Putting the fun back into motoring

[tonedepear]

Snake pass in a work van was alaways fun. Or some years ago i always enjoyed the a507 between Buntingford and Baldock, and I only ended up in a field once.

[barefoot]

I'm sort of up for all this sort of thing,

I like pottering along B roads at 50-60, but enjoy not slowing for bends.

Taking the best line can be seriously amusing when you watch the chap behind stand on the brakes at the first sign of a corner.

- but, and this has been troubling me recently,

There was an article in the Telegraph recently, the usual Speed Kills sort of thing

but it said that the real biggest cause of accidents was folk misjudging corners!

Wiped the smile off my face for a while.

[dollywobbler]

I'm sure we've all done it. That's why I try and stay within the limits, though I do push on a bit. Driving briskly is always going to have an element of risk about it. You're never entirely sure what's around the next bend, even if you know the road well. Stray sheep, tractors and hardy folk on bikes are the largest 'surprise' element here, but mud can also get dumped on corners.

 

Yet I do think that experience stands you in good stead, as well as good risk assessment. Sebastian Loeb seems pretty good at it and I don't drive as quickly as him! Apparently he's only crashed out of a rally 5 times in 12 years. Which is remarkable!

[Pillock]

Snake Pass on work time was fun - catch up the traffic, pull in to a layby, let it get a bit of a lead on and then hunt it down again.

I also remember the Cat and Fiddle being a quality drive, but I happened to "need" to use the road on a work jolly again (in my imagination, it was the most direct route) in a Golf GTI hire car and found that they've put a 50mph average limit on it, and also layered the whole thing in fog. Bah.

[Rusty Pelican]

Wrynose and Hardnott pass in the Lake district , perfect for small nimble cars , you need nerves of steel as its a 30% gradient ( 1 in 3 1/2 ish in old money

Love it , this is Hardnott , you need to get over wrynose to get to this which is 1 in 4 IIRC

 

[dollywobbler]

I've done Hardknott Pass in the 2CV. Was bloody irritating as moderns kept crawling up it and were getting in my way! I NEEDZ MUMENTUMS!!

[Rusty Pelican]

I've done Hardknott Pass in the 2CV. Was bloody irritating as moderns kept crawling up it and were getting in my way! I NEEDZ MUMENTUMS!!

I was in an Imp van , two up loaded with camping gear I NEEDZ REVS

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I want to like the snakepass as it should be great for spirited driving, but I just can't. During the day it's too crowded because there's no other road between two of the biggest cities in the country (the A616 or whatever that goes to Barnsley is still quite slow, not worth the deviation), and during the night there's fewer cars but the weather around the peak can be quite foul- last time I had a visibility of about 10 metres when skies were clear in Sheffield and there was a very mild drizzle in Manchester.

 

The roads between Leicester and Birmingham, however, can be great fun, because there are motorways all around so you only have to contend with a tiny amount of local traffic. I've seen something similar even in the South East, so I'm guessing there are a lot of little twisty lanes hidden in places that you wouldn't expect to find one.

[myglaren]

The A168 from Whitby to Malton is still a lot of fun but best done at the crack of dawn. Driving anything on it when it's free from tourists is absolute bliss. My 'personal best' (along the A168 and then picking up the A64 at Malton) from Whitby mail centre to York mail centre was 57 minutes. In a Daf 7.5 tonne lorry...

 

[Off Topic]

Are you from Whitby then, Mr. Estate?

[/OT]

[CIH]

I want to like the snakepass as it should be great for spirited driving, but I just can't. During the day it's too crowded because there's no other road between two of the biggest cities in the country (the A616 or whatever that goes to Barnsley is still quite slow, not worth the deviation), and during the night there's fewer cars but the weather around the peak can be quite foul- last time I had a visibility of about 10 metres when skies were clear in Sheffield and there was a very mild drizzle in Manchester.

 

The roads between Leicester and Birmingham, however, can be great fun, because there are motorways all around so you only have to contend with a tiny amount of local traffic. I've seen something similar even in the South East, so I'm guessing there are a lot of little twisty lanes hidden in places that you wouldn't expect to find one.

 

I unintentionally took my second Manta over the 'snake fairly late at night, years ago. It was a new car to me so I was relieved to see the lights of Glossop! I actually worked at the glossop kwik-fit for a couple of years. Use to see alot of speedy stuff heading out of town, occasinally heading back-in all chewed-up on the back of a Mansfield's lorry.

 

As it happens I took my S12 over the Woodhead pass (the barnsley one) and got caught in a huge tailback due to an accient partially blocking a lane. Took like 3 hours to cross the penines that day. That only happened because I followed the damn satnav all the way up the m1 to sheffield.

 

There are some sweet roads between the M1 & M6 just south of the Pennines. There's a house with a dozen or so rotten P5s but it had an "axe murderer" vibe and I didn't want to stop lol.

Haven' been able to find it again...

[Cavcraft]

Not a big fan of the Woodhead, always seems a bit snarled up to be honest. The Cat and Fiddle can be good fun, though it can be slow and is well policed these days it would appear.

[Jon]

[Off Topic]

Are you from Whitby then, Mr. Estate?

[/OT]

 

Nah, I was returning to York, where I used to live and work. I would've been returning sometime between 4 and 5am, after delivering most of Whitby's mail for the day. Since my job at RM was to cover other driver's duties, I regularly changed shifts. One of the best was driving a 7.5 tonne lorry to Whitby at 4am, getting a Vauxhall Combo at Whitby delivery office, driving miss-sorted mail from there back to Malton (via Pickering on the way), then meeting a load of other RM drivers from York who had visited other surrounding offices (Thirsk, Scarborough, Filey, Bridlington, Driffield etc.) where we'd swap all the mail round and I'd return to Whitby via Malton, take an unofficial 20-30 minute break in the cab of the 7.5 tonner (watching the other posties hard at work), drive back leisurely to York (often via Malton to pick up some mail trolleys/waste more time), then take a 1 hr lunch off the end of the shift ( making the shift effectively 0400-1100). In many ways, I miss this job, though I reckon it would've been hell if I'd ever had to drive in a more populated part of the country. It was also in the time of less strict tachograph rules for RM too, so was quite possibly a golden period never to be repeated.

[Pete-M]

I did the Woodhead pass in a BMW Z4 3.0 a year or two ago. I hate to admit this, but it was bloody good fun.

[myglaren]

It was the early trip from Whitby to Malton that made me think you might be from Whitby - it's where I came from originally.

[RoadworkUK]

I did the Woodhead pass in a BMW Z4 3.0 a year or two ago. I hate to admit this, but it was bloody good fun.

 

It's OK to like the bigger-engined ones. The straight-sixes are actually quite big-healey-esque in the way they respond, e.g a bit lumpy and weighty compared to a Boxster, for instance.

[eddyramrod]

When we moved here we lived in a village called Kili for the first two years. To get into Paphos we either had to drive in on the B7 Polis Road, which is often (relatively) congested, being one lane each way; or go to the other end of the village and take a back road through Kamares and down to Tala. I use "down" advisedly here! Tala must be 1000 feet below Kili. That road twists and winds, and as you're going down the side of a mountain, you have a damn good view most of the way. Add in a 1971 Capri 1600GT and you can see what I mean! That road was a bucket of fun both uphill and down, and uphill became even more fun when I got the Granada. Downhill less so, as brakes were never a Granada's strongest suit, but for general purposes they suffice. The B6 Paphos-Limassol road, which winds along the coast, passing Paphos Airport, is also rather jolly and doesn't suffer too much from traffic in the way. The really twisty stuff is near the army housing at Episkopi. RWD, plenty of power: hard to get tired of that road.

 

Or, if you want UK roads: I used to commute from Southport to Burscough Industrial Estate in West Lancashire, generally about 6am. During my time in that job I moved house, so my commute went from 7 miles to 9. I did it all on back roads, in all kinds of car: 7-litre Cadillac; 1-litre Mini; 4.2-litre Daimler Sovereign; 2.0-litre MG Maestro (to name just a few). I didn't often arrive at work without a smile on my face!