Saturday, June 07, 2008
Bicycles in Iceland
Well here I am in Iceland and I don't have a bike to ride. I am located at a forest house in the Þjorsardalur forest, southern Iceland district. We went into Selfoss yesterday to shop for groceries and supplies for the house, and saw lots of bikes. People use them regularly here in the cities it appears, but not so much out in the countryside. I wonder why?
Well maybe because, it is so far from place to place once you get out of the city limits, and what else, the roads are so damned narrow! No berms when you get outside the city! Out of all the tourist type activities I have witnessed so far, bicycling doesn't seem to be one of them. I have seen horseback riding, ATV riding, 4x4 SUV driving, but no bicycle touring going on.
People also seem to be very trusting here. All the bikes I saw outside of buildings and stored in town where just sitting idle and unlocked! Very trusting i say again.
Well, one goal while I am here is to try and find some used bikes to install at the forest house. What fun it would be to just use them to wheel around, maybe along the forest roads? I'll let you know how this quest turns out. I can't really spend much money from my travel budget for this, and things are quite expensive here so it may be tough to acquire any bikes. If anyone is reading from Iceland and has some extra runaround bikes for cheap or free you'd like to donate to us student volunteers, speak up please. Or if you know of any groups, organizations, flea markets etc where they might be acquired, well that info would be greatly appreciated as well.
Well maybe because, it is so far from place to place once you get out of the city limits, and what else, the roads are so damned narrow! No berms when you get outside the city! Out of all the tourist type activities I have witnessed so far, bicycling doesn't seem to be one of them. I have seen horseback riding, ATV riding, 4x4 SUV driving, but no bicycle touring going on.
People also seem to be very trusting here. All the bikes I saw outside of buildings and stored in town where just sitting idle and unlocked! Very trusting i say again.
Well, one goal while I am here is to try and find some used bikes to install at the forest house. What fun it would be to just use them to wheel around, maybe along the forest roads? I'll let you know how this quest turns out. I can't really spend much money from my travel budget for this, and things are quite expensive here so it may be tough to acquire any bikes. If anyone is reading from Iceland and has some extra runaround bikes for cheap or free you'd like to donate to us student volunteers, speak up please. Or if you know of any groups, organizations, flea markets etc where they might be acquired, well that info would be greatly appreciated as well.
Labels: iceland bicycles
Comments:
I have seen horseback riding, ATV riding, 4x4 SUV driving, but no bicycle touring going on
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# posted by 
: 6:51 PM
: 6:51 PM
