When nothing goes right at all.....

[IT]

So, I had the day from hell yesterday.....

It all started with an unquenchable desire to go visit the following mountain bike trail in the Lake District:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/alturatrail

Now, the mate that I cycle with works retail, and has Wednesday off, and I'm flexibile so it had to be this wednesday. We had the slight bombshell dropped on us that he ought to be back for his sons performance at school at 14:15, which seriously compounded the schedule.

Harrogate -> Whinlatter is 3 hours by autoroute and most route software. Thats 6 hours of travelling, and the route itself is rumoured to take 3 hours. Thats 9 hours, needing to be back for 13:30 (with time for a shower, change etc and get to school).

So, we set off at 5 am, which gave us 8.5 hours and I was confident that even in my tranny van we'd make it there with clear roads in not much over 2 hours.

So, we're on the road and everything is peachy until about 5:30 when the exhaust starts blowing on the van... A quick pull over reveals that is clean through, but secure and safe. So albeit noisy, we're on main roads in the middle of nowhere so figure it can't hurt. So crack on.

Next mission, breakfast. Failed. Nowhere open anywhere at stupid-o-clock so no food in belly. Doh. Never mind, shared a bag of walkers fish and chip flavoured crisps, which were ok..... but prefer salt and vinegar

Anyway, alls well, we arrive at the bike place at just past 7am. Well on schedule. Even time for a toilet break and we're off. Had a good blast round, but its only 10.5 miles or so and easily finished within 2 hours. So we're now ahead of schedule. Brilliant.

Started heading back gently (remember, exhaust still blowing) and confidently pulled in for some breakfast butties at the road side as we have time to spare and still hungry bellies.

Finished up and headed off, ETA back to harrogate 12:30, and we knew we'd do better than that because Tom tom is a bit pessimistic on the A roads.

All's going swell until we pass plod in a layby on the other side of the road. Now, we're not fully sure of the implications of running with a noisy exhaust, so we pass him gingerly and carry on. No apparent interest from him, thankfully.

About 20 mins later on a single carriageway part of the A66 and he's right behind us. Dont know how he got there, but he did. No lights on, but his mere presence enough to concern me as the van farted loudly up every hill

So, I'm thinking if we can get to a dual carriageway and hopefully he'll just pull round us, but nope, the next layby that comes up, he blue lights us and asks us to pull in, so heres me expecting a right

But no, apparently due to a load of burglaries in the area, he just wants to look inside the van and make sure we're not making off with lots of stolen goods. I can't begin to explain how delighted I was to comply fully by opening up the van and showing him our princely collection of only 2 bikes and a handful of tools, which made him very happy.....

So, on our way. We've only lost 10 minutes of the hour + that we had in hand so all is well. Less concerned about the exhaust noise now, we press up to Her Majesties speed limits on the next carriageway and go for an early finish.....

2 Minutes of driving then, bang and death...... In fact, not so much bang as slightly odd off-stroke piston firing combined with complete silence.... We were dead in the water and coasting at 60+mph on the A66 looking for somewhere to ditch, which turned out to be the next exit, which was a minor little road ditching us in the middle of no where, but off the road and out of everybodys way.

Tried to restart, but hopelessly fast turnover and apparent lack of compression means (a) its serious and (b) we need assistance.

Its 11:00. We're 64 miles away from Harrogate. We have 150 minutes but no transport.

So, a quick call to David () and he's en route with V8 power, a towbar and thankfully some enthusiasm to aid us in our hour of need. the AA was a secondary option, but in my experience, they will get you home, but they are less interested in time constraints.

It was now 11:15. David was 58 miles away. 1 hour 30 by his Sat Nav, which puts his ETA with us at 12:30 ish. We then have 1 hour to tow the transit back to Harrogate, which is 64 miles away. Its a dam close window.

At this point took the oppurtunity to review the service history on the van, along with the haynes manual which were handily sat in the glove box. Cambelt changes are every 40,000 miles, or 5 years, according to both the Haynes and the service book. Oh. The van is on 92000 and it was last done in 2001 at 36000 miles. Looks like a fairly safe bet what has happened here then


12:28, and the sight and sound of my old S8 never looked and sounded so good. We're hooked up and ready to go by 12:40.

The towbar is the fixed variety, so better than a tow rope, but still a hariy experience being no more than a meter off the bumper of the car in front. As the speeds pick up, my mate (Carl) was definitely uncomfortable !!

We had to get to the end of the A66, then head south on the A1, so mostly dual carriageway which was good, but involved lots of overtaking. Not so easy when you think that I need the ignition on to indicate, but cant leave it on or it will flatten the battery. I also have to use the hazards in between indicating to give people a clue what is going on. To compound it all further, David cant see to pull out as he can't see anything in his mirrors because of me, so I'm checking my mirrors and giving his visual signals when its clear to go / not go. Carl just whimpered a bit and suggested that maybe missing his kids school performance would be ok, when weighed up against living or dying......

With the best will in the world, we can't expect to average 60mph towing on a bar, so we conceed that if we can get back by 14:00, then thats 5 mins for Carl to get changed, 5 mins to run down to the school and 5 mins extra contingency....

13:25 - incoming call from David.

D> How accurate is your fuel guage ?
I> Er, pretty good, why?
D> I'm showing 15 miles in the tank, and 17 miles to Harrogate
I> Oh, er, well, its never run dry on me if that helps ?
D> Right, we'll press on

Off the A1 and onto the A61, and we come to a slightly more sudden stop than expected, putting a bit more pressure on the tow bar.....

5 minutes later and its obvious one of the retaining bits on the bar is bent, and no longer sitting in place properly. Its tows fine, but if David breaks hard, I'm going to go into the back of him. ETA is now 13:54.

So, I flash / honk / flap / gestrure and we pitstop at the side of the road, much to the pleasure of the enormous queue of traffic we'd built up.

So, in the back of the van we dig out some tools, David goes for his favourite, the hammer, and beats it back into shape, we tightened a securing bolt and press on. ETA has risen to 13:58

So, off we go again, Harrogate is now less than 6 miles away, but the bracket is not holding. It slips again so I start braking the van to hold the bar tense, and ring David again

I> Bar is going, i'm going to have to brake to keep tension up
D> I haven't got the petrol for that !!!
I> AAarrgh, right pull over next safe place

David weilds the hammer again, this time pulverising the bracket making it wedge into the gap we so desperately need it to stay in. Carl picks up the unwanted bits of shrapnel off the floor that have come undone from the hammering, and we pack up to go.

We're less than 3 miles away and its 13:50. We have two uphills, two downhills, one roundabout and a set of traffic lights to negotiate....

We agree to let the S8 pull the van up the hills which will keep it tense, I'll brake on the downhills which wont waste much fuel and we'll 'do what it takes' on the flats. If we run out of fuel, Carl will 'hop on his bike'. Literally...

So, we go down the first hill, me braking from behind and all holds well, with David taking up the drive on the uphill to take us past the 'Harrogate' sign - Over the hill and down the second hill with me braking towards the roundabout..... A fortunate gap in the traffic sees us through the roundabout and on towards the traffic lights, which are red in the distance. We approach, they turn green and we wait for the traffic to die so we can turn right, which happens reasonably quickly.

We soon turn into Carls road and ditch as planned so he can sprint and get sorted. The time is 14:01.

We unhitch David, so he can double back and get fuel. He takes on board 86 liters, so despite been on the '0 miles' for a while, there was about a gallon left. Carl arrives in time at the school for 14:14, and we take the van gently back to my house a mile down the road.....

Removed the cambelt covers and sure enough, one snapped cambelt...

Time for a new van me thinks....