Eunos Chump

Monkeyboy and I have just spent a couple of nights in the New Forest.  We stayed at Denny Wood near Lyndhurst, it's very much in the forest so there's no electric, toilets or showers; just water.  I'd accidentally left my phone at home too, so we had to become primitive woodsmen.  It was excellent! I made a wrong turn at one point and ended up down a narrow track, with no space to turn around.  I used to be really good at reversing trailers but I've clearly lost the knack, as it took about 15 minutes and a lot of smoking clutch action to escape.  The Berlingo pulls the van pretty well, but early clutch death is probably on the cards.

It was absolutely packed, must have been over a thousand bikes on the first decent Tuesday of Spring.  Benelli Tornado with the nifty cooling fans; looks great, but would be torment to own, I'm sure.  Benelli is now Chinese owned and I believe some badge engineering is in the pipeline.  Repsol Fireblade looks light and compact, I want. Yamaha Vmax

While looking for a more suitable vehicle to pull the caravan, I found these images from the 2014 Mad Max film: The 'Gigahorse' :)

I hoofed it up to Coventry this evening on the VFR and bought this: I have named it SUPERVAN II and I should be collecting it Saturday.  

In my quest to make life ever more miserable for other road users, I've decided to get a caravan.  I ruled out the camper last week, it creates as many problems as it solves, and they're poor value compared to a 'van.  A tent is more discomfort than I'm prepared to tolerate.  So, this week we dug up half the front garden to make sufficient room: Today I put a Witter tow bar on the Berlingo (it has the best power-to-weight ratio), which was pretty easy as all the holes are already there!  There was a small piece of bumper to cut out, but that took 2 mins.  I made life difficult for myself by dropping one of the bushes inside a chassis member, and eventually I had to drill a hole into the boot floor to reach it.  There was even a handy grommet for the cables to pass through, but unfortunately there was no easy plug to attach the harness to (I remember Citroen BX estates having such a thing back in the '80s).  I've not finished this yet, as some of the...

Had an invigoratingly speedy ride up to Cheltenham today, for the bike festival at Prescott hill.  The hill climb is narrow and winding, nobody was really going for it - apart from a 5 year-old on a tiny motorcycle!  He was hanging off on every bend and putting everybody else to shame.  This photo is obviously not him.  Suzuki TL1000R - do like, but I'm not grown-up enough to have one yet. Not my cup of tea, but I'm afraid to admit the Harley Davidsons appealed.  They've got a lot of showroom presence with their superb paint jobs and general chunkiness.

This week, I have mostly been looking at motorhomes.  Then caravans.  Then tents.  Then motorhomes again.  I'm back at caravans at this exact moment, but this beauty has been on the radar: