North East Area Group Meet - October 09

That time again, weather was not too bad and a good turnout - 5 cobs all 2 up:

In the foreground above is Ian H's recently aquired AK. Next to my car is Jimmy's MkII Sumo - nearly 20 years old and having had a fair bit of development including a 5 litre Rover Engine and bespoke fully adjustable suspension by magnum engineering. Here's some gratuitous photo's of the GD courtesy of Ian C who turned up to have a gander being on the verge of starting his Pilgrim Sumo build:

Ian's camera produces a nice red! Here we are departing from the Manor House Inn:

And here we are on the approach to Langley Castle:

Here's another classic action shot by Tommy - rding shotgun in John's Sumo - on the climb up to Hartside Summit:

When we arrived at the summit we ended up in the clouds - well it is 1904ft above sea level in October:

Thats Geoff's Dax in the foreground, and a particulalry rubbish view of Cumbria in the background.

As you can see below it was a bit dreary, and after a quick bite to eat it started to rain. Discretion being the better part of valour we promptly rany away back down to Alston and the Sunshine.

All in all a good 100 mile run out with pleny of interesting roads. As usual the map of the route is below which you can click on and be taken to the details on google maps.

The ride with the tweaked suspension and anti-roll bar was a marked improvement. I had Dave as a passenger (currently building a GD in Darlingotn) who had the misfortune(?) of a previous ride in the car when I was running it far too stiffly damped at the front. He felt that both the quality of ride and cornering was much improved.

I had also treated the windscreen to a coating of Rain-X both inside and out and am pleased to report that it did make seeing through the screen much easier than before and appeared to increase the effectiveness of the wipers by around 500%!

So, here's hoping for some decent weather in November....... might be pushing our luck this time.