Jason

Do you think we should call out there cars in the run up to the next event? I mean put out some comms a couple of months before the start - "Last time we had a number of cars with over bright or mis-aligned headlights - Blue TR3, Red Herald, etc, please fix these issues. If you don't know how, post here and ask. If you are not sure how good or bad or lights are, take your car to your local MOT station and ask if they'll check your head light aim for you." or words to that effect? It would not surprise me if these cars have not done much if any night driving in the run up to the event so headlight aim may all be news to the crews. Ignorance is bliss.

Just Giving are a great organisation BUT they aren't really very customer focused and of course, they need to make some money to cover their costs. We have in the past tried to seek help from them and even influence their process but all to no avail. They are better than the alternatives but still not perfect, sadly there isn't much else out there that works as well.

There's always a balance to be struck here, weight of spares versus likelihood of failure taking into account the consequences of the failure all tempered by the crews ability to fix it! I've often thought that lugging around weighty spares actually increased the stress on car - I've packed a car, fuelled it up, sat in it and thought, this won't do, it's dragging it's arse now! Then, I've stripped it out to get to the 'real' and viable spares and cracked on. There's the question of tools, if you're taking the spare part, do you have the tools to fit it? Little point in taking half a job. At the end of the day, take the best car you can - with the dodgy alternator replaced and the intermittent faults fixed rather than a ropey motor with a boot full of spares 🙂

Our pump was a Bosch 044 type made by Sytec. Our issues were weird, the pump was stone cold when we had our first issue near Stonehenge. This was effectively a new pump, 2 years on the shelf and on the car for about 300 miles. It was noisy from first fitting and Just before it died it made more noise, we noticed it for the first time just before it died. There was power to the pump so we deduced it had died and/or was now no good. We had a new spare from my Vitesse which was identical (same make and model number), bought about 9 months ago. We swapped it out and all was well. This pump was quiet. Off we sped onto the 303 dual, and onto the fast bit. Nice little run of about 5 miles then it died again. We were not in a safe place, we were losing the light and the traffic was fast and close. We quickly figured out it was a wiring issue and not the pump (spare relay was already wired in, we changed to that, still dead so it was wiring.) We made up a hot lead straight from the battery to the pump, that sorted us right out and that's how we are ran to the finish. We added an inline switch the next morning to make it a tad safer. So, in summary, although final diagnosis will be down to Tim in the comfort of a garage, I don't think it was an issue to do with PI or fuel or pump or temperature, I think it is a wiring fault. Bearing in mind it's the original loom and we'd just subjected it to biblical rain, it could be shorting out somewhere.

Of course, all this would be OK if we were all technically proficient, sadly we aint 😞

+ what Craig said. The message diary of old was also an extra cost to us that we just couldn't justify. We have 'migrated' to WhatsApp for most of our mobile messaging needs - the organisers run a few groups, including for the pre-run admin. We then have 2 groups 'live' The "Announce Group" - open to all participants using the phone numbers from their CT user profiles. This is where only the organisers post and only with relevant updates. There's no 'chat' to keep it clean and concise. The "Marshalls Group" - only for official marshals and this is a chat group but it's for exchange of running data - retirements, opening and closing controls etc. RBRR participants have no access. There is also an 'unofficial' group, called the "RBRR Plebs Group", this is not administered by the club, Bradley Lourens set this up last time and resurrected it this time. I am in it but I have no admin rights. I'm indebted to Bradley for doing this as I can't be administering WhatsApp groups whilst on the run and to be honest, the thought of trying to keep a group like that useable with potentially 300 participants in it fills me with dread! The time to get into these groups is as soon as they are announced/opened, if you're not invited then ask, you won't be excluded, just maybe overlooked by busy Admins! People asking to be added as I'm sat in the car on the start line may not receive my full attention, especially if I'm driving, or sleeping - same goes for any group admin. Entrants can of course set up their own groups and perhaps run them by model or friendship groups etc. I have, in the past, set up groups for personal weekend trips and closed them down when the trip is over. There's a bit of opportunity here, I wonder if we could look at WhatsApp integration and display messages on the website somehow - a sort of window on WhatsApp? Of course there's the issue of censorship/standards - what is said on a private WhatsApp group may not always be family friendly! Something for us to look into - if anyone has any WhatsApp integration experience please let me know!

Hi Andy, instructions on how to add your crew to the WhatsApp group are in the WhatsApp group 🙂 We encourage everyone to do this but please don't add anyone not participating in the event. If you haven't received your invite, it's likely that your mobile number is out of date on your Club Triumph profile, you can check and update this yourself. If anyone can't get into the Group, post here and Tim or I will sort it out. I am about to go abroad for a 10 days and comms will be a bit dodgy.

What was the outcome of getting these pumps rebuilt? I'm all for a better, more durable water pump, the number of failures of late seems very high.

Since my ISP decided to 'upgrade' I've been having some issues with email. Virgin Media seem to have screwed something royally so I got an inbox full of many hundreds of delivery messages for emails sent up to 7 years ago! This filled up my inbox, my spam box - to the point where gmail couldn't forward emails to me either - it was a fund week. Anyway, I think I've caught and actioned all outstanding emails but if you've emailed me (or the RBRR mailbox) in the last week and have not received a response, please get in touch again. Messages through this forum and not affected, although notifications might have been missed by me in the chaos! I think normal service has been resumed. We've had quite a bot of movement recently, so there are now a couple of places available - this can change in a heartbeat. Your patience is appreciated.

As with previous years, I'll be setting up a WhatsApp announce group for the RBRR so please make sure your current phone numbers are in your entry. Due to the volume of data I will be doing this as an import and won't be looking too closely - if you don't update your phone number you won't get these useful messages, both before and during the run. We've used this service to get people spare parts and help so we'll do it again. Because it's an announce list, it will only have a few people who will post so you won't get inundated with irrelevant messages. Please don't wait until the start to sort this out, I can help people out now, whilst it's calm, when the run is 'on', I won't be able to, I will have my own issues 😉

Further movement on the RBRR Reserve list - check your mailbox if you're a reservist! It's easier if the main entrant buys the entries as, because we are into the reserve list, only the main entrant will be able to see the shop offering. Can I recommend a little app that I use on most of my events - www.splitwise.com it's ideal for this sort of thing, especially if you have a three man crew. Splits the 'debts' up amongst the crew and lets you split 2 or 3 ways. I have no affiliation and other apps like this are available - it's free for the basic version which is all I ever use.

More movement - three withdrawals this week, commiserations to those who can't make it. I've been away this week travelling so entry admin wasn't high on my priority list but I've sorted out three withdrawals and invite the next three reservists to enter. Looks like we are getting through the reserves, only 4 left 🙂

Slight non-technical issue with the red star, my bad. It means that reservist is now invited to take up a place. I should have written to them (I have now) and given them 10 days to take up the place before offering it to the next in line. Why 10 days to take the place? Because we have found in the past that people don't take up places and that burns the time available for the next in line to get their car ready. So, due to my error, those red starred reservists have had a little extra time 🙂

Those of you who have been keenly watching the entry list will have noticed a little movement, we've had some withdrawals and therefore places have opened up for reservists. So, if you are on the reserve list, look out for notice that a place is available for you to take up - complete the 'purchase' through the shop and all will be well. Because we have several reservists patiently waiting, you'll be hounded by me to confirm taking up and paying for the place or I will have to make it available to the next in line. T

Blimey, that was a rough ride but meanwhile, back at the crux of this post. THANK YOU to all those one person crews who have added their second crewman as requested. To those few who haven't, PLEASE don't make work for me in chasing you, if the second person isn't added your enrty will remain invalid and I'll have to cancel it, refund you and offer the place to the next person in the reserve list - messy! I'm about to issue pointy reminders now.