Every adventure begins with a moment of innocence, before the road reveals its true nature. For Florian and Etienne, that moment lasted exactly one day. They left the northern coast under a calm sky, riding 120 kilometers on smooth asphalt. Florian remembers it as “the perfect beginning,” a gentle welcome they didn’t yet know not to trust. Etienne says the start felt “almost too easy,” the kind of ease that makes you believe the whole journey might be kinder than expected.
Day two corrected that idea quickly.
The road vanished into lava fields and soft sand. The headwind grew so strong it felt like someone was pushing them backwards. “We walked more than we rode,” Etienne recalls. They fell often, advanced slowly, and reached only thirty kilometers by late afternoon. It was the kind of day that forces you to ask yourself why you’re doing any of this at all. By the time they found a small shelter for the night, they were exhausted in a way that went far beyond the body.
Yet between them, something remained steady. Iceland invites silence, and they accepted it. They often rode a few meters apart, sometimes with music, sometimes without. “The silence had meaning,” Florian says. There was no need to fill it. It held space for thought, for breath, for each of them to connect to the landscape in their own way while still sharing the same road.
Certain images stay with you long after the journey ends. For Florian, it was the sight of Etienne as a small silhouette in the middle of a black, mineral desert, an island of movement in a world stripped down to its bones. For Etienne, it was arriving at a tiny hut on the third day, after fifty kilometers of wind, sand and chaos, to eat cold cheese and meat in the warm glow of a sun that never truly set. “It felt like the reward of a lifetime,” he says.
When they finally reached the south, pride arrived quickly but was followed by something more surprising. The city felt too loud, too fast. After days of isolation, they struggled to blend back into noise and crowds. “We weren’t ready to return to the city,” Florian admits. They had finished earlier than expected, but neither felt like celebrating. They just wanted to go home, to their own quiet.
Later, over a warm meal and a beer, the achievement settled in. They had crossed Iceland from north to south in six and a half days. They had endured wind, silence, doubt, and the kind of terrain that humbles even the strongest spirit. And they had discovered the strange joy that lives inside all of it.
Already, they are thinking about the next adventure. Journeys like this have a way of opening a door you can never fully close again.
