Off-road motorcycling through the heart of ICELAND – Part One – Ride With Locals The Girl On A Bike

As my number one riding country in the world I’m back!! Follow my off-road adv motorcycle adventure in Iceland with this travel documentary style video. I was lucky enough to explore the heart of Iceland on a motorcycle with RideWithLocals. Riding the KTM EXCF 350 enduro motorcycle we travelled 200-240 kilometres each day off-road.

Iceland offers motorcycle riding experiences like nowhere else on Earth and I hope this video will help you see why! Footage is from my DJI, Mavic Air2 drone and iPhone.

Over 2.5 million tourists visit Iceland each year to see the big sights. Hot spas, waterfalls, glaciers, geysers, tectonic plates and lava fields. They pack into coaches or hire cars. But riding here with RideWithLocals on off-road bikes changes your perspective. We can discover the must-see spots from the less trodden tracks, skipping the crowds, and seeing things most tourists might only glimpse from the plane window. We rode up close to Hekla, slept below the Myrdalsjokull Glacier, recharged in an spa, explored huge craters without a soul in sight, picked across lava fields such as Veiðivatnahraun, crossed valley basins and crested mountains, riding volcanic ash berms. It was riding heaven combined with cultural and geological discovery: A trip only motorcycles can make possible.
Trip highlights:
• Town of Selfoss,
• Mt Hekla
• Hjálparfoss
• Gjáin
• Háifoss
• Þórisvatn Lake
• Jökulheimar Mountain Hut
• Veiðivatnahraun Lava Field
• Veiðivötn Lake Area
• Hrauneyjar Power Stadion
• Rjúpnavellir Mountain Hut
• Ljótipollur volcano crater
• Hnausapollur Volcano crater
• Hungurfit Mountain Hut
• Glaciers
• Landmannalaugar Geothermal Area
• Langisjór Lake
• Eldgjá, a canyon, and volcano
• Eldgjá
• Langisjór Lake
• Breiðbakur Mountain
• Blautulón Lake
• Mýrdalsjökull.
• Mælifell volcano mountain
• Mælifellssandur.
• Markafljót canyon.

We did the trip with RideWithLocals, the only Icelandic enduro company and based just a 2h 45min flight from the UK. A fully-inclusive motorcycle Iceland trip on KTM EXCFs with a support vehicle, fuel, food, mountain hut accommodation, trail snacks, beer and all the local gen from the Vikings running it. We had six days riding, covered roughly 1400km doing 9 to 11- hour riding days and got to see the real Iceland – which is unseen by most tourists. Expect to pay around €4400 per person. www.ridewithlocals.is

#IcelandAdventure #MotorcycleTouring #TravelDocumentary #ridewithlocals #thegirlonabike

Please follow my adventures on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegirlonabike
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegirlonabike
Website: https://www.thegirlonabike.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessaprocter/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thegirlonabike

If you made it this far, comment and join the conversation

Supported by
Teng Tools #getorganised https://www.tengtools.com/
Cardo Systems #askforcardo https://cardosystems.rfrl.co/5gxzq and use code “TGOAB“
Michelin #teammichelin
Revolution Race
CTEK Chargers

Edit & Thumbnail – Team KapDx Media – (Suruj Barman & Arjun Tumung)

Music Credits: Epidemic Sounds https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/si5fin/

Tracks:
ES_Glynnis – Coma Svensson.mp3
ES_Breaking Free – Under Earth.mp3
ES_Shortcut to My Heart – Honeycutts.mp3
ES_Tattoos & Bruises – Honeycutts.mp3
ES_200 Dont’s (Instrumental Version) – Conditional.mp3
ES_Don’t Forsake Me – Sven Karlsson.mp3
ES_Beer, Beards & BBQ – Rockin’ For Decades.mp3
ES_Leave It – Divorce Applause.mp3
ES_Young and Free – Honeycutts.mp3

Timestamp:
0:00 – Introduction to Iceland Motorcycle Adventure
2:43 – Meeting Anika, My Travel Companion
6:02 – Exploring Stop 3: Unveiling Hidden Gems
9:16 – The Goose Breeding Grounds of Iceland
10:53 – Day 1: Our Stay at a Mountain Hut
14:03 – The Journey Continues: Day 2 Begins
19:42 – Recap: Highlights of Today’s Route
24:40 – Wrapping Up Day 2: Reflections and Moments

Please do hit subscribe and check out my other videos.

Subscribe and follow the journey : https://www.youtube.com/c/TheGirlOnABike

Please do hit subscribe and check out my other videos.

Subscribe and follow the journey : https://www.youtube.com/c/TheGirlOnABike

I Vanessa Rock the girl on a bike and I back in my number one most favorite country to ride in that is Iceland I’m surrounded by Vikings behind me I’m here with ride with the locals let’s do Iceland so this is Iceland we have flown into rovic over on the left we have come over to SOS which is where ride is locals are based and we are going to be doing 6 days Offroad across Iceland which is going to take us all the way up

Towards this Lake right at the top we’re then going to be staying here for a couple of days doing a loop round before coming back down here so these six days are going to take us through a massive portion of what Iceland has to offer and

I cannot wait to show you some of the terrain and help you realize why Iceland is my number one riding country it is mindblowing getting on the bike we have done our waiver side offs which means we sign off our light we’ve done our briefing everybody is here Ked up our bags are

Loaded onto the port wagon which pretty much means we are ready to go I cannot believe I’m in Iceland we’ve just done about 50k to a Petro station we’re going to be having a hot dog uh which is sausage and bread not hot dog and then we are going to be going to

Off-road now Iceland is a Wilderness of pristine untouched nature and so technically you’re not actually allowed to go off-roading in Iceland at all but the good news is that there are m millions of tracks which is Offroad but it’s not actually Offroad and we are going to be pretty much hitting that

Shortly after this and we will not see tarmac again for the rest of the six days as sling hot Dog we are going off Thea So we got our first stop which appears to be a waterfall so you can see there’s an arm on my shoulder it’s meant to be that 990 guy who you might have seen in other films such as pan amicas and Wales and lots of Adventures anyway had to swap

Him out for anaka last minute cuz unfortunately he has been taken a little bit ill and could make Iceland so I’m St with this one stuck come on you love it there are worst places to be so we are currently at a viking site uh we’ve just had the Viking briefing from the

Viking so I call the ride with locals guys Vikings because I think they’re the only motorcycle tour company in operation in Iceland that is actually Icelandic guys running it and I personally like that cuz you are supporting the community in the right culture and who better to teach you

About country than the people that Liv there their whole life so we’ve just had a little bit of a brief now there is a house remains over here that is very very old it’s one of the original settlements from when vikings came over from Norway and Iceland hundreds of

Years ago and this is one of the areas where they settled into they quickly realized that Heckler who is one of the big volcanos in Iceland who likes to erupt relatively frequently and Chucks Ash out wasn’t really that friendly for them being here and they ended up moving on

But there’s loads of remains and buildings and from my understanding they’re actually still finding more remains of settlment from back in that time so pretty cool currently I’m on a bridge sorry seats oh seats we miss you well she doesn’t miss you I miss you selfishly happy that you’re not here um

My most sincere apologies but Iceland’s amazing not there yet but wow wow wow wow something absolutely ridiculous is going on in the world and I think it’s probably humans destroying it but it’s August in Iceland we’re going for a little stroll and it’s boiling enough

That I’m in a Sports Stop Iceland we got to be prepared for sideways rain wind and a storm in an hour’s time though just going to put that out there right now I’m going to bask like a seal walking on oh you thought that was an

Invitation yeah put me on arms in the air and she thinks an excuse to hug although you too tall you got to get the way around I think how long we’ been together a month a month jeez and we still can’t work this out you got to go

Under one let’s go she’s taller than me that’s better now can you pull me up the hill yeah let’s go oh no she’s too fast she’s too Fast Yeaw yep 10 minutes of Highly Dusty tracks so this summer has been unseasonably warm in Iceland and they’ve had like a handful of days of rain I don’t want to jinx it because no doubt we are going to have whatever is wants to throw at us

But it means there’s not been much rain so it’s super Dusty we’re going to be like brown fake Hand by the end of the day but couple of minutes in and we’ve had our first stop to an incredible waterfall I’m going to have to read a dictionary this week to get some new

Descriptive words for you cuz I’m going to get annoying the amount of times I say wow this is another stop we’re on stop number three and it’s just breathtaking I’ve actually been here before and last time I was here I sat right here on the ground with Ricky

Braic Dakar Rider hry Factor team he was sat here I was sat here that view was as epic and had one of those like wow grateful for Life moments and even without you Ricky it’s still one of those wow Moments okay we’re at a really unique spot in ic right now because we’re at a point uh where we can see three of the biggest glaciers from one spot in three directions we’ve also got Heckler up to the side of us and that is an active volcano that hopefully won’t go off

Right now and then way off into the distance in front of us we can see the mountain range where we are going to be staying in a mountain hut this evening it’s dusty it’s really dusty I don’t think I’ve ever wish for rain in ic but just like a Dribble [Applause] Aah [Applause] I found a rock an could wishes she was on my rock yeah but not but she’s not on my rock but I have the kill of you although I did just get a fly in my eye whil climbing on the Rock uh the disadvantages of really long eyelashes

Natural by the way is that the fly got swept by my eyelashes and then it went in my eye and an had to come and save me so over here there is a massive Goose breeding ground and you get the geese breeding there in their tens of thousands apparently and they around

This time of year are making families then there’s an anah trying to look cool down there and then there’s a Vanessa for a rock right I Hav And a support wagon woohoo hey GFF yeeha we’ll do end of day yay day one W first day done yeah that was just everything I remember of Iceland incredible skooly is the best Viking ever okay there’s flies everywhere but we always get a beer when we come in at

The end of the day and I’m not a massive beer fan and I happen to mention that this morning this is the best and even better is how good the mug is cheers Ana oh you you’ve drunk it already yeah it’s that good skool’s got us covered yeah okay so Anica was

Faffing around a fair amount today with her phone and the camera mostly her phone so I bought my favorite little Moscow tank bag with me I’m putting it on her bike cuz I’m such a nice friend it’s going to be a little bit on her Fanny bone but she’ll get over it when

She realizes she can reach her phone really easily so I’m just putting it on couple of Clips around the front and a cable tie But we’re wearing our hair nets cuz you can actually you can legit see how many flies there are so we have learned from Simon who’s on the trip that this is how you hold your drink at the same time and it’s safe from the monsters mhm it is gold go on do a

Demonstration nailed it the best bit is back there Probably we showing you inside the mountain heart now the boys are in this room which is basically one big bed they’re going to have fun in here uh because there are only two girls on the trip goo’s been awesome and got us our own little room so anaka and and I are

In here I’m on the bottom Buck here and then the view out of our window is the sun going down and the sun doesn’t go down for very long here in Iceland it actually looks like it’s quite close so that bit of cloud that it’s going into is actually the glacia which is

Incredible we’re all sat down having dinner downstairs there’s multiple rooms three or four rooms in the cabin and to me it’s way better than a hotel could ever be because this is how how you see the Wilderness in Iceland staying in fancy hotels it’s fake staying in a mountain

Hut where you can’t have a shower because they haven’t had enough rain because there isn’t water walking outside go to the toilet having communal dinner at one big table that’s cooked by the Vikings on a barbecue that is seeing Iceland we are sat here at breakfast completely on our own there’s no one in here but we’ve got the spread of everything in front of us we’ve got salamis and blueberry jams and amazing Icelandic yogurt if you come to Iceland you have to have the yogurt even cake crack cake

Crack to be fair I’m currently having crack cake with yogurt with a little bit of blueberry on the top it’s amazing we’ve made our sandwiches to take for lunch we have the crack onion with cheese and Herm but basically it’s 7:41 in the morning and we’d set an alarm at

7:30 to get up because we’re leaving at 9:00 and we’re lying in bed going the whole cabin is awake right now we should probably get up we come down early before our alarm they’ve already breakfast so it’s just us the reason is cuz it doesn’t get dark

So for so long here in Iceland it was dark at what like midnight maybe for maybe 3 hours so it’s just us for breakfast I am trying not to be eaten alive by the meas you can see them swarming around they have a particular interest in my eyelashes which Sho them

Into my eyeballs which is why we were wearing the hair nets last night uh but I’ve just put it in my rock sack anyway this is one of the reasons why I love Ison so much you wake up in the most incredible scenes behind me what looks like clouds on the horizon that’s

Actually a glaz I with rocks poing out of it the camera will not do it justice I thought I’d mention the bikes that we’re running so ride of locals have a fet of 27 bikes I am on a KTM 350 it’s my first time doing proper amount of

Distance on a 350 I have ridden a husana version down at toyot Trail in Spain uh but I would probably do a review of this bike before the end of the week now the rest of the bikes they have they have the hosana and gas gas variations of

Different bikes so they’ve got the the 701 the 700 690 which is the equivalent across the three brands they’ve gone 350s 450s so if you’re coming here it’s possible that you could put in a little bit of a request of what you want to ride these meas are pretty irritating

Thankfully they don’t bite so the name in Icelandic translates to like water mosquito but they don’t actually bite they just like to go for your face but really interestingly apparently if you wear an umbrella or wear hold an umbrella they will leave you alone they don’t like things being above them so if

You go inside they’re not inside either which is good they’re not annoying to sleep but where we’re going later today apparently they’re 10 times worse it’s going to be fun we’re just going to have to ride faster than they can fly other things is probably worth mentioning on

The bike is that they are running Mitchell in tires which to me is always a bonus I very much Trust mitching Tires we’re on the trackers which is the first time I’ve actually run them so far feeling really solid on them they’re Big knobbly B went in my mouth big knobbly

Tires and amazing uh grip lugs all that kind of stuff so they’ve given me a lot of trust in the Rocky terrain we’ve got the Moscow piers on the back now ride with locals have support wagons so if we spin around this way you can see a massive fire truck up

Behind me that is for all of the kit the refueling there’s no petrol out here in the wilderness and our suitcases so we don’t have to carry all of our luggage they then have a more agile truck with the jeep that can get down all the sort

Of tracks that we’re going to be going down on the motorbike so should we have any kind of medical or mechanical issues they can come on in and they’ve got a spare bike on the back as well as pure backup as well as having parts and tools and knowledgeable Vikings to repair the

Bikes uh but that means that the Moscow bags that we have on the back of the bikes are really there for our road snacks and our layers of waterproofs anything that we’re not wanting to wear we can put on there and know that if it suddenly gets cold or rainy or sideways

Winds we’ve got some backup we’re all starting to load up the bikes and we’re going to be hitting the Road Yeah The support wagon is never too far away it is Cordis in the lava field and I yeah just to give you a context of how big this thing is that’s little me next to it and we are all here on bikes bonkers Crack cake amazing best these an amazing scene and loads of flies yeah the Flies are following us I knew we should have showered but we didn’t shower last night because where we were staying didn’t have enough water because the river that’s normally there is not there so

They had less snow over winter which means there’s less melt and they’ve also had a very very dry summer I think it’s rained twice in 6 weeks which means this is not much water last time I was here 3 years ago it was water crossing water crossing water crossing and we’ve done

Probably what seven water Crossings today they haven’t been deep and you’ve been yeah they haven’t been deep and you there’s been loads where you could see there would be or was the river [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] Once hot hey [Applause] woo [Applause] [Applause] The trip includes your food so at breakfast you get bread ham salamis cheese onion stuff to make your sandwiches and we’ve just dropped at a mountain hat mainly because two of the guys really needed to do a poo so we came here to a poo um an is hiding in

The shade she can’t handle the heat of Iceland it is hot in Iceland Australians they’re such lightweight so the support wagon is being exercised uh poor Andre had a little bit of it off being attacked by the Viking and uh he’s got a bit of a

Quite oh wow it’s smelling up got a sore wrist bit of a back hit his head quite hard so he’s going to take the wagon for the rest of today we got about 3 hours left hopefully he’ll then feel refreshed and able to join the gift for that’s why

You go of a company that has a support truck when stuff goes wrong there’s a bound B [Applause] What [Applause] More food time so what having in the river well my bike was tired and it wanted to have a little lay down it’s hot in Iceland I don’t blame the bike like it was like it is hot let’s go for a swim so it did there a Drain Day two baby ready for Turbo helmet off 1 2 3 yes W and that is how you do it yeah another day down day two make sure if you’re enjoying it you hit that Bell so you get notifications and let me know any questions in the comments any thoughts

Would you enjoy wearing a net over your head oh my goodness these are insane yay Mega successful day on the bikes we have done a long day I think we’ve been out for about 8 and 1 half hours a few stops but not actually that many stops but absolutely killer killer

Killer day I think today was one of the days where you realize why he recommends this course or this trip to more experienced Riders because it’s a lot of Saddle time at a pretty awesome pace and I look a mess I’m Vanessa Rock the girl on a bike

I really hope you’re enjoying this Icelandic experience with me with ride of locals I’m going to cut the video here because it’s get getting a little bit long so stay tuned for the next part let me know if you’ve got any questions about the trip the gear Iceland riding

Any questions at all get them in the comments let me know if you’ve ridden in Iceland and where your favorite place is I’m Vanessa Rock the girl on a bike and stay tuned for the next Part