I step out of Reykjavik airport and the cold hits me like an Arctic slap. My mind runs its usual rapid inventory of the luggage — have I packed enough thermal layers to survive what's coming? The media rides for the Norton Atlas have been running since 7 July, and today is the 16th. Every single day so far has been battered by rain. I check the forecast for tomorrow half expecting the usual Icelandic gloom, and blink at a prediction of clear skies and not a drop on our test route.
That evening we gather for the technical briefing. The folks from Norton who designed and developed the Atlas talk us through their reasoning: the new 585cc parallel twin — 69bhp at 9,300rpm, 57.5Nm of torque arriving low in the rev range — was tuned to be responsive without becoming intimidating. They explain why they picked a 270-degree crank — it staggers the firing of the two cylinders so the engine doesn't tick over evenly like a sewing machine, but throbs with an uneven, characterful beat, closer to what you'd feel on a V-twin — and how a plasma-sprayed coating on the cylinder bores cuts friction and adds durability.
There's talk of a deliberately broad torque curve, built for a strong initial shove that settles into an easy, unhurried surge — exactly the kind of engine you want under you on a long day's ride. By the end of the briefing, I understand how the Atlas has been engineered. Tomorrow, Iceland will tell me whether the engineering holds up.
The ride begins
The next morning proves that weather forecasts here are polite suggestions, not binding contracts. I wake to fog and rain. I suit up and head down, and after a quick briefing on the day's route, I thumb the starter and the twin settles into a purposeful, deep burble. With the rain coming down steadily, I scroll to Rain mode and roll away from the hotel.
Leaving Reykjavik, we trace one of the giant insulated pipelines that snake across the volcanic landscape, carrying naturally heated water from geothermal stations to homes across the capital. In most countries pipelines hide behind fences. Here they stride across lava fields like oversized metal anacondas, a quiet reminder that this island runs on the heat bubbling under its feet.
The fog has cut visibility and the rain isn't helping. I settle into an uneasy routine — lift visor, get stabbed in the eyes by freezing rain, catch a blurred glimpse of the road, snap the visor shut before the next volley arrives. And yet right here, in the worst of it, the Atlas earns its keep. With visibility reduced to educated guesswork, I have little bandwidth left to analyse what the chassis is doing — fortunately I don't have to. Rain mode softens the throttle response while the Bosch six-axis IMU quietly manages the slick tarmac, the puddles, the uneven edges, without fuss. Instead of demanding my attention, the bike hands some of it back. That's about the finest compliment a touring machine can earn.
We pull into the Ion Hotel for coffee and cake. Perched on the slopes of Mount Hengill, it is wreathed in the geothermal steam that rises around it. It's an odd, fitting sort of shelter to duck into on a morning like this one, and the sky finally tires of tormenting us. The rain eases and Iceland performs one of its costume changes — the clouds wander off as though bored with the whole business, revealing black lava fields streaked with luminous green moss and waterfalls dropping down impossible cliffs. Some landscapes don't fit inside a camera frame. Iceland is one of them.
Waking up the Atlas
With the tarmac drying, I switch to Touring mode and the Atlas wakes up. The engine finds a satisfying eagerness through the middle of the rev range, making brisk progress feel almost effortless. It isn't an intimidating motorcycle — quite the opposite. The power feels thoughtfully judged: enough to make overtakes easy and mountain roads entertaining, never enough to feel like it's showing off. The riding position feels instantly natural. The bars fall easily to hand, the pegs never force your knees into awkward angles and, with the screen in its highest position, the wind is kept politely out of the conversation. It is exactly the sort of motorcycle that encourages one more hour before stopping for the day.
We carve through the dramatic landscape towards Thingvellir National Park, riding through the raw geological seam of the island, where the North American and Eurasian plates grind against each other in an almost continuous run of micro-earthquakes. The wind tears across the open lava fields with real force, battering my helmet so relentlessly that I spend the next few kilometres nodding enthusiastically at absolutely everything.
The Atlas carries five riding modes off its ride-by-wire throttle. Urban and Rain are predictably gentle, Touring is the one I keep returning to, Sport sharpens the throttle noticeably, and Enduro loosens the electronic net enough to make the gravel roads properly entertaining. It's in these conditions — the ground shuddering, the wind working itself into a fury — that the chassis starts to show its character. The steel trellis frame, with the engine doing double duty as a stressed member, and the fully adjustable KYB suspension never call attention to themselves, which is exactly what good suspension ought to do. Broken edges, frost heaves and rough patches are absorbed with quiet competence, and the Atlas holds its composure even as the landscape seems determined to unsettle it.
The adventure machine
With dry roads to work with, I take a proper look around the cockpit. The 8-inch TFT touchscreen — crisp at 720p, intuitive, refreshingly easy to navigate — dominates it. Norton has even built in a screen-cleaning lock, so you can wipe away rain and grime without accidentally diving into a menu or changing a setting. It's a small thing that only reveals itself after a full day of riding through changing weather.
The bi-directional quickshifter never quite won me over. It works well enough but occasionally feels a little whimsical at lower speeds, and on a touring bike I'm rarely in a hurry to work through the gearbox. There's an option to switch it off, which I do, happily using the clutch instead. The turn indicator switch is more irksome — flick left or right to indicate, press down gently to cancel — except with riding gloves on, "gently" is a matter of interpretation, and I kept cancelling indicators straight into the hazard lights. Norton really ought to give the hazards their own switch.
Minor irritations aside, the Atlas occupies an interesting niche. The adventure motorcycle market today feels oddly polarised, big, expensive litre class machines that can cross continents but demand the confidence of a small naval captain at parking speeds on one side, lightweight singles that excel off road but feel breathless on long highway days on the other. The Atlas sits neatly between the two, and it never tries to impress you with numbers. It just gets on with the job with manageable proportions, sophisticated electronics and a refined engine. That it will be built at TVS's Hosur factory before finding homes around the world only adds another layer to its story.
Somewhere between the horizontal rain, the seismic twitches, the lava fields and the empty roads of Iceland, I stopped analysing the Atlas and simply rode it. When a motorcycle quietly disappears beneath you, leaving only the road ahead to think about, it is doing something right.
Rishad Saam Mehta is a Mumbai-based independent travel and automotive writer.