Caterham Touring

[MarchHare2008]

Just back from a few days in Brittany with the Cat. and the Mrs.

 

Brilliant trip and I thought I'd log a few comments for those considering a similar venture.

 

Firstly, the absolutely superb;

- The car (obviously). 1,000 miles, no problems, a real pleasure

- The roads. I suppose there are a few people in France that drive cars but they don't seem to live in Brittany, at least not in May. There were times when we could drive on beautiful roads for 10 or 15 minutes and not see another car. It must have been like this motoring in England 50 years ago.

- The French! We felt like royalty. In France it's not just young boys that stare, point, wave and want to talk about the car, its everyone. Old ladies in particular. We think they might have thought it was something rare and vintage (which I suppose in a way it is).

- Softbitsforsevens kit. We have the half hood with zip on rain cover (the latter for use when parked). We also have the tunnel bag, draught excluder and boot top bag. All were great but the half hood deserves special mention. We kept the rear straps permanently fixed to the rear of the roll bar (although it would only take a minute or so to connect these if you didn't leave them connected) and then rolled the hood and attached to the roll bar with the supplied sleeve. The hood could be unrolled and clipped to the screen in about 30 seconds or less and provided complete weather protection. Even with the car fully loaded and boot bag attached it could be stored and deployed without a problem. The zip on extra cover could be added in another 30 seconds and I felt much happier leaving the car in a public place with these attached. As supplied the rain cover extension has no poppers fixed around the base and we didn't bother to fit them. It hangs over the boot edge and keeps the water out in anything less than a full gale and avoids having to unpopper the boot and then popper on the cover. Convenience is everything with this kit. Everything worked really well and 100% recommendation for all Softbits stuff!

- TomTom 740. Complete with itinerary planning function. We used a bit of free software (TYRE - just google it) which allows you to click routes into google maps then upload to the tomtom. All the hassle of navigating complex routes through remote and poorly signposted places disappears and marital harmony is maintained. Priceless! Routes can also be planned on the hoof by using the unit's Itinerary utility and putting in waypoints such as villages although, for some reason, the unit wouldn't link them together and you would have to manually "tick-off" waypoints as you approached then, after which the tomtom looks for the next waypoint and navigates there.

- Brittany Ferries - Portsmouth to St Malo overnight. Circa £220 including cabin and arrive in France at 8am. All worked well, food and wine great and reasonably priced. Part of the holiday.

 

Secondly the not quite so successful;

- the Autocom. I spent ages sorting this before we went and, in the end we just didn't use it. With a screen and doors and at less than 70 mph it just wasn't worth the hassle. When we did try it the sound quality was not really good enough for music and for some reason the tomtom only seems to have one volume - 11!

- Dust and pollen. Just like in the UK some scruffy oik will scrawl graffiti on the car if there is enough dust and grit on the car. I was washing it off every night but this didn't stop kids leaving their marks at lunch time or at other stops. Take a folding bucket and a sponge.

- Petrol stations. There aren't many, they only open for 15 minutes a day and you need a credit card. We didn't really have too many problems but we started looking out for them once we were down to half a tank as you could easlily drive for 30 minutes with seeing one. The Tomtom was handy as you can search out supermarkets which generally have automated petrol pumps which take cards.

- The exchange rate - Ouch!

 

Overall, If you have never driven your Caterham in France - go for it - it's a superb country with wonderful, quiet roads, friendly natives and great food and wine. We're planning our next trip already!

[ECR]

Couldn't agree more ! Your observations are very much in line with our experiences (although not yet done it with Tom Tom). The interest that old ladies show in the car is extreme in some cases. We once stopped at a light controlled crossing to allow a baguette carrying old lady to cross. She got halfway over and stopped in front of the car to admire it. The lights cycled twice before she ambled off, smiling to herself. The remarkable thing was the patience of the cars behind us, not a toot from anywhere ...

 

Ex Chairman Roger

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

We are taking ours to Denmark and Sweden this Friday Exchange rate much friendlier there !! Not sure about the weather forecast though - predicting snowfall the further east we go !!!

 

 

[John Howe]

So how about joining our annual trip, in late June, next year?

 

I smiled as I read "treated like Royalty"... regularly, these are my very words to those who have never Sevened in France and ask about the experience.

 

JH

Deliveries by Saffron, the yellow 230bhp Sausage delivery machine

[Normans_Ghost]

On one of the Bordeaux Blats we left the cars in a village square as we all wandered off for a coffee.

 

When we got back there was small crowd around my car. They parted as we approched and lo and behold there was avery elderly lady sat in the car. She was laughing so much she couldn't get out!

 

Took 3 of us to heave her out and everyone was laughing.

 

I've just been out in the Midget and have been waved at by small children to elderly folks. They just love to see "old" cars.

 

^{Norman Verona, 1989 BDR 220bhp, Reg: B16BDR, Mem No 2166, the full story here}

You and your seven toThe French Blatting Company Limited

[Normans_Ghost]

John, what a conincedence!

 

Do you remember the above?

 

^{Norman Verona, 1989 BDR 220bhp, Reg: B16BDR, Mem No 2166, the full story here}

You and your seven toThe French Blatting Company Limited

[peterg]

They just love to see "old" cars

 

- not just old cars Norman, remember the crowd round the Elise when we visited that car show at the local Chateau, it was bigger than the one round the 'exhibits' 😬

[Blokko]

One of the main factors that convinced me that I had to have a Caterham was the Angus & Tessa write up on mycaterham.com about their touring trips to France. SWMBO and I haven’t quite plucked up the courage to venture across the Channel yet, preferring to do our touring mileage in Britain. Finances permitting we hope to get across next year - possibly with a group of seasoned European tourers rather than on our own.

 

We have covered 5k miles p/a in the couple of years that we have had our car. I’m expecting to have to go to 7k miles for the insurance this year if all the planned trips come off. We wouldn’t be without our soft bits for touring - particularly the half hood. The RE bags add a good deal of storage space (we still haven’t mastered the art of travelling light yet). The full tunnel bag is good for holding the phone, wallet, Autocom controller, a couple of bottles of water and some sweeties. I always take the full hood in a hood bag right behind the seats - but only ever use it if / when the car is parked up outside overnight (we do try to book holiday cottages that have a garage).

 

Re your comment on the Autocom, I have to say that I’m fairly pleased with our recently installed system, but it’s not quite as brilliant as I had hoped. We do at least a couple of trips per year where a few hours on a motorway is inevitable. For this the Autocom is a godsend. After playing around with the vox setting we have got it right for motorway and fast ‘A’ road / dual carriageway. The problem we have is that when we get onto quieter roads, the vox is a bit low and conversation can get cut. This is not really a problem as the Autocom is only intended for use on the motorway bits. Once we are at our destination we bin the headsets until it is time to go back home. We have had a few problems with electrical interference from the alternator, but this seems to have been cut by using a ferrite ring and storing the unit in the soft bits tunnel bag (rather than Velcro’d to the bulkhead). The big disappointment for me is the poor audio quality from the headphones. Any level of base becomes woolly and distorted - even at modest volumes. I got a better quality 3.5mm phono lead and that did not improve the sound at all.

 

We only have a basic TomTom (1XL) so no audio output. With the music off we can just about hear the instructions - but for the most part we can get by on the visual display. Used Tyre in the past to organise trips through Wales up to the Evo Triangle - a great piece of software.

 

The plus points from your post make me want to get across to France in our 7 more than ever

 

 

---

Steve - Orange and Black ex Academy - my other car is a very smelly Mondeo.

 

Edited by - Blokko on 6 May 2009 21:38:50

 

Edited by - Blokko on 6 May 2009 22:00:52

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

AutoCom has provided us with good quality MP3 music. Having a job setting the Vox level, so that it doesn't trigger on the exhaust note when accelerating hard, so have been without intercom facility up until now - just uninterrupted music Have tried again ready for our Big Trip, but will have the screwdriver handy to turn the Vox feature off if it isn't right.