I learnt the art of the rapid changedown when driving up Coombe Bottom (a bit north of Shere, Surrey)in the family 1100..5 up.. there is a left hand hairpin up about 1 in 4 slope at the top. If you missed the gear change it was an almost impossible wheel spinning hill start, or roll back a few yards and try again.
I got stuck last week at the end of a rough farm drive trying to pull a camper up a ridiculously small slope. Wheelspin and burnt rubber.
Yes, that pass *is* exciting. You drive up a steep hill and see that the road bends left, but when you get near the bend, all you can see through the screen is sky and you are not sure when to turn the wheel. I have done it about half a dozen times and I have taken the vow never to do it again. :-)
Dave
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:
It's those shoes, isn't it?
Did that in the '70s in a 1400 Hillman utility thing that had 3 people in it and 3 damaged exhaust valves. Luckily there was no other traffic and the road was wet, so just slid it round every bend and somehow it got to the top. Couldn't get back from the Eskdale side though and had to go round. My Super Rocket, 2-up, just stood on its rear wheel and blasted up the steepest bits - great fun in the late '60s when most cars got stuck on the hairpins on the W side. Only way up on a bicycle was to sprint the steepest bits, otherwise it was tip up or lose traction.
I'd be as old as you...
I happen to know Morthoe very well. Which caravan are you in?
Me being 6ft, and the Mini bonnet not terribly long, at least I didn't have _that_ problem!
Andy
Or a bit closer:
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literally 'no external power'.
The Folkestone one has to (had to - I think it's closed) have the water pumped back up to the top for re-use.
The L & L one has a licence to abstract water, and chucks it away after it gets to the bottom.
What about the one at Machynlleth? Or is there lectrickery operating valves?
Other than that obtained by reducing the gravitational potential energy of thousands of gallons of water ..
OK, but it'd be going down there anyway...and there is no monetary cost at all.
Indeed. Just diverting the water that was going downhill anyway.
We also went to a working water mill. Incredibly efficient, much better that those windmills. Wonder why we don't use more local hydro electric schemes?
Yep 5% is incredible. Really.
Because they are as crap as windmills?
Sometimes I used to go to the Lakes purely for the roads. I remember nuking the brakes in the Rover with two heavy bastards in the back :-) (can't remember which downhill that was now, although it wasn't Hardknott or Wrynose).
Doesn't one of them have a sign along the lines of it being strongly recommended that cyclists get off and walk?
cheers
Jules
It was the Struggle from Kirkstone to Ambleside that caught me out, had the brakes smoking on a new Avenger and they just gave up any retardation.
AJH
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:
Err, no. I had charge of a watermill a few years back and basically it would have been simpler and cheaper to hoik a genset in than try to harvest usable power from the bloody thing. For some applications, in some circumstances, the generated mill power is usable - for heating, etc. Not really much good for proper mains, not without a deal of expensive engineering.
Hydro schemes need a big setup to work properly.
I can just remember as a toddler going over the Devil's Elbow in a pre-war Morris 8. It wouldn't make it in 1st, so my father reversed up it. The road layout was changed not long afterwards so the worst part was not so steep. The old one got very close to 1 in 1.
Not that I'm saying it's efficient, but Rudyard Kipling put in a genset in a tiny water mill in about 1903 or so. It was either the wheel or the genset - not enough water for both. The wheel still runs and the genset has been restored.
Someone has to ask, so I'll do it. How does 700 gallons get into both tanks using no power at all? ;) I'll get me coat.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bob Eager saying something like:
from a mill wheel. Kipling's, I'll bet, had a feeder pipe from further up the river and providing decent head to turn his turban. I stayed at an estate in the Borders that had the first home electrics in the area - circa 1900 or so. The old pipery was still there and turban house down the bottom, but the high end of the intake pipe was several hundred yards up the hill, having its own mini reservoir. There was a mill too, but that had been ignored - quite possibly because it was in use at the time and needed.
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