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Aug 17, 2009 18:46:05 GMT
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Frank is to be heartily congratulated for his damned fine effort. His Imp and our Capper were rare birds on the attempt to reach MG and back. We ran out of time. He ran out of car.
Nearly everybody else was going one-way by DESIGN. The Imp and Capri were doing the rally TWICE: once there, and once back to Blighty. Most people are satiated doing the rally once in a lifetime, ONE way. The Imp and the Capri were doing it TWICE in the SAME month of the SAME summer!
To set your jaw straight down the road in the face of insane odds, and KNOWING the odds are way way long, and without any support, is the essence of adventuresome. Unless you've been there, you cannot understand how remote these places are.
Way to go, Frank. I mourn your loss of the car. It's a successful rally as far as I am concerned. My congratulations for your effort.
Anything we can do as a community to assist Frank getting the engineless donor Imp in his shed functional would be nice.
Norm
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Team Blitz Ford Capri parts worldwide: Restoration, Road, or Race. Used, Repro, and NOS, ranging from scabby to perfect. Itching your Capri jones since 1979! Buy, sell, trade. www.teamblitz.com blitz@teamblitz.com
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Aug 17, 2009 19:12:38 GMT
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So it's not coming back then?
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Aug 17, 2009 19:24:10 GMT
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Don't sound like it, Fred. An RAC/AA recovery from Kaz? Unlikely.
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Team Blitz Ford Capri parts worldwide: Restoration, Road, or Race. Used, Repro, and NOS, ranging from scabby to perfect. Itching your Capri jones since 1979! Buy, sell, trade. www.teamblitz.com blitz@teamblitz.com
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Aug 17, 2009 19:45:45 GMT
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Well at least it's not the capri! I would be getting a collection up if it was the capper!
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Aug 17, 2009 20:51:54 GMT
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Lols - thanks Fred.... ;D I heartily second Blitz's post re Frank's Imp - Frank did massively well to get as far as he did. Crossing Kaz at all is a miracle - several modern i.e around 10 year old 4 x 4's including a Nissan Terrano and a Toyota Hilux broke significant components including leaf springs (sometimes more than once) on this year's rally - and one team taking an ex army Land Rover 130 Ambulance broke springs on the Trans Siberian Highway (now that says it all!) Even the so called 'easy' parts of the journey are just staggeringly difficult in a retro ride - I will never forget driving into the Ukraine after an eventful border crossing in the dead of the night and suddenly encountering 2 foot high near vertical speed 'humps' in triple sets running the full width of the road - the first set I didn't see and hit hard, the second I locked up all four wheels in an attempt to stop before smacking into them for a second time at 30mph! After that, even though it was 2am all crew were on full alert to spot thesebloody things. There was simply no opportunity to relax! I was a wreck by the time we found a motel at about 3am! Later in the trip Norm was driving through the night yet again as we tried to make up lost time through a biblical thunderstorm with lightning like I have never seen before in my life and literally rivers of water coursing across the road hiding 3 feet holes and ridges caused by the overloaded wagons ... and from amidst this chaos trucks would appear without running lights, or two slow moving overloaded Kamaz wagons would vye with each other to make that extra 1mph and turn the two lane highway into three and four lanes in the face of oncoming traffic.... Larry several times had to note for the record that we were about to do was very stupid ... but we did it anyway to try to complete the mission.... I cannot begin to imagine how tough it was for Frank and Olly crossing Kaz, flirting with the Kyzlkorum Desert and passing by Aral'sk. Other teams ahead of us have described the roads as almost impassable this year. The Imp was a heroic and valiant effort ... we turned the Capri around before we reached the inevitability of an abandoned and broken wreck somewhere in the Siberian Altai or the western deserts of Mg because it was always a two way effort for us. If we had wanted to get to UB it could have been done - but only by sacrificing the car, hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds worth of kit and equipment, throwing away airline tickets and/or splitting the crew ... Would I do it again??? In a heartbeat ... In a Capri ... yes ... of course ... but in 4 weeks there and back with three crew planning on being self sufficient ? - no way! Buy Frank a beer when you see him ... he deserves it!
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Aug 17, 2009 20:59:53 GMT
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Do you want to take a Mk2 transit next time?? LOL
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Aug 17, 2009 21:05:20 GMT
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Only if it's filled with bunks, spares and workshop tools for both the transit and the capri!
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Aug 17, 2009 21:15:49 GMT
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On a mechanical note ... sounds like someone has gaffa taped an oil can filled with marbles inside the tank guard (Blitz .. did you?) .... and it still rattles even when I take it out of gear and freewheel ... and oddly enough, it isn't getting any better by itself!
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Aug 18, 2009 13:35:27 GMT
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sounds like an epic journey to undertake, and something that myself, and I'm sure many others, will strugle to visualise. Well done to all who went and all who helped, and to frank and his imp!
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wanted, 25th hour. Required daily, cash waiting
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Aug 18, 2009 14:58:35 GMT
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Only if it's filled with bunks, spares and workshop tools for both the transit and the capri! It has stretchers.............. and goes dee dah.
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Aug 18, 2009 15:06:26 GMT
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Did you take in some of the roads that Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman did on their Long Way Round Jaunt? Having read the book I seem to remember The Road of Bones being awful for them
If so it proves how demanding the terrain is in these places. They were riding brand new purpose built motorbikes; with two brand new support vehicles loaded with spares and supplies following for the whole trip and a support team on the end of a sat phone 24/7 and even they struggled to complete it and nearly turned round on a few occasions.
This is the sort of amazing trip I can only dream of having the plums to even attempt!
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1967 Morris Traveller 1971 Series IIA Land Rover 1991 Golf GL 4+e 1992 Corrado G60 1986 E28 BMW 528i
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Aug 18, 2009 19:41:44 GMT
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well we criss-crossed the EM/CB route up to a point ... the Road of Bones is way further east beyond Mongolia crossing eastern Siberia ... but our route across the Ukraine the second time and through Russia to Volgograd wasn't far off their route ... and Frank's route through Kaz will have been similiar .with all the misery that that brings...
If you really dream of such a trip though it is surprising what you can do on a budget as long as you have enough determination ... and crucially enough TIME!!! Time is the big killer - in terms of getting ready for the trip, the planning, preparation, research, visas and the time you need to allow on the road ... it all takes far more time than you can possibly imagine ... and far more money than you suspect - especially when you have to spend money to speed things up! if I have learnt anything from this trip it is that most problems can be solved if you throw enough time and money at them - it's just that for normal people without TV budgets and production crews, time and money are almost always in short supply!
But if you are young enough and stupid enough (in the nicest possible way) the whole trip to Mongolia can be accomplished in a £500 car, plus £500 for visas and jabs and spares per person, and another £750 for fuel with £600 each to get home afterwards ... it could be done for £3k - but only if you have at least two months to play with and only make a one way trip in the car ... but then of course you need to get home afterwards ... by train and plane via Moscow is probably the cheapest but still relatively easy route back ... hitching is even cheaper but could turn into an epic all by itself!
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Aug 18, 2009 20:10:18 GMT
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Only if it's filled with bunks, spares and workshop tools for both the transit and the capri! It has stretchers.............. and goes dee dah. oh now, see, that's really not fair ... it goes dee dah is too much temptation .... ;D
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Aug 18, 2009 20:43:14 GMT
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The one in front ;D
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Aug 19, 2009 11:44:59 GMT
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lol - oh no no no ... you are an evil woman! ;-)
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Aug 19, 2009 12:10:15 GMT
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3L Essex Wadham Stringer mk2 transit.......
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Aug 19, 2009 15:38:18 GMT
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ok ok I surrender! I'll love it! ;D
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Aug 27, 2009 10:54:28 GMT
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just testing to see if I can now upload photos now I have done the photobucket thing! <a href="http://s592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/speedbirdcapri/?action=view¤t=IMG_0392.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/speedbirdcapri/IMG_0392.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/img]
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Aug 27, 2009 10:55:26 GMT
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ok that didn't work try again
<a href="http://s592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/speedbirdcapri/?action=view¤t=IMG_0392.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/speedbirdcapri/IMG_0392.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
FFS! ok how do I do this? I have uploaded all the photos to Photobucket ... I clicked on the share and copied the code. I tried clicking on the insert image here and pasting the code between the brackets and nothing - so I pasted the code direct ... as ^^^
what next?
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Last Edit: Aug 27, 2009 10:57:38 GMT by speedbird
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Aug 27, 2009 10:58:47 GMT
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