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Offer of a lift here too- we're in Cam/ Dursley Heading up Friday morning (probably- definitely Friday anyway, there's a slight chance that one of us will have to go into work in the morning) and coming back Monday, staying at the Novotel Sunday night IIRC (the one nearest to the finish anyway. I didn't book that bit!).  

"Caffeine is just a means of borrowing time that should be rights belong to your slightly older self"- I think that's actually from a Terry Pratchett book but it's pretty much on the mark, the key word being "slightly". Avoided energy drinks until the last day, although I did grab a few coffees as we went, especially before a driving stint (clip on travel mug holders fitted to both front doors assist there), as I normally have a few over the course of the day anyway. The effects of high caffeine drinks aren't infinite and the crash as they wear off is often leaves you in a worse place than if you had gone without.

Not much to do on team 132's steed, full service last weekend, new springs (slightly stiffer) going on this week, and a set of shiny wheels and new tyres (once we've decided what will actually fit). Also got a rolling road session booked as it's not quite bob on, the mechanical advance being the main suspect (but it'd be good to have the carbs set right too). Other than that we mostly need to get some miles on the thing- it's been sat in a barn for about 4 months while it's owner moved house... I see a couple of day trips coming up.

We aimed for drive- navigate- rest last year, as a.) the driver is freshest b.) the navigation stint gives you a chance to wind down a bit after some of the more intense driving sections. We did shuffle around a bit though to try and share the more tedious sections.

Sorry, been slacking rather. We're not miles away, up around Stroud.

Crikey, looks like we'd better make up our minds and get a form off!

Another first timer here... As it happens, we had no problems (other than the traffic related ones) and as such, did OK for timing at all the Controls (back at the Plough 1 minute inside time!). We didn't really discuss it, but had we ended up arriving at a Control too late to get our book signed then I suspect we'd have made the decision to either take a short cut or skip the next one to get back on track- this might have meant that we'd miss a stop where we could have got our book signed, but that's part of the game- you can't always win! As for food, we'd gone on the assumption that we'd be getting breakfasts and anything else would be a bonus- we had a decent meal mid afternoon Friday in the Plough, and bought something hot at Tebay on the Sunday (and very nice it was too). Pies at Stirling and cakes and Pimperne were very welcome, but we didn't treat them as part of our planned food. That was what the pile of crisps, choccy bars, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, and token bits of fruit in the car was for ;) While there were obvious existing friendship groups, I thought we were made very welcome with several folks coming to say hello, commenting on the car etc- both at the Plough and on the way round. I do have to agree on the Driver's Meeting though- although I didn't have a problem with any of the content, it was a bit disjointed at times which made it a bit hard for us to follow. I also agree that, while the bones of the MacMillan presentation were good, and I found the "what we do" really interesting, the "sell" was a bit unncessary considering we'd already signed up for it, and the "what I did on my holidays" was just self gratification really. The two girls at the start were great though- we'd been talking with Helene (the dark haired one) via email, sorting out payment details for our corporate sponsorship, and she made an effort to seek us out to say hello, and emailed us afterwards to ask how it went- can't argue with that 8) In case you hadn't guessed... we'll be back in 2016!

Agree across the board- thanks very much to everyone involved. Particular highlights for me include the cheery welcome at Carter Bar (despite the thoroughly adverse weather conditions at that point), the fantastic staff at Seaview, cakes and pies served with a smile at Pimperne and Morrison's Garage respectively, and Mr Bancroft's infectious enthusiasm at the start and at the finish. Team 71 (newbies!).

Keith wrote:To be fair I think the organisers need to speak to Land's End and find out what their problem was. We had to queue for about 30mins,  but by the time we were served at 8:30  they had three people serving and the food was coming out of kitchen as quickly as it was being dished out, so was it just a problem with timing? The breakfast was good enough when we got it. K We were at the back of the queue (despite arriving spot on time & having a bit of a wait we chose not to enter the scrum when the doors opened, thinking it would clear fairly quickly- oops!) and by the time we got to the front it was all under control with two serving quickly and we had a decent portion of a reasonable brekkie- so they obviously can get it right, they just need a bit of a run- up... It did put us back a bit but we only went from being "start of time" to 20 mins into the window so it wasn't a big deal at all really, it just felt like a long time. It probably doesn't help that the staff at the Seaview were absolutely fantastic, that would have been a hard act to follow at the best of times!

Not looking too bad here after a good run to Gaydon and back- friendly local MOT man offered to recheck the tracking & headlight adjustment after everything had settled (was MOT'd after having all the front suspension replaced) so we'll take him up on that in the week. It's going to get cleaned and stickered up on Sunday all being well. Engine oil change and gearbox and diff level check (both were changed recently) pencilled in for after work tomorrow, hopefully finish wiring the fogs & fit some uprated bulbs to the inner (full beam) lamps at the same time. Main bugbear is the exhaust, about the only non standard part on the car & not only is it a bit louder than we'd like (and asked for), it still bounces off the bottom of the car every time you hit a bump, and the UK's roads ain't short of bumps... booked in to the exhaust place Saturday and we ain't leaving until it's sorted this time!

Yup, we did as well, although we're fairly happy with things (helped that one co- driver ran it last year) it was much appreciated- thank you :)

Blimey... November we started this... where did that go? Anyway- bit of a progress update, Adam decided to buy a house (as you do) ao that provided a bit of a distraction for a couple of months, he still hasn't finished redecorating the garage but since he's putting more effort into that than the rest of the house put together that's hardly surprising. But we're back on the car now, it's got such luxuries as doors that both open and close, windows that do the same, the new headlining is in and there's talk that we may see carpet tomorrow, and if all goes to plan brakes, clutch and coolant. The carbs are in bits in Adrian's garage, but you can't have everything going to plan now can you. Still confident we'll have it all together in enough time to get a few good test runs in before October. The other option will be to stick Triumph badges to one of my Marinas, but I think someone might notice...

Have put these on Facebook as well, here is Team 71's steed, one of the very last 1850 Dolomites- and it's not brown OR red... It's also still missing a few essentials still, but the drivetrain is all in (prop needs to be whipped back off and balanced) and, except for new tyres, the suspension, steering etc is all sorted too. The first picture was taken at the start of November, the second was last weekend. Needs to go back to the bodyshop to be reunited with it's doors, bonnet and bootlid- hopefully this weekend.

Looks like we're in- Number 71 :)

Hopefully we won't use quite that much, but we'd reckoned on it being somewhere around that anyway which should give us a little bit of headroom.   Mind you, with the lorry doing somewhere in the region of 4mpg fuel consumption is usually measured in inches of dipstick 'cos that makes it slightly less painful... admittedly, that usually does rather less than 2000 miles in a weekend. In fact it's not managed 200 in a year yet.

1526 wrote:Stonehouse - not that far away from us as the crow flies ........ just the bl**dy river in the way! I taught at Maidenhill School for 19 years until 1990! Ted I can see Maidenhill from my house! Walk past it on my way to work :) Someone (or several someones) who works in the factory a few units round from where I do on the edge of the town has a small fleet of Triumphs- a rather lovely blue Dolly Sprint, a GT6 and a TR, erm, probably 4. Don't know if they are on here- assume they all belong to the same person as I've never seen more than one in the car park at once!

Ahh- cheers- it's coming out this weekend anyway, anything bushy will be replaced as a matter of course before it goes back in :)

Tell me about it Tim! It was only supposed to be off the road for a fortnight while we stripped off the old underseal ("Cadulac"- Ad's got the receipt for it from when it was new- it definitely saved the car, the few bits where it wasn't applied properly are the few places it's rusted), had the few bits of MOT welding done and slapped some new underseal on! That was 18 months ago... Virtually every removeable component has been off the car (I think the only exception is the steering column) and nearly everything that's been taken off has been refurbished, all the running gear is now done, but we need to get the engine & box back in which is pencilled in for the Christmas break. I need to paint the top side of the floors (having spent yesterday stripping the bitumen out- luckily they look every bit as good from above as they did from underneath!) and then we can get the interior back in too- then it's just trim bits, which I'm taking home to clean & paint as appropriate for Adam to nail back on in the evenings.   I'm confident we can get it done in time. If we don't, well I'll just have to use it as an excuse to buy my own Triumph :X  

Thanks very much folks 8) Will perhaps start a blog on the car- it's pretty much at the point in the Haynes manual that states "Rebuilding is the opposite of dissasembly" or words to that effect, so hopefully the cursing & cries of "why did we start this" will be punctuated by the occasional bout of progress ;)

Team, erm, well we haven't come up with a suitably witty name yet, watch this space, will be putting our 2014 RBRR entry in Monday's post. :) We'll be a team of three, doing the run in a 1980 Dolly 1850: - Adam, owner of the car (& CT member), brings to the team a large portion of bloody mindedness, an uncanny ability to work out where he needs to be going that's only sightly spoilt by his complete inability to tell left from right, and an equally useful ability to remember how to put things back together again once he's taken them apart, which he tends to do when bored. Oh, and he's the only one of us that currently owns a Triumph, which is quite useful. - Adrian brings another large portion of bloody mindedness, previous RBRR experience (2012, co- driving a Stag), and rather more years experience of Triumph tinkering than myself & Adam, having built and owned a GT6ificated Spitfire (or possibly vice versa, it had a floppy roof and 6 cylinders anyway) for a long time. His 2nd "car" is a WW2 Diamond T 980 tank transporter, so 48hrs in a Dolly should seem like luxury. - Myself, I bring a selection of silly hats and a somewhat twisted sense of humour- I drive a Morris Marina... I've a very limited experience of the RBRR, as I trundled down to Gordano in my (then) very orange Scimitar to cheer Adrian & the rest of you on and distribute cookies!   The car has been under restoration for the last year or so- it was a very solid shell (and the car has lots of history), and was bought with 6000 miles on a recon (Rimmer Bros. I believe) engine. At the moment it's a bare, freshly painted shell but the axle, prop, subframe and suspension have all been gone through and are back on the car & the engine and box are ready to go back in, just a few bits and pieces to nail back on first. Hoping to have it back on the road fairly soon after Christmas (there's very little that's not been taken off, cleaned and painted/ refettled now, the end must be in sight soon...) to get some miles on it before October. Hope to catch up with some of you soon, at the Driver's Meeting if not before. We're based in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire by the way. All the best, Matt