AK350Z

Doesn't work like that though does it? You might as well say we stop paying to educate certain sections of kids because we're not going to see any economic return for 15 years, if at all. They developed a tool, and new tools enable further research into other areas that do have practical applications. See also the worlds biggest blue-sky tool: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/

Yes, I'm aware of that! Hacktually, overall it made a good tourer, good position for long days, and of course it dealt with some of the bloody unscheduled off-road bits no problem - shame the pannier rack wasn't up to it!

Good stuff. I can seriously recommend everyone having a plough through the TED archive, just don't expect to get any work done for the next few weeks! a) It was done in the states perhaps you would prefer pure science research ceased, taking away the modern world at a stroke?

4) The Pics

So, the final write up. Maybe put the kettle on for this one! I'll talk about the logistics a bit and some tips in case you fancy undertaking this madness yourself! 1) The Kit The weapon of choice for this trip was a new, via the magic of cycle-to-work, Specialised Tricross: The lasting impression of the bike is one of stiffness! Being aluminium, there is absolutely no give what so ever on the road. Every little lump and bump is transmitted up into your hands and arse. If you roll over a painted line in the road, you virtually can tell what colour it was. Traditionally, touring bikes like the Dawes Galaxy are made of slender steel tubing, primarily to reduce such road chatter, and provide some damping on a fully rigid bike over long distances. Now, on the UKs often less than perfect surfaces, an alloy frame can be a real nightmare. A couple of times I was reduced to a virtual crawl by the road surface, normally when it was a worn old road composed of big chippings where the tar had worn out. Similarly, any washboard type surfaces were met with gritted teeth and a hope they were going to be sort lived. Stretches of modern low-noise tarmac proved the best, and pleasingly a common feature of modern rural A-roads these days. There is one advantage of an alloy frame though - power transfer. Every last scrap of power is transferred to the road through the pedals. Thanks to that stiffness, you can really sense that all your effort is going into the climbs. The gearing on the bike was a regular road triple on the front, and a fairly wide 10 speed cassette on the back, the largest cog being a 30 tooth. I did consider getting a MTB chainset, but that would have cost too much. A cheaper option would have been to fit a MTB cassette and gain a maximum of a 36 tooth ring, but after doing a couple of hilly test rides I reckoned I could just about get away with it. The next most important bit of kit was my panniers. There was only ever going to be one choice here; Ortlieb. Those good old Germans have had it covered for years with their bombproof, roll-top waterproof bags. In fact they are virtually immersion resistant if you get a few rolls on the top, and come with an IP54 rating I think, certainly the downpours I endured at each end of the trip didn't trouble them much. Complete with accompanying bar bag, all specced in please-don't-hit-me yellow. The panniers were going to be attached to a Tubus rack, but time and money ran out to get that ordered, so I ended up with whatever KMB had in stock (probably Topeak). That failed on the was home after just 1000 miles, so suffice to say the Tubus is being ordered at the earliest opportunity for future use. The tent was my trusty Vaude Taurus Ultralight two-manner, a rather luxurious for one choice, but I always prioritise sleeping comfort, and a one man tent or bivvi style job just wasn't going to cut it. That was coupled with a Thermarest sleeping mat and a Marmot 3 season down bag. The sleeping bag was total overkill for the UK summer, but again, it was a case of take it because you already had it. One thing I noticed about the assembled mass of kit was that I probably could have chopped the weight by a third with a well placed spending spree. However that would have been over a grand easy, and obviously that wasn't going to happen! The panniers were divided into a clothing side, and a camping side. The tent and roll mat were strapped to the top of the rack in a dry bag. Approximate kit list: Vaude Taurus Ultralight 2 man tent Marmot 3 season down bag + liner. Stuffsack filled with spare clothes as pillow. Thermarest Trail Pro mat Primus Express Spider stove and GSI Pinnacle Soloist cookset. All packs down into one unit. Spare gas - not used in the end. Bike pump, spare tubes, and misc bike spares. Alpkit head torch. Two full changes of cycling clobber. Two full changes of non-bike clothes. Windproof gillet. Waterproof jacket and 3/4 shorts. Toilet bag. Microfibre drying towel - yes, an actual car one. Very useful! Bar bag containing camera, penknife, wallet, phone, snacks etc. I didn't weigh it all in the end, but it's probably an easy 20-25 kilos worth, and it doesn't include a couple of kilos of water and food. If you are thinking of doing some long distance cycling, definitely do some practice rides with an honest full load, it all adds up surprisingly quickly. I tried to be as judicious as possible with the kit list, but again, being self supported, I wanted to cover just enough bases to be comfortable. The British summer can, and did, throw it's usual selection of elements at me. 2) The Body Only 3 things matter in touring, your contact points with the bike. Your hands, legs, and above all, your arse! There's no getting away from it, even if you do a bit of riding previously, arse care is your number one priority! Saddle sores or chafing will stop a trip in its tracks, so you must start lubing up before any problems start. Various emollients are available, mostly I used Sudocreem, the main advantages being that its water resistant so doesn't get sweated away, and it's cheap! The other point is try to have different makes of kit to swap between. Seams are a main cause of chafing when your spending 8 hours plus a day on the road, so having all you undershorts from the same manufacturer normally mean all the seams will rub in the same place too. After a week or so you do get used to it, but I had to be quite carefull initially, as the number of saddle hours per day was over twice what I would normally do. Nutrition wise, I was fairly careful, at least for the tough first week, to eat properly and keep the machine ticking over. Extra calorific intake is a given, but I made sure to concentrate on low and medium GI foods through the day such as porridge, bananas, nuts, oatcakes etc. Eating a small snack every hour to hour and a half during the day. Having said that, fuel is fuel at the end of the day, so if I passed a nice looking cafe in the morning, it was straight in for the full english baby! Post trip, I wish I'd weighed myself before I left, but I think I've lost at least half a stone on the road, probably more like 12lbs. And thats even with eating 3-4000 calories a day. 3) The Ride Up until Birmingham, I was averaging 80-90 miles a day. This was mostly due to having a deadline to get to (the Midlands meet), and then just working the plan backwards from that until a couple of days after finishing work. Of course, when you're just sitting at home in front of Google maps, it doesn't really occur to you that you will actually have to cycle it at some point! This was the main cause of the somewhat hot pace for the first week, the 11 hour day through Inverness and the Cairngorms being a particular, errr, highlight! After Birmingham, and a much needed day off, the last third of the trip took almost as long as the first two thirds. I dropped the average down to a much more relaxed 60 miles a day average, and that is a much more normal pace for self supported trips. My chosen route was to go down the east of the Pennines. The normal Lands end to John o'Groats route takes in less than 900 miles, and for the most part, avoids any large amounts of climbing by virtue of coming up through the Welsh marches and Cheshire plains, then passing east of the Lake District and following the Great Glen from Fort Bill to Inverness. My 1045 miles took in the Cairngorms, the Peak District, crossed myriad river valleys in County Durham plus the unavoidable and infamous west country hills. I don't know what the total ascent was, but 10s of thousands of feet seems fairly plausible. During the trip, I didn't get any punctures, and only really had one near miss. While riding down past Tain to the Nigg ferry, an old biddy in a Micra (what else!) started to overtake me. The only trouble was she started slowing down almost as soon as she started to pass. Looking up I realised that I was coming up on a left junction, surely she wasn't going to turn in to there??? Oh yes she bloody was! She was barely passed me when she turned in, I had realised what was going on, and thankfully was already reaching for the brakes. I managed to slow down just enough to see the side of the car passing no more that two inches from my front wheel. So trip over, would I do it again? Not any time soon thats for sure! It's a hard trip make no mistake, but I could maybe be pursuaded to do the regular route with a bit of company It's been a great way to see the country, you see all sorts of random and wonderful things on the way, as well as talking to some great people. It's maybe not been life changing, but it was a challenge, and one I'm glad to have done. Here's to the next...

Never got round to asking Chris, how was the Olympic Farm?

If the zed didn't exist, I'd be all over the 86 like a rash.

So, to update, got my P3 done for £250 plus the MOT, so £300 all in. Got two advisories for some slight deteriation to a couple of (suspension i think) bushes in typical main dealer fashion, but even they said it was only slight and just making a note of it. Just need to sort out the braided lines a fluid replacement now Also of note was a 60 reg 370Z in the car park that was in for gearbox replacement for 5th to 6th crunching.

Yeah, I expect the higher trim and option levels are much nicer. The plastics are a cut below even the 350s no fuss dash, boggo stereo means no steering wheel controls, and the seats have no real bolsters! Could be worse, could be a Micra!

Todays courtesy car for the annual service and MOT! Fairly boggo spec petrol model (1.6DiG?). The Zed is it for it's P3, agreed to be done at the P2 price - about £260 I think. The optional brake fluid change is being skipped, as my new fluid and braided lines are coming from Alex today. That will be done at my local garage in the village. The Juke is ok so far, but with it being the basic interior, it's hard to see why you would want one over a Qashqai. The Quash, especially since the facelift is much more useful, and I thought, a nicer steer too.

I wouldn't be giving the Cayman a second glance for 28K, 911 all the way. Is your possible age cayman still in the line of Possible IMS issues? As for the BMW, 28K will get you a E46 CSL, which will also be nicely depreciation resistant.

As said above, gearbox can be notchy, especially when cold. Window can be re-set to learn its correct position, see Guides section. The doors can drop slightly, possible to realign them though if thats all it is, think it might be the hinge bushing if I remember correctly.

You've forgotten the img tags mate:

You can get the bashguard part, as it just replaces the big ring. As for chain retention though, you have a choice between one of these, if you are single ringing: Or, if you are going 10 speed, get a blingy new clutch rear mech: The mech is definitely the future proof choice, as it keeps the chain tension at all times, negating the need for a chain device. Just getting round to watching the Olympic mtb race now, and surprised at how many of them are running single ring setups.

No one will give you more money for a car just because you've re-trimmed the seats. The basic leather in the Zed, like most mainstream cars, is nothing to write home about. Therefore unless you are going to go to the considerable expense and trouble of using a real high grade full grain leather I wouldn't bother.

Happy birthday Mark!

Very nice but knocking on £40K? No thanks.

JOGLE day 17 Epilogue: Penrith to home. I would have been a nice 40 mile ride back to good old WC. Actually what happened is my pannier rack broke 15 miles from home and Fran had to come rescue me. Fail!

Sorry Chris, got a wedding to go to on the bank holiday. If you want to carry on up the motorway a couple of hours though... lol

Probably not, modern hubs like Hope are made with a 15 or 20 mm hole and then you get adapters to convert them down to quick 9mm quick release. Certainly for the rear the frame will have to have been designed for 12mm.

JOGLE Day 15: St. Austall to Hayle. After yesterday weather, decided to spend the morning at the Eden Project as it was only 1 mile from camp. It's really good, well worth the visit, especially if you get there early. After that it was 40 miles of bathtime down to the final camp at Hayle nr. St. Ives. JOGLE Day 16. Hayle to Lands End! 20 miles each way to the end. Weather still ****, in fact a symmetrical bookend to the weather at John o'Groats two weeks ago. Consolation prize was stopping for food about 4 times in 5 hours Total mileage: 1045. Big thanks to Vik and Ian for looking after me on their respective days, especially for the calories! I'll try and do a better write up when I get home, but there's one more stage to do yet!

Welcome back, to get you up to speed its loads of new faces, but still the same old craic!

I think that's Tillys old car, one of the best zeds ever sold on this forum. Nice to see its gone to an enthusiastic owner.

JOGLE day 14: Newton Abbot to St. Austall. The weather bites back! Delayed leaving the safety of the house this morning so as to only get 1.5 hours soaking, it was truly grim on the streets. The gale force winds hung around all day though, making progress difficult. Oh, and the cornish hills have kicked in too! Not only the infamous hills have started, but also the traffic! Christ its busy through the day, I suppose its August, but it does take the shine off a bit having a car or hgv passing your right ear every 30 seconds.