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.

Well I've signed up with the Vitesse but I've yet to drive it after a 20+ year slumber. It is a runner but still not right and it wants lots of TLC to finish it - like working windows, a heater (there is nothing at all) and several other minor issues.

And so it begins.... Well done all those who managed to get an entry in, there's still a couple left to grab and it's not yet 24 hours since we opened the event! Firstly, thanks to Craig Gingell for his work on the web site, it's really coming good now. There are things we can learn and stuff we can improve on but we have come such a long way with his help. Kudos also to Clive Senior who's cat herding skills are well honed now 🙂 Right, to business! We need to tidy up several entries - there are mistake, typos, wrong info and missing info that we need to fix. There are few rules broken tahn need to be fixed too I've written to a few of the more 'messy' entries but this goes for everyone in case things change and you need to update your entry. Team Names Unless you want to be called "TBC" then just leave it blank, anything in that box will be what you are called forever, if you prefer no name, just delete the contents of that box. Car Details Car Make should be for example - Triumph, Standard, LoCost. NOT Vitesse Car Model should be for example - Spitfire, 2000, Vitesse, etc. If you want to put the Mark in, here's where - so 2000 Mk1 or Stage Mk2 would be fine Year - 1966 rather than 66 please Crew Details For crew - you must have a minimum of 2 entrants, strictly speaking an entry with only one is invalid. Had we been able to, we would have refused to accept single crew entries but the software proved too inflexible to do so. However, the rules of the RBRR are clear, a valid entry is two people - at £100 each = £200 paid. Realistically, I am not going to kick anyone out just yet BUT yoy will need to add in your missing crew ASAP. Crew details can be amended for many months so even if your co-driver is unsure, get their name down and work on them for committment later! Here's how to update stuff - for all these, make sure you are signed into the CT website (your name will appear in the top right of the page if you are) To add a co-driver (only if you already have a principle entry) Got to https://www.clubtriumph.co.uk/store/category/17-round-britain-reliability-run-2023/ Select "RBRR 2023 Crew Member One" and complete the detaisl Add this to your basket once complete. Check out of the shop by paying. Your crew member will now appear on your entry. To update an existing entry Go to https://www.clubtriumph.co.uk/clients/purchases/ That link will take you to a list of entries you have purchased, select the one you want to update - e.g for car details, choose Main Entrant and click "Manage" Scroll through and amend/add what you need to Click "save" when done, NB you will stay on this page but now, your entry will show the updated info. As ever, any problem please do shout now but don't forget, this is self serve, I can tell you how to do it but I can't do it for you. That does mean I will nag you, a lot! 🙂 Right, now to make a list of what needs doing to the Vitesse to make it RBRR worthy! J

Craig's already aware of the duplication issue, it'll get fixed when the dust settles.

https://www.clubtriumph.co.uk/rbrr/how-to-update-your-entry/

We say it every year - don't fanny about, get your entries sorted in advance. Of course it helps if you don't lock your account 15 mins before opening time 🥺 Thanks for sorting me out Craig!

Just go back in and add another team member. Basically you buy a team member at a time - you should load each one into your online shopping cart then check out. But you can do it retrospectively - just don't sit there with half an entry because that's not valid.

Probably at the end of Jan, date to be confirmed.

Nice if it could stay in the “family” 😀 It’s become a RBRR fixture! Fresh straw on the floor and it’ll go around the world.

I agree! Once I can get a bit of balance in the forces of family, house, work, etc. I’ll be on it. If the current life plan pans out, I could have a few weeks uninterrupted on it in April.

I'm so far off starting it I hadn't really paid much attention to them!