Observations on the route

[TwoFiveEss]

Hi,
I didn't want to start a thread drift on one of the other currently running threads, so I'll just put mine, as a newbie, here:

Stirling to Lancaster:
Didn't bother me. It's a stretch we know well due to having relatives in Fife, and have driven it many times before. I personally didn't think it was too long.

Sugar Loaf to Gordano:
I wonder who gained time on this section? I felt like I absolutely hammered the car through this, anticipating bends via glances at the sat. nav. Okay I was tired, we stopped once to switch drivers and it was 2 in the morning, and we had propshaft vibration, but we only just scraped into Gordano by the skin of our teeth. I guess what I'm saying is, for me this road had to be driven right at the outer edge of the performance and ability available to me and the car, and whilst enjoyable and I understand it's meant to be a challenge, is this appropriate given the timing (peak of most people's tiredness, early hours of the morning)? "It's not a race" is something that is frequently impressed upon new entrants, but in this section in particular I think it did turn into a race against time.

Just my observations. Perhaps I'm a much slower driver than I think :-/

[Deleted User]

The route supplied is purely advisory.

There is no penalty for cutting and running by using a shortcut to make up time.

You could have avoided Monmouth and the A466 by heading south on the A449 to the M4 and used the second Severn Crossing.

That would have saved you at least 20 minutes.

There plenty of parts of the route that can be cut out to make up time.

You have to work them out well in advance.

If you're finding that you're having difficulty keeping up with the route schedule:

1.  Spend less time at controls.
2.  Study the route beforehand for any shortcuts you may have to take.
3.  Make the decision to cut and run early.  Don't leave it too late when your options to take shortcuts are gone.  Controls don't stay open forever.
4.  Ask other crews in a similar situation around you what they intend to do.  More experienced crews make excellent convoy leaders and can bring you back into the heart of the runners.

The middle of the night in Wales, when you're knackered, is probably not the best time to ask your brain to make important route decisions.

It's not just the car that needs to be prepared before the event.

I don't believe that it's a question of being a slow driver.  Minutes lost here and there, chatting at controls, fannying about etc, take an intolerable amount of time to make up, in some cases, hours.

Jim.

[TwoFiveEss]

I take your point re. the advisory nature of the route. As it was our first time, I suppose I just wanted to have a 'known' quantity. Neither of us had ever used navigational notes such as those provided so we just wanted to minimise the unknowns. More route preparation from ourselves will clearly be required next time and in addition we will be that little bit more aware of the nature of the event.

[mikeyb]

901 wrote:

Hi,
I didn't want to start a thread drift on one of the other currently running threads, so I'll just put mine, as a newbie, here:

Sugar Loaf to Gordano:
I wonder who gained time on this section? I felt like I absolutely hammered the car through this, anticipating bends via glances at the sat. nav. Okay I was tired, we stopped once to switch drivers and it was 2 in the morning, and we had propshaft vibration, but we only just scraped into Gordano by the skin of our teeth.

This was one of my favourite sections this year - I drove it and was as fresh as a Daisy having had just awoken from a good 6hrs + sleep between Stirling to Sugar Loaf! Being tired does take the edge off of it though, been there, done that, wore the T shirt etc!

[TwoFiveEss]

MikeyB wrote:

This was one of my favourite sections this year - I drove it and was as fresh as a Daisy having had just awoken from a good 6hrs + sleep between Stirling to Sugar Loaf! Being tired does take the edge off of it though, been there, done that, wore the T shirt etc!

Absolutely, I think it would have been a fabulous drive but it just hit me at the wrong time. The luxury of a 6 hour sleep - I wish!

[Howard]

Agree with Mike - was my  favourite section - plenty of fun bends and the car was flying :) Was totally shattered by the time we got to Gordano, but fortunately my co-driver was OK to take over and take us down to Lands End.

[Tim Bancroft]

We have found that crews are less tired at Gordano than when we used to go from Stirling straight onto the Motorways all the way down to Gordano.

The first time we went to Wales (2000) we went to Oswestry to Shrewsbury to Craven Arms to Church Stretton to Ludlow to Hereford to Monmouth, a great road. But the temptation to do more driving in Wales had to be taken, hence the 2008 and 2010 sections. Llandovery was the furthest west the route has gone in Wales and I think was a success.

The A483 is a top road and has to be driven.

Nige and me are now at a point where time will not let us put anymore driving roads into the event, a shame.

[Alex]

Tim would/could there be an option for the smaller capacity cars or drivers that are struggling through car problems or just plain tiredness to cut the welsh section.
I'm thinking along the lines of the welsh stop being considered an extra for the tough guys rather than missing it being thought of as a sign of failure.
We all know that when tired the smallest faults magnify and with that in mind I wonder how many would actually take this option?

I fully understand that the worry would be that everyone would take the easy option and leave marshalls doing nothing say at sugar loaf.However the die hard fans of the run would I think want to do every stop available still......

I'm only saying this as I hate the idea of the newer entrants being scared off as finding it to hard.
The younger new entrants have to be the future of the RBRR and it'd be a shame if the run was full of saloons.

ignore me if you like ;D

[Tim Bancroft]

I still don't think the RBRR was that difficult. I spent some time working on my GT6, float chambers blocked, plastic bag for CV boot etc, but still finished in time. Maybe easy for me to state this as experienced.

To offer two routes would be difficult.

I think we should fully review the timings and attempt to find a stop on the Scottish border for the journey up.

At the risk of sounding facetious, the easiest way for the smaller engine'd entrants to get around is to fit an overdrive gearbox and therby increase the cruising speed of the car.

Many crews did make it difficult for themselves by not giving themselves enough time to get to the start. The M25 when it is raining will always be slow, playing catch up from the beginning will always be stressful. If coming from the North do as Rob and Steve did, stay over the night before. I realise that this increses the cost, but it must be worthwhile.

[SteveJP]

As a newbie to the RBRR I think the route is fine, we were in my Spitfire - standard with O/D, we did get a little behind, but always managed to be fairly close to the timings in the roadbook. I think because of our inexperience we did take a bit too long at the earlier stops and had to play catchup for a while.

What did set us back was the alternator change at Gordano and the weather into Cornwall, I did use a slightly different route to Dartmeet as my co-driver was asleep and I used the Sat Nav, we did the same to Didcot for that same reason.

We enjoyed the driving roads, perfect for a Spitfire - I certainly would not have wanted to go by Motorway to Gordano from Stirling - used to do that type of driving when I was working - boring and potentially more soporific than using more challenging roads.

I agree it would be good to have a stop near Jedburgh

All I can say is well done to Tim and Nigel for such a great route this year.

Steve

[Steve28]

quote t bancroft

At the risk of sounding facetious, the easiest way for the smaller engine'd entrants to get around is to fit an overdrive gearbox and therby increase the cruising speed of the car.

yes fitting an overdrive gearbox would increase the cruising speed, but its not as big a problem as you might think,
we had a dolomite 1500se with only 4 speed and got lost twice increasing our milage to2162 and still got back within the first 20 cars

[Alex]

timbancroft61 wrote:

I still don't think the RBRR was that difficult. I spent some time working on my GT6, float chambers blocked, plastic bag for CV boot etc, but still finished in time. Maybe easy for me to state this as experienced.

To offer two routes would be difficult.

I think we should fully review the timings and attempt to find a stop on the Scottish border for the journey up.

At the risk of sounding facetious, the easiest way for the smaller engine'd entrants to get around is to fit an overdrive gearbox and therby increase the cruising speed of the car.

Many crews did make it difficult for themselves by not giving themselves enough time to get to the start. The M25 when it is raining will always be slow, playing catch up from the beginning will always be stressful. If coming from the North do as Rob and Steve did, stay over the night before. I realise that this increses the cost, but it must be worthwhile.

Tim I hope you dont take my comments as a criticism?
My suggestion is merely thought was just to give entrants a catch up option.
I've always managed to make every stop within time on each of the rbrr's I've done and I've had more than my fair share of problems on the way round.

I would certainly agree that entrants should have made sure they were at the start in plenty of time.The stress of sitting in traffic before such an event must be huge you need to allow time to unwind beforehand.
Particularly when the worse culprits live around the m25 area...... ;)

I for one loved the route through wales....and I was a passenger for that bit.....ooh just remembered what we saw in a little town on the way through Ding Dong!:X

[Jason]

I think sometimes people do lose sight of the point of this run, it's a reliability run - it's a challenge. It's not meant to be easy to haul a car with problems around - the idea is that the car is prepared to be reliable and get round without issue. I know it's easy to say but there it is - we all make mistakes and suffer failures, some before the run and some on the run that rob us of time and end up in failure. If the route had been easier and we'd had more time........it wouldn't have a challenge :-)

We take on board all that's said and we'll discuss it at the post mortem meeting we'll have next month - but don't expect major changes, the RBRR should remain a real challenge that not everyone completes. I'd hate for it to turn into one of those pasteurised, sanitised "driving" events that is nannied incessantly - I mean they have their place but they aren't for everyone.

[Alex]

Jason wrote:

We take on board all that's said and we'll discuss it at the post mortem meeting we'll have next month - but don't expect major changes, the RBRR should remain a real challenge that not everyone completes. I'd hate for it to turn into one of those pasteurised, sanitised "driving" events that is nannied incessantly - I mean they have their place but they aren't for everyone.

Oh I agree 100%!

My wifes the same, listens then ignore's me ;D

[Tim Bancroft]

Surely the sense of achievement will be higher if the event is not a breeze.

[yogi]

timbancroft61 wrote:

At the risk of sounding facetious, the easiest way for the smaller engine'd entrants to get around is to fit an overdrive gearbox and therby increase the cruising speed of the car.

Hey Tim I'd like to see you fit an overdrive gearbox to my car! :)

joking aside we had no trouble keeping to the timings and I loved the A483 just about managing to hang on to a TR2 and two big saloons I felt far more awake after that than if we'd stuck to the motorways so no complaints from me.

[yogi]

1874 wrote:

quote t bancroft

At the risk of sounding facetious, the easiest way for the smaller engine'd entrants to get around is to fit an overdrive gearbox and therby increase the cruising speed of the car.

yes fitting an overdrive gearbox would increase the cruising speed, but its not as big a problem as you might think,
we had a dolomite 1500se with only 4 speed and got lost twice increasing our milage to2162 and still got back within the first 20 cars

Hello Steve, yes your car went very well indeed. I was most impressed when you followed us up the A99 into Wick and John O'Groats. I thought these 1500's weren't supposed to rev very well :).

[Radders]

As a first timer, I thought the route was fine. Yes, it was challenging, but all of the info and advice notes etc provided before hand warned of that anyway.

I dont believe the route was the issue, it was how well you prepared for it before hand.  :)

[GT6boy]

I don't think guys are complaining- opinions were asked for and duly given :).
Wales was a blast- pretty much perfect. The event is indeed a 'reliability' challenge: not a race, but don't be tempted to 'Fanny-about' at the stops! it may say an hour for the stop, but if you feel refreshed/book signed, then crack on.

[thescrapman]

Especially for the diehards, what about a "Pure" RBRR using the route of the original ones in the 60's??

Anyone got a roadbook with the route?

I guess they did the A1 before in was a "M" and the M6 when it was brand new.

Roads were probably nice and empty!

I still think it is much harder now that it was in the past due to the increased variety in the route.

Cheers

Colin

[heraldhabitat]

The first time I did it was in my courier van, ( Mk1 chassis heralds won't take overdrive), we were smack bang in the middle of earliest time and latest time all the way round, we changed drivers every 1.5 hours without fail, and were ready for the off promptly at stops, never achieved it again even in the MOE 2.5 in 2008. The co drivers messed it up last time, no sense of urgency (or direction) :) we were late everywhere.(unhappy)

[James]

Colin - the original route does exist - it would be quite hardcore - fancy taking the north circ to the finish?

[Jason]

The archives have pretty much every road book (I seem to recall there;s one missing but I can't honestly remember) it would be very interesting to do a "pure" RBRR but I think it would be impossible to complete on time due to traffic density - remember in '66 there idea of a bypass or a ring road wasn't exactly mature so the route went through the centre of most towns it encountered.

[Deleted User]

The earlier roadbooks see police escorts through some cities and Triumph enthusiasts guiding the convoy through other cities.

Don't like the idea of a convoy or losing hours of time running through London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bristol.

Think of the paperwork and the logistics of gathering 100+ Triumphs together every few hundred miles for a convoy.

Fine for six cars, not such a good idea for 116.

In addition, many past roads are now backwaters with traffic lights galore and traffic calming thrown in too since the roads were downgraded.

An event such as the RBRR has to evolve, not stay in the past.

Quick access on the motorway network allows the route to reach excellent driving roads that previous slower routes of the past could not have attempted due to time constraints.

These time constraints will be more prevalent now, in these days of higher traffic density.

Nigel and Tim put an excellent route together.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Jim.

[TwoFiveEss]

Eeeeeeeeeh. Makes me sound like I was whinging. I wasn't. We made every control within the time allowed until we hung around too long at Bude and made life difficult for ourselves getting to Badgers Holt, then went wrong around the M5 and were two minutes late getting to Pimperne. We got into the Plough about 3 minutes after the official 'last in' time. We did the route book to the letter, including Didcot to the Plough when we knew many teams were not. As newbies we wanted to do the route as published, we were encouraged to do the route as published at the
Driver's Meeting and I think that's a natural thing to want to do anyway. I think it would have been very odd to have sat down with an atlas, having never done RBRR before, as said, "right, where can we shave off a few minutes here and there".

I have no issues with the route at all. We had a great time and we enjoyed it. I suppose the point I was trying to make, and it wasn't a complaint, merely an observation, was that I was surprised that I had to drive at 9/10ths for the whole stretch from Llandovery to Gordano in order to achieve the time stated in the book (if we assume the time stated was the difference between Sugar Loaf opening and Gordano opening). I will know better next time.