Test run, day 2

We have a bit more wordage this time as I am blogging this from home.   Before I get in to that, lets have a look at some of the Day 2 pics:

The morning pack-up (and figuring out how to de-rig a tent)

Re packing the car wasn't quite as tidy as it was originally, but not too bad.

It did rain in the night, more on that later...

Dat bacon ! hmmmm

Breakfast of champions :)

Christ on a bike... sunshine !

This is the end...

Welcome to Blackpool  "pleasure" beach.

The grim north :)

Mike is less than impressed with the locale

Fish and chips at an English seaside resort, a classic combo.

What wonderful weather we are having.

Maybe I wont go for a dip after all...

So as you can see, not fantastic weather, could have been better, but also could have been a lot worse.

The over night stay at the camp-site wasn't too bad.  We were forecast torrential rain, but there were only a few medium showers over night.  The down side...?

Well it looks like the "pitch and go" tents that Gregg and I opted for are more "pitch and go to the hotel".  Advertised as having 230cm of sleeping space (lengthways) and capacity for two people, these tents are nothing of the sort.  Bearing in mind that they are single skinned, so touching the outside will result in water seeping in, I had to crunch up to a full foetal position to avoid contact with the tent skin.  Even then I was still touching.  The problem lies in their shape.  A trapezoidal cross section means that the "full height" area is probably not much more than 1m long, and it slopes at about 45° down to the base.  Net result, once you add an air bed and pillows and body thickness of a full adult, you little more than 1.5m to "sleep" in and you cant move, or you get wet.  Side to side space isn't much better either.


Also, to top it off, both tents leaked.  Quite badly too.  During one of the heavy showers, I was getting "rained" on inside the tent.  Come the morning, there was a puddle of water about 10"-15" across in the bottom of both tents.

Due to this internal rain, I ended up de-camping all my kit into the shower block.  As we were the only, and first, people on site, this wasn't a problem as everything was clean and dry, but this is an issue for the run proper.  We will be re-visiting the tent situation asap.  Probably going for a much larger option.

So the night-time debacle over and done with, and following a rather tasty breakfast of smoked bacon baps, and a cup of tea, on Mike and Adams camp cooker we set off to go for a run around the "Evo Triangle".  This is a set of 3 roads praised by Evo magazine for their excellent driving characteristics, and I have to say they are spot on with this.  It is a combination of a windy country B road, a minor A road, and a major A road.  All roads offer spectacular views across the moorland (although we couldn't see most of them due to the weather) and more importantly you can see plenty of the road ahead as there are no hedgerows or buildings blocking your view.  This meant that you can take the apex of the corners without fear of oncoming traffic.

After a very "spririted" drive around here for an hour or so, we headed on to the grim north.  Blackpool specifically.  Unfortunately the weather followed us and as you can see from the photos, Mike was less than impressed with the whole situation.  A quick lunch, and a wander to the beach for a few pics, and just to say we had been, it was back into the cars for the run home.

On the way we stopped to drop off a delivery to an ebay buyer who was buying some wheels off of Mike.  It turns out he is related to a member of Team Gavlar from last years run, and he also took part in his own team.  This was a total coincidence as the ebay auction was in no way related to the run.  Small world.

Anyway, after that small tid-bit of frivolity it was motorway all the way, this run was largely uneventful, but there are a few little points about the car we need to look into.

So that's it, test over.  I will post a review of the important details shortly.