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[bondyboy]

I'm going on a little drive around Europe in a couple of weeks; France, Belguim, Germany, Switzeland, Italy and France again, racetrack/epic road themed trip but have spent loads getting the car into shape already, could have gone to Vegas already

4 new tyres, ouch!

Front discs were warped from a little too much sustained use at Llandow earlier in the year, rear discs were the orginals so 8 years old, change them at same time, RPB discs all round with matching Ferodo pads

Strange missfire, changed coils, seems to have sorted it

New rear tints, old had faded to next to nothing, booked in for Monday, not sure whether to go for full dark tints or one down from full, I want to not display what's it back (no seats, covered up bike plus my life for two weeks) but I still want to be able to see out in dull/dark conditions?

Exhaust blowing, booked in with Charlie @ proSpeed next week for new flanges

Spare wheel, have a barely legal 18 inch buddyclub as spare, need to either put a new premium tyre on one of my trackday wheels (mint 17 inch white buddyclub) and risk damaging that with all the shite I'm going to be chucking on it? or source a single oem wheel with rubber? anyone with a spare wheel and rubber that I can borrow for a few weeks?

New suspension, drop links and track rod ends to go on next week too


Bike gear cable has broke, new cable, arse about to fix

manpad shot, that's one benefit of living alone


just spent most of the day making a protective cage for the amp, used an old wire cutlery draw organiser with half a decking square as the base, proper blue peter style, I reckon it's come out well (it's baking in the airing cupboard atm)

[SeanEP3]

I'm exactly the same at the moment, I'm also driving Europe in a few weeks, taking in similar countries as you. And just spent a fortune on tyres, track rod ends, exhaust etc!

When are you Going? Got your route decided yet? Mines still very sketchy!

[bondyboy]

I'm exactly the same at the moment, I'm also driving Europe in a few weeks, taking in similar countries as you. And just spent a fortune on tyres, track rod ends, exhaust etc!

When are you Going? Got your route decided yet? Mines still very sketchy!

Planning to catch the chunnel on the 15th. Got a rough idea on the route, nothing booked yet so like you still pretty sketchy

Bruges one or two nights, then to nurburgring for the dtm, visit hockenheim then down across Germany to get to the stelvio pass, Lake maggiore? Trento bondone Hill climb, Lake garda? Mugello, imola, vallelunga, through tuscany, Monaco, cannes, les due alps, then home

[bondyboy]

... When are you Going? Got your route decided yet? Mines still very sketchy!

What about you? When are you going? Any ideas on places to visit?

[davey j]

Pulling away from that BMW too. Lovely stuff! Goes great.

maybe, but he was letting me, it was driven by Mike from RMotion so could have flown past at any point, we had arranged for him to stay close behind to get camera time (gopro fish eye lens makes everything so far away)

Fair play on the honesty front man. Well, staged or otherwise, looks cool in the video.

[SeanEP3]

... When are you Going? Got your route decided yet? Mines still very sketchy!

What about you? When are you going? Any ideas on places to visit?

My knowledge is limited, so I'm looking for suggestions of places to visit/see.

going head to Luxembourg first, then spend a day at the ring, then head down to Munich or something similar. Then places I want to visit are stelvio pass, bernardino pass, lake como, then head to Monaco. Then travel back up through France.

I'm leaving on the 22nd.

I'm open to suggestions on places to visit!

[bondyboy]

fitted cage to the car today

[1812_s]

What was wrong with the old coilovers pal

[edward051291]

... When are you Going? Got your route decided yet? Mines still very sketchy!

What about you? When are you going? Any ideas on places to visit?

My knowledge is limited, so I'm looking for suggestions of places to visit/see.

going head to Luxembourg first, then spend a day at the ring, then head down to Munich or something similar. Then places I want to visit are stelvio pass, bernardino pass, lake como, then head to Monaco. Then travel back up through France.

I'm leaving on the 22nd.

I'm open to suggestions on places to visit!

Here's my Euro road trip plan. Feel free to browse, it might give you some ideas.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByWxgm ... sp=sharing

[jonezy]

In Switzerland lake Lausanne and the town near it is nice. Make sure you buy a motorway toll pass from the post office in Switzerland or you get fined last I was there.

Can't remember the name but the racetrack around the southern France/ Spain border has an awesome drive up to it.

If you go to the nurburgring, soon as you enter Germany switch your satnav to avoid motorways. The way through the forest to the ring is epic

[SeanEP3]

... When are you Going? Got your route decided yet? Mines still very sketchy!

What about you? When are you going? Any ideas on places to visit?

My knowledge is limited, so I'm looking for suggestions of places to visit/see.

going head to Luxembourg first, then spend a day at the ring, then head down to Munich or something similar. Then places I want to visit are stelvio pass, bernardino pass, lake como, then head to Monaco. Then travel back up through France.

I'm leaving on the 22nd.

I'm open to suggestions on places to visit!

Here's my Euro road trip plan. Feel free to browse, it might give you some ideas.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByWxgm ... sp=sharing

thanks dude, i'll have a look!

[SeanEP3]

In Switzerland lake Lausanne and the town near it is nice. Make sure you buy a motorway toll pass from the post office in Switzerland or you get fined last I was there.

Can't remember the name but the racetrack around the southern France/ Spain border has an awesome drive up to it.

If you go to the nurburgring, soon as you enter Germany switch your satnav to avoid motorways. The way through the forest to the ring is epic

I went that way on the way home from the ring last time. very scenic!

[bondyboy]

What was wrong with the old coilovers pal

the rubber boots "protecting" the stanchions fell to bits within months and they're a bit too hard for road use (this is my DD), Buddyclubs on their softest setting are probably comparable to the Meisters running 5 from full hard

[bondyboy]

In Switzerland lake Lausanne and the town near it is nice. Make sure you buy a motorway toll pass from the post office in Switzerland or you get fined last I was there.

Can't remember the name but the racetrack around the southern France/ Spain border has an awesome drive up to it.

If you go to the nurburgring, soon as you enter Germany switch your satnav to avoid motorways. The way through the forest to the ring is epic

cheers for the tips, I did not know about the toll pass for Switzerland, was planning on only driving through it so hadn't researched it properly

[bondyboy]

Well I made it back from my Europe roadtrip, 2644 miles clocked up in 2 weeks (should have been more like 4000 miles but didn't go exactly as planned in Italy) :bad-words:

Had a fantastic time and met some great people; Robert the Italian biker from Bormio (stelvio pass) who I met in Germany as he was heading the opposite way to the UK, and a young German girl Anna and her friends at Lake Constance for making me feel so welcome , the German Stig roadie who I gave a lift back up the Stelvio pass (and asked me to slow down lol) and Verschure? the French hitchiker I picked up in the Alpes - shame I didn't have the time for her show me round Grenoble

Had an offer of help from Aristotelis at Kunos Simulazioni when I had broken down in his home town (where he was having his only week off all year), just goes to show that they're not your average game developer, shame I limped out of town before seeing his message, would have been good to drive Trento Bondone with him

Drove some fantastic roads both planned and not so planned, only got lost once (found fantastic little mountain pass - Passo Mortirolo) and only had one moment of driving on the wrong side although the women who I almost had a head-on with seemed happy enough (lol'ing to herself), also only one "am I going to run out of fuel" moment which was while I was on the autobahn, so on the same day I drove the fastest on the autobahn (152mph) I also drove the slowest (drafting a van at 65mph)

Lessons learnt - take more tshirts, pants and socks, I had over provisioned but not by enough it seems (don't worry I bought some more I didn't start turning them inside out), hotels can easily be booked on the fly with the booking.com app aslong as you're not in the tourist hotspots, one bar of soap is not enough for two weeks, Italian fuel stations do not have conventional shops attached (only car consumables), a tag for the French toll roads is a must - so convenient rolling through the barriers at 20mph lol'ing at all the tourists having to find coins/pick up tickets, petrol at a station in town is alot cheaper than the stations on the French toll roads (almost 20c cheaper) - well worth popping off the motorway if a town is nearby

Would I do it again? Hell yeah! maybe miss out Belguim (unless going to drive Spa), see a bit more of Germany, Switzerland and go a bit deeper into Italy or even get across into Spain

obligatory piccies:-

all packed up ready to go



essential fuel for the journey


honda meet at the eurotunnel car park


Dunkirk





on the walls of my hotel in Roeselare




Pregnant mannequins?


Friday night Newportonian mannequin


In Bruges




I always tried to seek out the local specialties, this was Belguim stew was top


Bathing ladies




Sarbrucken


800 miles from home and not having seen a single honda I manage to find a jap car meet


Lake Constance



when in Rome...


autobahns took their toll


Welcome to Switzerland, may I zee your papers


Flula pass

local beer, ate Bambi

Gave a roadie biker called Stig a lift up to the top of stelvio pass as he was spent after riding 4 days in a row and attempting his 3rd ascent of stelvio. I warned him that I may drive a little fast for him to which he said 'yes I saw you pass me earlier - sounded nice, no worries I have a porsche at home, I'm used to driving fast' - 5 minutes in he asks if I can slow down a little lol also questioned the stiffness of the suspension, this was on the relatively soft meisters, god knows what he'd have made of the buddyclubs!



cooked the brakes a bit (wrong paint on pads didn't help)


This is where I went off the radar

and this is as far as I got from home, Lake Irdo, right at the bottom of trento bondone hill climb road section that I had come to drive, grrr :bad-words:


it had 1st started occasional misfire on day 3 in Belgium, I rang my mechanic (baller) and he diagnosed tps but reassured me that it wouldn't be a show stopper and I went on me way
:laughabove:

The mifire didn't come back until once or twice in Switzerland but after the hammering the car had had over the 3 mountain passes in one day (repeating Stelvio pass twice and taking an extra, real rural mountain pass that I hadn't intended) it failed with a vengeance the following day at Lake Idro. Coughing, spluttering, misfiring loud car is not the greatest when in an old italian town with narrow building and cafe lined streets, got some funny looks Pulled over, checked all sensor connections, changed sparks, gave the tps a bit of a knock and tried again, it seemed to be working, try vtec? nope! vtec would work but massive drops in throttle and misfire afterward, Torque app showed throttle position reading dropping when my foot was still on it

Decided to cut my italian leg short, not put anymore miles between me and home so limped across and out of italy in one long 7 hour slog, no more than 25% throttle and would largely be alright, it did mean some of the mountain tunnels were more "exciting", I had visions of it conking out mid tunnel with no shoulder for safety. Made it to grenoble to stay at cheap arse hotel, time to think about what to do the next day ...




I had 2 nights booked at les deux alps (hour or so from grenoble) in 3 days time so checked if there were vacancies before seeing if the car would make it up the mountain, it did! booked into a different hotel for 3 nights and settled in, I was back on familiar territory as had been here with the boys on the bikes for the last 3 years









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Turns out I had arrived in the last week of the summer season and everything was closing, still I managed to have a go on the dry luge, the mountain karts, jump off a lift thing into an air bag, take a walk up the mountain, ride some of the trails on the bike and go out for a paragliding session, took some photos of the car too

Ribbit


















Felt right at home here


Bike was nicely camoflauged in the hotels ski/bike locker











Then limped across to Dijon, stayed in this classy joint


I had the tunnel booked for the sunday, had planned to make two overnight stops back along the way but decided no point staying somewhere for the sake of it, try and get home a day early, changed my crossing date and headed for Berck, made it to the tunnel



got off the train straight into a two hour jam, the motorway had been closed!! good old blighty

[SeanEP3]

sounds eventful! some stunning scenes though!

you go on your own?

Is the car fixed now?

[cammy92]

Wow,
Would love to do something like that what a trip!

[bondyboy]

sounds eventful! some stunning scenes though!

you go on your own?

Is the car fixed now?

yup went on my own, good in the fact you could do and go where you like, probably interacted with the locals more as a result, not so good when you're breaking down 1400 miles from home and don't know the lingo

car all fixed up now, I made a deal with her in Italy "get me home under your own power and I'll treat you and keep, if we go home in a pickup truck then you're going!" she kept her end of the bargain, I tried to go to the shops the next day and she wouldn't get to the end of my road :salut:

all fixed now, new tps and I now know how to remove the throttle assembly

[yella]

if i was you i would grab yourself a second hand standard TPS and throttle body as aftermarket ones don't last long.

[bondyboy]

if i was you i would grab yourself a second hand standard TPS and throttle body as aftermarket ones don't last long.

it's an oem tps, not new