FASCINATING FAROE ISLANDS
A BIKE PACKING ADVENTURE BY TOBIAS WOGGON
Globetrotter and adventurer Tobias Woggon set out with his friend Max Schumann to explore the Faroe Islands on their gravelbikes. You can read here what the boys experienced during their bike packing trip.
BIKE PACKING IN FAROE.
TOGETHER WITH HIS FRIEND MAX SCHUMANN AND PHOTOGRAPHER PHILIP RUOPP, TOBI WOGGON SET OFF FOR FAROE ISLANDS.
FAROE - A SECRET BIKE SPOT?
The first time I heard about the Faroes was during the solar eclipse in 2005. There were only two places on earth where you could witness this natural wonder in its entirety. Spitzbergen and the Faroes. Philip was on Faroe back then to take photographs of the eclipse. When he came back, he was so taken with the islands and couldn’t wait to tell us about his trip. He was set on going back to this unknown little part of the world.
His enthusiasm was contagious. Could the Faroes be an undiscovered mountain bike spot? The travel bug got a hold of me. After seeing the first photographs, it was obvious: we had to go! The green islands, embedded in the dark North Atlantic, held an unbelievable fascination for both of us.
A TRUE PARADISE IN THE NORTH
Faroe = Sheep Islands
Capital: Tórshavn
Area: 1.395,74 km2
Inhabitants: 51.371 (Stand Jan. 2019)
Belongs to Denmark
Group of 18 islands
OFF-ROAD BIKING PROHIBITED
I started researching immediately and realized with great disappointment that off-road biking is prohibited on Faroe. But after reading up on this topic in detail, I began to understand the situation. There are barely 50,000 people living on the islands. Most of them make their living with hard work at sea or as farmers. Very few go hiking at home. The Faroese consider their land as useful, but not as especially pretty. That’s why there are only a few hiking trails which you may use officially – by foot only, as I said before.
GOOGLE SHEEP VIEW - PLAN YOUR ROUTE BY SHEEP
A pity. But it didn’t prevent us from planning a bike trip to the Faroes. We decided to take our gravel bikes and to transverse the Faroe Islands from the Western coast to the Eastern most tip on official roads. Normally, I would prepare for such a trip with the help of Google Earth and check out the most important routes ahead of time. But there is no street view on the Faroes, only “sheep view”.