Roadtrip!

It’s become somewhat customary for me, having purchased a new car, to drive it to Aberdeen to see some friends who live there. I’ve always found embarking on a big roadtrip in a new car accelerates the learning curve somewhat. You quickly get to grips with the comfy seat position, the mirrors, fuel consumption and so on, plus it’s a bloody good excuse for a drive.

In this case it was 1100 miles just in getting from home to Aberdeen via Edinburgh, then back home via Betws-y-coed. Add to that a jaunt out to the Run Balmoral races to do a 5km for ConocoPhillips and all the driving I managed to do in North Wales and I put a shade under 2000 miles on the car in ten days. It was a bit of an epic.

All packed

So, first things first. How on earth does one pack a Caterham for such a trip? The boot is surprisingly spacious, so with some intelligent use of the passenger space (I was driving solo) I was able to get everything in that I needed for socialising, camping, hiking and running with ease. I have found that these Exped drybags are excellent. Being soft, they compress your clothes down, then push neatly into tight spaces. As they’re waterproof you can be sure your spare jeans will remain dry too! I know they’re robust as I took three, quite literally, around the world and they’re all still fine. One other thing I found very useful was to use my Camelbak water bladder, which I hung behind the drivers seat. This meant I had three litres of water with a feeder tube over my shoulder. Who needs a cup holder?

So, what’s it like to drive a long way on a motorway? In a word, noisy. No one would suggest that the Seven is designed with such motoring in mind, but I’ll have to do it now and then, so how to make it most comfortable? I did the northbound journey with the top down and the return trip with the hood up. Top down is by far the most preferable.

Why? The dominant noise with the top down is wind, which I can mitigate with a hat (also keeping my bonce warm) and my walkman headphones. Given the distance and solo nature, I downloaded a few audiobooks to listen to and having a set of headphones in really helps keep you sane when the revs don’t vary. I don’t see this as a safety issue as my ‘phones are not noise cancelling and I never put the volume up too far, so road noise was still an element, albeit secondary. Think of it as no different to having the radio on.

With the top up, wind noise is cut significantly, but you do get much more exhaust noise, again at level revs, which is actually quite uncomfortable. Its part noise (I have no idea how loud – I don’t have a swanky iPhone with a decibelometer app) but the bigger issue is the pressure variation the exhaust noise creates. It is actually quite painful after a few hours. Nine hours straight with no more than thirty minutes out of the car overall left me feeling like I’d been at a very loud gig. I’d go so far as to say it could be damaging if it was a regular jaunt, though anyone who regularly did 400 miles in a Seven would be certifiable.

Empty motorways - joy!

So, what’s it like being at the same height as an artic lorry tyre? Initially, intimidating. However, motorway or not, driving a car that has no ABS, poor visibility, is difficult to see, has noticeably less wet weather grip and with no traction control means you either think and plan your driving a lot more, or you will inevitably crash, or be crashed into. I’ve found myself hanging further back in general and behaving a lot more like a motorbike rider than a car driver. This is especially important on a motorway. Of course, setting your mirrors up correctly helps, so anything that disappears from your wing mirror should already be in your peripheral vision, but there’s nothing like keeping tabs on the traffic so you don’t get any nasty surprises. All that said and done, when changing lanes I’m getting back in the habit of doing a visual check with a turn of the head. It helps to reassure you you’ve not missed the lunatic haring up behind you and also signals to other drivers you might be about to make a move. Yes, you’re very briefly looking backwards, but if I’m a safe distance from the vehicles in front, this shouldn’t be an issue. For me, it only took a couple of hours to get into the swing of keeping well back, signalling, waiting until I was sure my indicator had been seen, then changing lanes. Orange blinking lights are not so visible on red cars…

A Roads. A better sort of road

One unexpected issue was joint ache and stiffness. You don’t appreciate how much room for manoeuvre you have in a normal car until that space is denied to you. I found my knees and ankles in particular suffered and I had to adopt various foot positions to try and avoid actual pain. I also suffered from a really sore right heel, so will have to look into getting some endurance racing boots, which will hopefully have a little more padding than my current shoes. My main focus was covering the ground, so I lived with it, but it’s not the best way to start a holiday.

So what have I learnt?

• Top down is the best.
• If it’s raining, you will get wet with the top down and need wipers on your glasses. Stop and put the roof up.
• Loosen the roof supports before trying to put the roof up or risk a sense of humour failure.
• If you have to use motorways, fine. At every other opportunity, plan ahead, start earlier and use A roads.

Coming soon to an (this) excellent Caterham blog…

Find out where, next time

• A cracking drive in the Cairngorms
• A cracking walk in Snowdonia
• A cracking drive in Snowdonia
• Thank f*ck it broke down on the driveway…the joy of electrical issues…

In true sensationalist style, I’ll name names (of roads) and everything!