
I felt quite deflated, to be honest. The body follows the mind, I’ve come to learn; it had felt like my own tires were low. I tried drawing up a long ride to salvage the day, salvage this ‘race’ that I’d traveled for. But a few hours into my ‘consolation’ ride I just didn’t have the mental beans. Why am I doing this?
I looped back to the house after a few hours in the saddle, long enough for the pain of not making the start line to subside, but also long enough for me to shift focus back to getting this car working. I wanted to go home. I was mentally gone.
Upon returning to the house I found my parents on the phone with the rental car company. I got back on my bike and headed out to the main road, trying to flag down some drivers to give us a jump. It was surprisingly difficult to find anyone with jumper cables! After a dozen or so drivers without jumpers, I biked up the road to a nearby hotel, who had jumper cables! I asked if I could borrow the cables; if I had jumpers, it’d be half of the way to a jump! I headed back to the road, now flagging people down with cables in tow. Hey, I have jumpers cables, can you give me a jump? This was a much easier ask to pull off.
The challenge now was navigating our computer-riddled, complicated PHEV car. It wasn’t a typical starter battery, there were fuses and wires and junction boxes everywhere. Again, we tried using AI and the internet to show us what to do. I’ve jumped plenty of standard, normal cars in my life, but not these newer EV ones. We made a few failed attempts. Over the next few hours, we tried a variety of combinations for the + and – connections; a wrench was even used at one point to lengthen the contact point to a battery post. Finally, after 3-4 hours and asking the same kind construction worker to give us a jump, we got the car operational again. It was 3PM at this point.
No, I didn’t get to race. But honestly, that’s alright! I gave it a good shot, not physically but I showed up to Iceland and was ready to roll. Yes, there’s plenty to kick around in hindsight. Gah, I wish we hadn’t plugged the damn car into the charger. But when the situation happened, we tried to solve what we could. I tried.
Noah Howell talks about ‘being present to win’ in his writings of skiing in the Alaska Range. Replace ‘win’ with some other word and I think it rings very true universally. I wanted to be present, in this country, and try to experience it.
I signed up for this ‘race’ that explores wild Iceland, dark lava fields and backroads, gnarly weather, and adversity. No, I didn’t get to ride that course, and yes that course looks really sweet. But I certainly got all the elements.
I got rained on, a lot.
I broke parts of my bike.
I got cold, really cold.
I rode through volcanic backroads in the Icelandic highlands.
I got my shit tossed. A number of times.
I got tired, my legs burning.
And yes, I experienced disappointment, elation, and everything in between.
I got to spend time with my parents, which is honestly rare for us as a family.
…
Yes, this is the framing I’m trying to walk away with, because the car not starting morning of race day sucked. Eh, oh well. Pivot, move on, and keep going!