Devon Two

 After the Devon trip last year, a few kind folk suggested they'd quite enjoyed it in spite of the weather, so as it's a very easy thing to arrange, I arranged it.

The North Devon roads are good, but the surfaces are politely described as "variable". Because it's Devon, the off season is the essential choice to keep the camper numbers to a minimum.

But I digress. The Saturday started early to get to Andover in time for breakfast at a Premier Inn in Andover. The sign said "please wait here to be seated", but after five minutes of seeing no staff whatsoever, we walked in & found the others. We had a decent cooked breakfast & could easily have walked out past the one or two waving staff & left, but being good citizens we stopped & paid.

Spurning the A303, we headed for the A30 to get our fill of villages not yet blighted by 20mph limits & after a while stopped for coffee at the curiously named "Udder farm shop" where a large & airy café was rammed full of people. But being hardy out door folk in soft top cars (mostly), we sat outside for coffee & cake. We were in no hurry, so we chatted a while before setting off again, heading for the next coffee & cake stop at Pip's Railway Carriage Café, set in - a railway carriage. I arrived first & pulled in to find not many parking places, while wandering about, I checked my phone & found a distress call from a maiden in umm - distress.

Some years ago while in Scotland Linda had gone over some rough road which had been the final straw for one of her car's cycle wing stays, which being a Tiger Sportscars part had failed at the obvious design flaw. I happened to be on the scene first & took the broken item off so she could continue & later got it welded up by a bear of a man in Selkirk for £20. The other one had now broken at the same place, so having gone back & found her, I once again removed the offending item & Robert - who'd kindly waited with her put it in the boot of his car.

By now the others were no-where to be seen at the café, so we moved on, rolling through Somerset & into Devon, travelling across Exmoor, where it was FREEZING driving along in low cloud.

Bizarrely we arrived at the B&B first & were shown to a very posh room with a lovely view - because being the organiser has it's benefits. After the others had arrived & unpacked, there was a brief panic when one of our number tried to load the day two route & found "NO ROUTE POSSIBLE". This is a TomTom thing, if you put a waypoint on a road which is subsequently closed it goes into a panic. Why it cant just say "can't do waypoint X - what shall I do?" I really can't imagine. We found the problem, sorted it out (OK - Linda did) & strolled into Ilfracombe & found the same restaurant we ate at last year. Called the Smuggler's ...... something or other, is is the epitome of a seaside restaurant, all manor of stuff dangling from the beamed ceiling & a menu consisting of simple but very well prepared food. This year we avoided walking up to the Damien Hurst statue "Verity" as we didn't want to be put off our meals. I'm sure there's a few people who will rejoice when it gets moved.

After a good night's sleep in the big room (did I tell you we had the big room?) & a good breakfast, we headed out of town on the windy road. We were following more or less the same route as last year except that I'd taken out all the small roads which were just a nightmare. First stop was the honey farm where we stopped last year, but this time there were no other car clubs. We headed out & found the A39 with it's hairpins, there wasn't a lot of traffic & we got in some enjoyable miles in the sunshine. Yes unlike last year, he Sun had got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray!

The return to the B&B included the toll road at Purlock & bits some of us missed out on last year while avoiding the worst of the bits that the rest of us endured, this gave us time to park up & have a stroll in Lynmoth, which was very pleasant. Again the Smuggler's -- Something gave us a very good tea for a very reasonable price & we climbed the hill back to Laston House satisfied.

Day three & time to head back, but not without a little more blatting. I'd laid the route to go through the bits of Ilfracombe we hadn't seen - it was a mistake as the roads were small & clogged & we were stuck in rush hour traffic for the first 25 miles. However, it cleared & apart from a couple of slow drivers we had a good run down to Porlock Weir for a coffee. it's an odd little place, but very nice. At this point our group started to split up, with different people having different places to be & eventually just three of us went into the official split-up point for lunch before taking some larger roads back home.

So before I sat down to write all this I made up some stiffening pieces & tack-welded them onto the Tiger's cycle wing stay & tomorrow they'll get welded on properly by my brother, because - in only 17 days time it the proper RogueRunners trip!

Out At Last

 It was an action-packed long weekend with my girlfriend, Good Friday was Wheels day - as reported, Saturday was a beer festival at the excellent & local Disruption brewery where the house band included one of the stressmen from work - look up "Stone Soup" on YouTube for their brand of heavyish, bluesish rock. We walked there & had intended on getting the bus back, but it was a nice day, so we strolled & then cut back through the woods without meeting so much a single axe murderer.

On the third day of the holiday we got up not quite so early & this time succeeded in attending a car meet in the Stylus. it's the first time it's had two people in it since I took the back suspension apart & replaced the tyres & the was a slight rub over some of the larger undulations, but a small adjustment of the Panhard |Rod should've fixed that. But here you go, enjoy some pictures from Blackbushe.

Not Actually a Fiat - It's a Puch

Almost a Fiat, it's a coachbuilt Arbarth Fiat

That Pop is lovely

Should've Bought Dry Tyres...

 ... because it's been raining since I bought the Rainsports.

The Stylus has hardly left the garage unfortunately. It was supposed to be transporting my girlfriend & I to the Surrey Street Rodders "Wheels Day" show on Good Friday. We got up early, had a quick breakfast we got my good lady nicely ensconced in the car (strapped down), my plan was to then put the hood up (notice how I've avoided the word "erect") & move the car out into the drizzle, thus keeping her as dry as possible.

However, try as I might the hood wasn't going to fit. It's usually a tight fit after not being used for a while, but I obviously wasn't going to get it on at all. 

Sensing my frustration & impatience, it was suggested that we move everything into the other car & go in that. It meant we wouldn't be part of the main event, but that was OK. She was absolutely right of course & after a quick re-arrangement of belongings we set off in the Cactus.

In spite of the forecast weather, there were a lot of cars on the show field - I'd guess at about 4 - 500 & the rain held off longer than forecast, but inevitably rain it did & we retired to the car to eat our picnic.

So - no Stylus, but enjoy the photos anyway.

Willys

We all know I like a 100e

That's a Pinto hanging over the back axle - go easy in the wet!

More Willys

Mid Mounted V8 - yes really

More Tyred

 The wheels are back - so of course it's raining. It was a lovely spring day when I picked them up four hours ago.

here it is when the 185/60s were new

And this is it today. You'll have to take my word for it that it looks MUCH better with the narrower, taller tyres on.

It's also raised an inch, so when I have time I need to re-adjust the speedo & lower it 1/2" to reduce the arch gap even more. To do that I may need to buy shorter springs for the front, but that's a job for another day.

Tyred

 Yes, yes I know I've had all winter to notice, but I've been "distracted" & it wasn't until I took the Stylus into work after taxing it (£££££££££) that I noticed the front tyres were down to the wear bars. This was chiefly because I'd swapped them with the rears after noticing the limited slip diff was wearing them rather quicker than I was expecting. The rears (was fronts remember) are fine, but unfortunately I need to replace all four as I'm getting the tyres I want, replacing the ones that came as a deal with the wheels.

So off will come the Yokohama 185/60x13s & on will go Uniroyal Rainsport 175/70x13. Half the price, twice the life, more or less as good in the dry (In road conditions), much much better in the wet. Also 10mm narrower, 25mm bigger in diameter.

Anyway, here it is in the car park at work. I took it in after checking the weather forecast as I rolled out of bed at 06:00. No rain.

By 09:00, the rain alarm on my phone went off & the weather radar showed a whole storm coming from the south. So I moved it into the underground car park whose ramps are too narrow for the leviathan electric 4x4s that infest most of the parking spaces. Why do seemingly intelligent people spend £100k on a car that doesn't fit in a parking space??

But the big news is of course that the Stylus is back on the road & I'm having a few of those "sh1t this really is fast" moments. Nothing scary, just squeeze the throttle pedal & it's doing 70 before I've had time to look down at the speedo.

It's booked into "Wheels Day", the Surrey Street Rodders annual display of anything interesting on wheels, this year it's in Newbury - not actually in Surrey at all then. In fact, I've only known the Surrey Street Rodders hold it in Surrey once. It's on Good Friday & is usually a fantastic car show if you want to attend. 

Two Wheels

 I may have mentioned I'm slowly refurbishing the bike I built when I was 18. It's a bespoke-made touring bike made for me, so while it's cost a hideous amount of money, it is one of my favourite things.

One of the difficulties was the brake lever "hoods" - rubber items that go over the brake levers. They were pushing 50 years old & shattered when I took them off. Replacements are available, but out of stock, but I managed to find a pair BUT, the cable adjusters that poke through the rubber hoods are supposed to have rubber covers. mine were similarly brittle & strangely - in spite of being a much simpler shape, are not available at all.

However, I've recently been experimenting with flexible 3D print filament & the OnShape on-line CAD system & the upshot is.......

Pretty good I think

Other Things

 With the Stylus back on its wheels, once again other things have come to my attention, mostly visits to places.

I've been to Duxford to look round the planes with my girlfriend, arriving before the sun was properly up & getting some good photos as they wheeled a Mustang out

Yes, that's frost in the far fields, it was freezing.

We walked around the main hangar - the one we missed last time, then into one of the flight sheds where as my girlfriend is a member of the Catalina Society (& strictly speaking so am I now), we were invited behind the ropes for a chat with one of the pilots, which was interesting, then back to the main hanger for a talk about photo reconnaissance - which we'd missed because I'd loused the time up.

But, one of the nice volunteers gave us a good talk about a pilot called Warburton who flew 400 PR sorties & took some of the most important aerial photos of the war.

More recently we went to the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar where they make / restore / fly Spitfires, it was a Christmas present to my Girlfriend & she thoroughly enjoyed (other girlfriend's opinions are available). It was supposed to be a 3 hour tour, it actually took 4 1/2 hours which meant we missed out bub tea & by the time we got back to my house it was midnight & we were "really quite hungry".

A very interesting trip though.

Quite a lot of engine