b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Jan 15, 2016 19:25:59 GMT
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After a very long sleep we all rose in good spirits to a beautiful sunny campsite and fresh croissants from reception, it was a marked improvement on the low of the day (s) before. We were quite comfortable in our corner little spot, and the campsite was as good as it appeared the evening before. It was really cool being right next to the river, and the colour of the water was an awesome blue. It also turned out to be a good fridge: I hadn't planned much for the France portion of the trip as this was due to be the last few days and was mainly there to chill out in the sunshine. We weren't all that bothered about serious driving today as we'd more than had our fill over the past few days! Instead we decided to do something very odd and go for a walk! We picked up a hiking map and spent the majority of the next couple of days wandering up and down little trails along the canyon, with spots of driving the mountain road inbetween. It was a bloody good couple of days! The main thing I had planned was to take some pedalo's up the Verdon Gorge. This was also a pretty cool little activity, that inevitably led to pedalo races and trying to push each others pedalo's into a waterfall. The only thing we did find over this part of the trip, and made me question if we would have completed everything I had originally planned, was that oddly with an extra car and couple of people everything took twice as long. Getting everyone up and on the road at the same time, finding lunch, fuel and all other usual things turned out to be a bit of a chore and take up a huge part of the day. It seemed to work pretty easily with 4 people before but more people with their own routines and preferences made it much more difficult to organise and get the most out of each day. Just our last day to write up and then I'm pretty much done, although I am still promised some more photos at some point, some of which may actually include cars. Hope you guys are still enjoying it, and if anyone wants anymore detailed information about where we went let me know.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Jan 13, 2016 20:13:42 GMT
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Jan 13, 2016 12:46:06 GMT
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Love Reverend and the Makers! Pity mine is 70's... And miles away...
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Jan 12, 2016 12:31:50 GMT
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Yay more stuff to read when I'm on lunch at work!
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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68 mk1 triumph 2000.Jackdawb3nson
@b3nson
Club Retro Rides Member 22
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Jan 11, 2016 20:05:20 GMT
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This is fricking badass.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Jan 11, 2016 19:41:48 GMT
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As I masked up 4 windows, I deserve much credit for this whole build.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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I was really looked for some lipped ones to match the rear, but think actually they may look pretty good with the difference between the front and rear. Still need to have them on the car to make sure the offset is ok though.
Edit: Much like your Spitfire! Just looked at your build thread, looks awesome. Those other Comps you have are lovely, my mate had a similar set on a Polo, although the rear dish on yours is something else!
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Last Edit: Jan 9, 2016 12:57:39 GMT by b3nson
'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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My Christmas haul for the Dolomite, most of it isn't really gifts just stuff I bought for myself. The fun stuff: Momo Prototipo steering wheel (bloody beautiful) A pair of CX Compomotives that will go with the 3 I already have (well kind of, they are 5.5j rather than 6j but should look good on the front with the wider rears) Metal pressed number plates (also bloody beautiful) Shorter front springs The boring stuff that needs replacing anyway: Poly steering rack mounts Upper steering UJ Propshaft centre mount Add all this to the parts I've accumulated already and I'm got a shed load of stuff to get fitting once this bloody rain goes away!
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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So what did we do next? That the was question we were asking ourselves at 1am, in some random town just across the French border. The immediate requirement was a bed. Currently we were sitting in our cars in the pitch black, outside somebodies front garden in a silent street, and probably looking a bit dodgy. A quick Google maps search showed the town we were in had very little to offer, although the next one about half an hour away was showing a few including some chain motel type places that may even still be open. The light that came on accompanied by a Frenchman at his doorway prompted us to head on and see way we could find. We drove around the town for a bit, where a number of bars were still open and people milling around on the street, and followed Google maps to the location of most the hotels. It turned out to be a decent size industrial estate, so we were hopeful somewhere would take us in. Unfortunately every place we visited was closed for the night. We tried phoning them too, just in case, but no answer. One place on the other side of town apparently still had one room, but they wouldn't allow all six of us to stay. At about 2.30am we called another group meeting in the car park of a Hotel Campanile to decide what to do. I really really wanted a bed, and was pushing to keep on driving until we hit the motorway, the map showing the services we stopped at last time on the way home being about an hour and half away. I was certain we could find space in the Ibis there, and maybe sleep until the 11am departure. Some of the other guys were feeling the tiredness more than me however, and we deemed it was probably unsafe to keep on driving into the darkness. Much to my disgust (I hate sleeping anywhere other than a bed) we decided to catch a couple of hours sleep there in the car park of the hotel. How ridiculous that we had the money, and were outside a perfectly good hotel, but had to sleep in the cars! There was no way I was going to able to get to sleep in the Sparco's in the MX5 so I took the back seat of the Integra, covered in jackets to keep me warm and block out the street lamps. I think I got about an hours decent sleep. By 4.30am I realised I was not getting any more sleep, so (probably rather selfishly) decided we were waking up and heading on to the services to find some breakfast and make a plan. The drive that morning was one of the toughest of my life, I was so so tired, trying to navigate us to where we needed to be, in the darkness of the French country. Music was loud to keep me awake, the window was open to let the cold morning air assist. Looking back it was probably pretty dangerous really. We made it to the services at just after 6am. 24 hours ago we had left Germany, we'd covered at least 600 miles since then, and slept to less than 2 of those. Despite this as the sun came up, the tiredness disappeared and some slightly suspect service station baguettes helped the hunger. A quick wash in the toilets amongst some French truckers and I was ready for the day ahead. A couple of people attempted to add to their sleep quota with a nap, while the rest of us confirmed how we were going to save this trip from complete ruin. We were going head straight off down to the south of France, to the campsite that I had selected to finish the trip with originally. That meant we could have a few relaxing days down there before coming back home, still drive some good roads, sit in the sun and drink beers, and get through on what money we had left. Only another 250 miles to go then! The journey down there was pretty uneventful (in a good way), although it was taking painfully long as we were the only people in France sticking exactly to any speed limits. Finally we started to enter the beautiful towns and villages of the Verdon Gorge area, the place we were heading for. It was a damn sight better than what we had experienced on the coast on the last trip. Anyone who has played Forza Horizon 2 should recognise this place in Sisteron. Was pretty surreal, as I hadn't realised they'd modelled some places in the game so closely to real places. We followed a lovely river along a fast, sweeping road and stopped off for a quick wander around to stretch our legs. We didn't stay long as I was keen to get to the campsite incase they were full and we had to hunt around for another one. Soon after getting back in the cars we were overtaken by a pair of British Lotus Elises who gave us a wave. We pulled up to the camp site at about 6pm, it had taken a lot longer to get down there than we had planned but immediately we were happy with the choice of campsite. Plenty of space under big pine trees, and pitches that were right next to the river. The lovely French girl at the reception greeted me warmly as I went in to get us a pitch. Much to our delight it was something silly like 10 euros a night, for all of us so I booked us in for a few nights. We were told to pick any pitch we wanted and so drove round the site until we found one by the river, and far enough away from other people. It had been an outrageously long day, and after a pizza from the on site cafe, and a couple of pints I fell into my sleeping bag. I had almost got over the failure of the trip so far and was looking forward to the next few days exploring the local area.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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It is a kick in the stones for sure. I spend 3 months without my license last year for traveling too close to the car in front on Autobahn, on a dry day and it's on my Criminal Record for 2 years. It is also very Kanton specific. Luzern has cameras everywhere. For others planning a trip. If you are coming, stick strictly to the limits on the A and B roads. If you have come to drive the passes then do your driving there. They rarely have cameras (except at tunnels) and you will see the police normally on bikes. Unless you are driving a crazy machine you can have a spirited drive on the passes without breaking the limits or laws. I think that's why we got caught out with our overconfidence, we pretty much only drove up in the mountains last time, where like you say if you're breaking the speed limits by too much you're more likely to end up in a ravine than get a speeding fine! We never even saw the camera we got caught on, I believe they're just little grey boxes on the side of the road? However at end the of the day we broke the law and that's entirely our fault.
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Last Edit: Jan 8, 2016 14:59:59 GMT by b3nson
'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Some great photos there, I hope to be hitting an equally large number of events this year. Should probably check out the Worthing ones too as I about 15minutes away!
Love your RX7s too, I looked at getting a FD before the Dolomite as I've always always wanted one. But a decent one was right at the top of my budget with left little room if anything went wrong.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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I was in bed by 8pm. Asleep about 20 seconds after that. 36 hours of almost non-stop driving punctuated with less than 2 hours sleep somewhere in middle will do that to you.
We were a long long way from where I had planned us to be. A whole winters worth of meticulous planning seemed completely ruined.
No Swiss mountain passes.
No cable car ride up the highest one in Europe.
No morning spent on the longest dry toboggan run in Europe.
No spectacular German castle.
No Austria
No Italy
No beers and pizza on Lake Como.
All because of a couple of hours spent on a Swiss petrol station forecourt about 24 hours ago...
We were sat in our cars surrounded by Swiss police, worrying what was going to happen next. Each car was visited by a different traffic cop and asked to get out documentation including driving licenses and insurance. Polite, but stern and with the authority that you just do what they ask. The guy who came to our car could speak English bout as good as I can speak German but we understood what he wanted to see. Documents were taken away and we were left to sit in silence. A few minutes later another man appeared, evidently more senior than the others. In perfect English he asked us to step out of the cars and gathered us round.
More questions followed, how long had we been in Switzerland, where were we heading, where had we come from. He asked had we been near Lucerne. I saw no point in lying, as no doubt he already had the answers he wanted and was just confirming what he already knew. Yes I said, and showed him the exact route we had taken.
Eventually we got to the point of the conversation and he told us why we had been stopped. He explained that 3 cars on UK plates had been caught on a speed camera on a rural road near Lucerne. This was at least 2 hours driving away from where we were now, but was an area we had passed through. We must have been Switzerland's Most Wanted at the time for them to pick us up where we were now.
We had been caught doing approximately 70mph in a 50mph zone (only later did we find out that rural Swiss roads have a speed limit of 50mph, not the 60mph we though, not that we wouldn't have been caught speeding anyway but it may have changed things slightly).
I must admit I was actually a bit relieved when he said we had been caught speeding, I mean what's the worst that can happen? A fine and a slapped wrist, “sorry Mr Swiss Policeman we won't do it again” and we head on our way.
He then explained that we would indeed be punished, but as the offence had occurred in another 'state' of Switzerland he would need to make a phone call to his colleagues from that area to determine what was to be done. Off he walked back to his car.
10 minutes later and he came walking back over. We would indeed have to pay a fine, he said, and then we could be on our way. Excellent, let's get this over with and get on with the trip.
How much is it? We asked.
1200 Francs, he replied
What!?! 1200 Francs, that's a sh!t load of money, about £900 at the current exchange rate. We had to confirm we heard him right!
Yes, 1200 francs per car, he confirmed.
PER CAR. We hadn't realised that! 3600 francs IN CASH, right there, was required to get us moving again. We couldn't believe it.
We asked if there was any other way to settle this, could we appeal? Where were the photos of us from the speed camera? Where was the proof of the speed we had been caught at?
The answer was no to everything. That was the fine and that had to be paid before we could go anywhere. What if we couldn't pay? (A genuine concern, we had some cash on us but unlikely to be enough, and some of the group had saved for months for this trip and simply did not have the spare funds). The answer to that was then they may have to take our cars off of us.
Real panic had set in by now. Some of the other guys were getting pretty angry, and I can understand why. I mean we had no proof this offence actually occurred, and were expected to hand over cash there and then. Was this even a real thing or were we being ripped off?
The cars were all marked, the police in uniform and it was in a very public place so it seemed as legit as it could be and the way I saw it, we had no choice. We could stay there and argue til the cows came home but it was likely all that would do is create bigger problems for us. We were in their country, and if you do the crime, you have to be prepared to deal with the consequences.
Plus I really didn't fancy spending the night in a Swiss cell.
After much discussion we decided that paying up was our only viable option. But how?
Emptying wallets, bags and gloveboxes onto the roofs of the cars, we all put our cash in together. There was no way we had many Francs between us, short by about only 2000 or so. Luckily they let us pay in a combination on Francs and Euros (how kind), so more money was emptied out. It took ages to count over all the cash, and we received a nice little receipt in return. Money well spent.
We also had to fill in sheets documenting who we were and who was driving.
All of this must have taken about an hour to complete, all the time some serious storm clouds were rolling in from the mountain, just to add to the misery.
Once all paid up, we wanted confirmation that we could go on our way and wouldn't be picked up anywhere else for the same thing.
'Yes all paid up' confirmed the senior policeman 'although of course, if you have been caught speeding elsewhere the same thing could happen again' (I'm pretty sure he said this with an wry, evil smile, but I could be making that up)
This genuinely struck fear into me. What if we had been caught elsewhere? We had been travelling the same speed on most of these roads so it was definitely possible. If we got pulled again and the same amount was required we'd be going home car-less, no question about it. In my mind it was far too much of a risk to stay in Switzerland any longer than we had to, I was already paranoid another group of cars would be around the next corner to pull us for another fine.
After discussion with the rest of the group, we decided the only option was to head straight for the Swiss border and get the hell out of the country.
I must say at this point the Swiss Police were always very polite, not aggressive and after the fine had been settled, pretty friendly. I asked one of them if we could buy the motorway pass anywhere local, and he guided me into the petrol station and translated for me to purchase 3 passes. I thanked him, grabbed the passes and chucked one in the windscreen of each car. A quick check of the map and the nearest border was with France, a couple of hours southwest of where we were currently.
This was the exact opposite direction to where we wanted to be travelling and make the rest of the trip completely impossible in the time frame we had. It was a devastating realisation, but it was the only option. Any other direction would mean much more time of Swiss roads and the risk, in my mind, was too great. 2 hours after we had been stopped we set off, joining the motorway a few miles down the road.
By now darkness had fallen and the thunderstorm was right above us. Huge rain drops fell on the screen, and I struggled to pick out the lines of the road between the wiper blades and sub-standard headlamps of MX5. Massive forks of lightening were seen in every direction. I wish we had taken some photos of this but it's not dramatic to say we were more worried about crashing the car in a combination of tiredness and horrendous weather.
I've never had such a tense couple of hours of driving. By now I was in full paranoid mode, expecting to see high-vis markings and blue lights around every corner. Even seeing a set of blue lights up the side of the mountain, at least a few miles from the motorway, set my heart racing.
I was also immensely worried that if we had been caught elsewhere, they might be waiting for us at the border to stop us leaving the country. This seems pretty stupid now, but in my mind at the time this was a real possibility. I'd even deliberately chosen our route across the border into France to be the one that I would imagine would have the lowest chance of any border guards still being there! It was like we were on one of the Gumball Rallies (except without the wealth). I felt like an outlaw, on the run.
Eventually we reached the border, and to my relief (and slight embarrassment that I was so worried) there was absolutely nobody manning it. We drove straight through into the promised land of France. It was coming up to 1am. We had been on the road since 6am. And we had no idea what to do next. All we knew was that we weren't going to finish the trip like this.
Sorry it's a bit wordy so far, really didn't have any photos to add, there will be some more soon I promise!
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Last Edit: Jan 7, 2016 19:55:18 GMT by b3nson
'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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We are driving to Venice in the summer the planned route takes us with in a few km of the ring! So as I needed an overnight stay guess where that will be. Any one any idea on the price of the ring taxi/ bus? As I doubt the Mrs will appreciate me doing a lap even a slow lap in the Saab fully laden with two weeks holiday baggage It was pretty expensive, I think around 100 euros? We did look at doing it but was put off by the price! Thanks for the responses guys, will continue the story later this week when I have the time to write it up properly.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Your plans for 2016 ?b3nson
@b3nson
Club Retro Rides Member 22
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Get the Sprint 100% and get out and drive it! RRG is a must, planning to camp and take it up the hill. Goodwood Revival is also definitely happening. Then trying to hit as many events as possible, mainly to give me an excuse to drive it as much as possible.
Maybe a minor roadtrip to Scotland or somewhere more local. Start planning the 2017 roadtrip, I wonder how many Dolomites have been the arctic circle...
Oh and use it as a wedding car for my wedding in August, which apparently is quite an important event.
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Last Edit: Jan 6, 2016 18:29:22 GMT by b3nson
'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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I apologise for the lack of car photos in the following bit, this will be rectified in later instalments, I wouldn't normally include people photos as nobody will have a clue (or care) who the hell we are, but they do add a bit more to the story and break up the text. As the previous photo demonstrates, I did actually make it onto the Nurburgring, and all the way around without crashing. And it was awesome. Genuinely so much fun. Even if we were about the slowest people on there. I think the only car we overtook was a Rover 75... If I had a track car and valid insurance, I would happily spend a whole weekend there. As a group we were on a massive high and it was very tempting to do more laps, but impending storm clouds put us off. So after more snooping round the car park we decided to do the only thing to do after lapping the Ring, head to the Pistenklause for steak and beer. It's a pretty damn cool place, and I would love to live in the little village it's in, surrounded by hills and with the distant sounds of cars screaming around famous corners. The food and beer was as equally satisfying, although I must say the service we received must have been the worst of the whole trip. I really have never met a waiter with less people or basic service skills than the bloke who served us, obviously they think they can rely on the food and a famous name, which I suppose they can! We headed back to the campsite for more Bitburgers and got to know the friendly resident animals. Then bed, as another long day was planned for day 2. By 6.30am we were already well on the road, weaving through some very picturesque German countryside and onto the autobahn towards the Black Forest, and eventually the Swiss border. Miles and miles of motorway passed, but not the de-restricted type. The only small section was pretty busy so we were unable to really push on, but cruising along legally at 115mph was still cool, although in a short geared MX5 it was far from relaxing and definitely not economical! We pulled off the Autobahn about 50 miles from the Swiss border and headed into the Black Forest in search of the first proper driving roads on the trip. It was dead quiet and we curved our way up pretty quickly via some great smooth roads. It wasn't as impressive as the alpine roads of the Alps but still a great way to get from A to B. A few quick photo opportunities were had here and there but we still had half a country to cross so we trucked on Southwards. We stopped for a break and wander around a waterfall before heading to the border into Switzerland at about 4pm. The border guard had a bit of a moan at us about not following his orders (a tad difficult as he was speaking German and using very ambiguous hand signals). I think his words, when eventually in English, were 'When you're in my country you do what I say'. I think somebody was on a power trip that afternoon. Keen to avoid any argument we nodded and apologised, and he signalled us on our way. We were in Switzerland! Our target was Interlaken to stay at the campsite we had done on our previous visit. The plan was to be there for a couple of days and drive the Grimsel pass we missed last time due to snow. We also planned to head to Zermatt and ride the highest cable car in Europe. As last time we didn't buy the Toll pass required to use the Swiss motorway system, as we wanted to drive the back roads and avoid more boring motorway driving. Now being early evening the traffic soon died off to nothing but at first it was taking what seemed like ages to tick the miles off. As experienced last time there was loads of interesting and modified cars about, we even got a few thumbs up: We swapped drivers (my mate Dan taking over driving duties in the MX5) and although a small detour around some shooting event that had closed a town took us through some random back roads and slowed us down a bit, due to the open roads and light traffic our pace was soon picking up and knowing we were only an hour or so from beer and food we were all in good spirits despite well over 12 hours solid driving. About 45 minutes from the campsite we were driving in convoy as a marked BMW 5 Series police car came down the road the other way. Now as the driver of a low, loud car with big rollbar, I was always slightly anxious around traffic police, and this increased when abroad due to the stories of British motorists being easy targets and notorious Swiss police. We had, however, encountered absolutely no problems on the previous trip, so I was pretty relaxed and was mainly thinking of the days ahead. Until the BMW hit it's brakes hard and swung a quick u-turn in the middle of road. Immediately we were all on edge, chattering over the radios nervously. We knew Taylor had a brake light out on the Integra so assumed we were about to be pulled and given a ticking off for that, while rummaging through all our documents to find out if anything else was untoward. The BMW followed us for 15 minutes (it seemed like far longer!), hanging back but obviously keen to keep an eye on our little convoy. We decided as there was a petrol station up ahead we'd pull in and fill up, and if he was going to have a chat with us we could deal with it there. We weren't the only ones with that idea. As we neared the petrol station 2 more marked BMW's shot out from the side of the road, completely blocked the road and waved us down, directing us onto the petrol station forecourt. When 4 armed, massive Swiss policemen appear out of nowhere and order you to stop, you do sh!t yourself a little bit. This wasn't going to be good...
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Last Edit: Jan 5, 2016 20:56:46 GMT by b3nson
'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Finally up to date with this, must say it's more entertaining than alot of books I've read. It's nice to experience the mentalness of where you are from the relative safety of my sofa! Keep it up!
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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*Retro Rides Podcast #1*b3nson
@b3nson
Club Retro Rides Member 22
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Couldn't find this via the Apple podcast app? Am I being a moron or is it not on there yet?
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Europe Round 2 After telling anyone who would listen or sit through hours of photos about how great the first big trip was, the plan was created to go again, but bigger and better. The idea was to do the best parts of the original trip, Switzerland and Lake Como, and expand upon that to take in the Nurburgring, Black Forest, Austria and hopefully nicer parts of Southern France. Ambitiously we only added a couple more days to the total time away while adding a shed load more miles and things to see. I spent literally months making up a must-see route plan to take in the best roads Germany, South France and Austria had to offer and adding in many sights along the way. In hindsight we were definitely over confident after the first trip! This time we'd be taking the MX5 again and Taylor had sold the Polo and replaced with an infinitely more reliable DC2 Integra Type-R. New additions to the group were a pair of James' in an airbagged Golf GTI, which despite reservations from a few of us spring loving airbag doubters performed very well on the Nurburgring and mountain roads although the exhaust could have been a bit(alot) quieter. The other patrons on the camp sites we stayed on definitely knew when we left and came back, as did any surrounding villages for a 10 mile radius. We all met at a services on the M20 at about 4.30am and then proceeded to the Eurotunnel terminal, where as efficiently as last time we boarded a train and were in France very shortly. The majority of the morning were spent trundling along the Belgian motorways towards Germany with the passengers sleeping and the drivers trying not to sleep. A few UK registered modified cars passed us on the motorway and we all gave each other the standard car guy thumbs up, all knowing we were making the pilgrimage to the temple of speed that is the Nurburgring. By mid afternoon we were getting close, everyone was know away and getting excited. One of the James' had been there before so directed us in past the main straight and pit buildings and a few miles later we pulled into a viewing area on the side of the track. We were here and soon to drive our own cars on the famous tarmac! It is a truly amazing place, just seeing bit of race track inbetween houses and trees, and the normal road running alongside, weaving under the track and back out again. This was a major reason for making this whole trip again as I'm sure a place like this can't last long in our over legislated world, that's if the money woes don't finish it first. I wanted to be able to say to my kids that I had driven at this legendary place in my own car. We did however have a couple of hours to kill before the tourist sessions opened so grabbed some photos of the Porsches that were currently lapping and drove on a bit further to another viewing point. I'm pretty sure everyone says this, but the track looked so steep and ridiculously narrow compared to playing it on various videogames! At this point I was getting genuinely worried about driving around it. We still had some time to kill so decided to head out into the local area and find a campsite. I had found a couple on the map that looked to be in a nice area so we headed out that way and into a lush valley with a river running through it. The first one we came to was an absolute winner, the nice German guy that ran it coming out and welcoming us, asking about the cars and setting us up in an amazing spot right next to the river. If I remember it was about 6 euros each for the night, with the usual spotless shower blocks we remembered from the camp sites last time. No time for relaxing though as the MX5 was having a small problem for the first time ever, the right front brake was sticking on, not great for lapping the Nurburgring. We stripped the brakes and found the caliper was returning and holding the pad on. Unforunately we have no clamps or grips at all so resorted to wedging various tools in the carrier to push it back and forward to free it off. Luckily that seemed to do the trick and a quick blast up and down the road confirmed all was ok again. Most of the others, now napping or sitting in the sun, were rounded up and we headed to the entrance of the tourist sessions inside the track. I wish we had taken more photos as it is a car lovers dream, but it was too easy to be distracted both by all the awesome machinery parked up, and with the thought of trying not get taken out by it while on the Ring. We made the decision to stand and watch cars exiting and entering the 'paddock' area. This was a poor choice as it just made me more nervous! Weirdly I wasn't worried about crashing my car or getting hurt, it was mainly the outrageous bills it brings or destroying some German's 100k Porsche at the same time and having to deal with that! I'm ashamed to say I very nearly bottled it, as me and Taylor were pretty much talking each other out of it with discussions of what could go wrong. It would have been so stupid to drive all that way and not drive it, but I very nearly did, what a dick. It took James to walk over to the ticket desk and buy his 1 lap ticket for me to snap out of it and join the fun. In the end we all bought a ticket and lined up at the barrier for our lap of Nurburgring with sweaty palms and my heart beating like mad in excitement.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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Are those last 2 pictures at Pendine Sands? Yeah, great place and the event was fantastic. Can't say the same about the Welsh weather!
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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b3nson
Part of things
Posts: 886
Club RR Member Number: 22
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You seem to have conveniently left out the bits about owning a Mondeo and an Up... Nobody can love those.
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'99 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo '08 Panda 100HP
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