The Life On Cars MGB GT: it's finally ready!

A CHAP in a very clean MK3 Cortina - better known as the star of time-travelling cop show Life On Mars - pulled up alongside me and was the first to ask the question.

Was this, the car I was filling up at my local branch of Esso, the MGB he'd read so much about in The Champion? Could the 1972 GT finally be ready, taxed, insured and MOT'd?

I could barely contain the smile. Yes, it's finally ready, it's on the road, and I can finally say what I think of it. Maybe it's just the sunny weather that's graced Southport for the last few days, but it's brilliant.

As a car it's got a completely different character to the Minis and hot hatches I'm used to; whereas they're permenantly fast-paced and frantic in everything they do, the low-slung B's a lazy, lusty old thing which is does few things better than burbling down the country lanes, taking it easy. It can go fast, but it'd really rather you didn't.

Nor is it, as the pictures above show, exactly a concours example of MG's biggest hit but the punters at the country pub I pulled into didn't seem to care. For all the not-quite-there cosmetics (which I've got plans for, don't worry), what was being paraded in front of them was a delicately proportioned, traditionalist sports car in a sunny colour scheme. The open-top Astra parked next to it didn't stand a chance.

The credit for all this has to go to my dad, who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get the B back on the road, doing all sorts of James May-esque mechanical things which I don't really understand. Naturally, he'd like the favour paying back in pints.

I wonder if Adnams will let me open a credit line with them?

BOON SIEW HONDA MALAYSIA LAUNCHES 110CC WAVE

Syarikat motosikal Boon Siew Honda Malaysia telah melancarkan model terbaru mereka iaitu sebuah motosikal kapcai Honda Wave dengan CC sebanyak 110. Walaubagaimanapun, keluaran ini bukanlah untuk menggantikan motosikal Honda paling laris di Malaysia iaitu Honda EX5.

Dengan keupayaan enjin sebanyak 109.1 cc, ia mempunyai gear empat lejang. Mungkin keluaran kali ini mampu menyaingi produk Yamaha 4 lejang nya yang hangat sekarang ini iaitu Yamaha LC.

Honda Wave 110cc ini boleh didapati dipasaran Malaysia pada harga sekitar RM 4,998 hingga RM 5,268. Anda boleh dapatkan motosikal ini di cawangan-cawangan Boon Siew di seluruh Malaysia pada 15 May ini. Sekian...

#30DaysofBiking: Here, Now

Today marks the 30th day of the #30daysofbiking. Imposing a constraint, like riding every day or pledging to post a daily blog entry and picture, imposes a certain structure. These are not epic journeys or novel-length meditations on the meaning of travel.

I have made something in these past thirty days, something that a GPS would render as a series of small squiggles, never moving farther than 18 miles from a spot in a valley, at the base of some mountain, with a lake to the north. The map calls that dot Issaquah. I call it home.

Add up all the squiggly lines and the number in miles in this month and call it 257. Measure it in terms of speed and you find a lot more stopping than going, a lot more "hey look at this" than "hey let's go there." What I stop to photograph or remember is probably not the same as what someone else would notice, even if that someone else is me and the day is tomorrow or yesterday. But here, now, it's the me that's here and now.

And so I roll and stop and take some pictures.

Tomorrow is another day, another month. Tomorrow will be different but today I do not know what that difference will be.

Today I ride my bike, take my pictures and post this very small story.

Tomorrow I will find out what tomorrow is.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Audi TT with R8 Look-alike Bodykit

To those who have an Audi TT and wants something resembling an Audi R8 supercar, a few tuning and bodykit companies has modeled a kit that consists of various configurations ranging from exterior down to the light and exhaust setup.

Caractere - Audi TT 8J Bodykit

TT with Audi R8 Kit

Above, Audi TT, below R8

Above Audi TT, below: Audi R8

 Niche Audi TT - R8 bodykit

#30DaysofBiking: Will You Ride With Sophie?

I'm headed out soon to do my daily ride. Today I'm going to the bank and the grocery store because I need money & groceries (duh!). Since this is part of the 30 days of biking, I'll take my camera since I've been documenting each day's ride. Maybe I'll see something cool but it probably won't be as cool as this awesome campaign that the Cascade Bicycle Club just launched. Check it out at:

http://www.cascade.org/sophie/

Huge kudos to the folks at Cascade for coming up with and creating the "Will You Ride With Sophie?" video. It is brilliant and the "your movement is our movement" tagline is also spot on. It's fun, it's positive, it's joyful. It's positively joyful!

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

The stokes croft bike lane: a new record!

You won't be seeing our white van today, as the team is all at home watching TV. Well, watching adult videos while drinking red bull and vodka, but it fits in with the day. However we do welcome contributions, as usual to bristol.traffic at gmail dot com.

Today we have received some lovely photos of what's happening down in Stokes Croft, showing that the police have finally stepped in and set a record for the number of vehicles that can park in a bike lane! We see you, Aberdeen Cars,


and raise you eight police vans!


We also have proof that Welsh vehicles are exempt from one way signs.



There, how you deal with that, friends of the north?

update: Gamu asked why we hadn't included the registration numbers. An error of omission, due to the rush to get this out. Here are the two from the photos: CN59DVO WX08DHE. As they say, Whose police state? Our police state!

Transport Congestion is a Hot Topic in Election

Yes. Yes it is. Yes it is it is it is.

Congratulations to our local newspaper of record, the ancient and venerable Press and Journal, for the headline:

Transport and congestion on the route north is a hot topic on the doorsteps

In a long and rambling piece which mostly covers the all-very-boring changes to the constituency boundaries in the upcoming Hollyrood election and how they affect the seat of South Aberdeen and North Kindardine, the article goes on to mention "local issues including transport" just the once in the entirety of its 1050 words. There is just one mention of congestion and, indeed, it is reported that "campaigners from all parties have also called for improvements to public transport for commuters in the shire, including better rail services for the towns of Portlethen and Newtonhill." Ugh. What's wrong with these people?

So well done to the P&J for hiding this upsetting truth behind a banner headline which appears to put cars centre-stage. As busy important drivers of Aberdeen Cars, for whom the building of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route bypass is the number one life-aim, we applaud this.

Our number two life aim is to save the Denburn Dual Carriageway. Support our campaign to Save the Denburn Dual Carriageway. 'Like' us on FaceBook, 'Follow' us on Twitter.

#30DaysofBiking: Urbana, Hauler of Maps

I had a U.S. Bike Routes meeting this afternoon with my friends Barb and Louise at the Bicycle Alliance in Seattle so I rode the Urbana into Seattle. One of the things I do in my various bike advocate roles is give various people King County bike maps, so I took advantage of the hauling capacity of the Urbana to lug 300 bike maps back to Issaquah. When I got home, I weighed the two boxes. It turns out 300 bike maps weigh about 34 pounds. I guess that explains why it took longer to get back to Issaquah than it did to ride to Seattle.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

The stokes croft "strip", mostly normal

Two police walking down to Slix in daylight hours, no minicab outside it. Unusual.

The Banksy posting now taking on more relevance.

Ritas is undamaged -happily- but again, no minicab outside in the bike lane.

And what's this, a pickup with the driver being talked to by the police, while Chris Chalkley of the People's Republic of Stokes Croft loiters in the background.

The police were just talking, there's no need to worry about this piece of treasured parking area being taken from us tax payers as part of a Cycling City-funded attack on our rights.  Behind this scene -nine tree hill- which now has a lot of broken glass on it.

Chris of the PRSC said they are looking for people to collect money for all the damaged shops other than Tesco -anyone who has time can get down there, pick up the collection tin and start collecting. Whenever someone is asked -they make their excuses and leave.

We made our excuses and left.

Lotus takes on Lotus in world's most confusing car deal

THE Lotus vs Lotus rivalry that's hit racetracks around the world in perhaps the most confusing F1 name dispute ever has hit the road.

Anyone who's been following this year's F1 season will already know that thanks to some incredibly boring business tubthumping that Team Lotus, owner of one of the sport's most iconic names, is in direct competition with Lotus Renault, which is actually backed by the Brit sports car maker. All of which means that spectators at Silverstone in July can see, probably for the only time, two completely different cars from two completely different Lotus teams, which are both powered by Renault engines. Confused? Then you're going love the story's latest twist.

The first Lotus team, the one that isn't backed by Lotus, the car maker, has just announced that it's bought Caterham Cars, makers of the iconic Caterham 7 sports car, which is of course directly descended from the - wait for it - Lotus 7 of the Sixties.

Anyone who's ever seen not-at-all-kitsch Sixties TV hit The Prisoner will already know the original Lotus 7 as that dinky little two-seater Patrick McGoohan drove around in before being kidnapped and sent to a strange village which looks suspiciously like Portmeirion in North Wales. Lotus made it right up until 1973 before getting bored with it, and flogging the rights to what was then one their main dealers in Caterham, Surrey. The rebranded Caterham 7, thanks to constant redevelopment, has been a hit ever since.

Naturally, the company's new owners have decided to play up their motorsport links and immediately placed a Caterham in Team Lotus colours next to their F1 car, a move so evocative that they immediately decided to follow this up by offering customers a limited run of Team Lotus Special Edition Caterham 7s.

So what we've now got is a Lotus-designed, Lotus-coloured car made by a company now owned by a Team Lotus which will compete directly for your sports car cash this summer with the Elise, a Lotus-designed, Lotus-badged car made by Lotus, another car company which has given its support to another F1 team called Lotus.

Where will it all end? Probably, I imagine, in a high-flying court case, although if Lotus loses we could end up with the even weirder situation where Caterham is renamed Team Lotus Cars, and the choice of car for anyone keen on their driving boils down to whether you want a Lotus or a Lotus.

My head hurts. I may have to adopt the Lotus position to relax.

Chineese Grand Prix 2011

 751

 acrylic on paper 7x12"

not only did Lewis hamilton and Mclaren win the Chinees Grand Prix....

they beat Vettel and Red Bull!!

Urban Realists vs. Urban Intellectuals

An informant has passed us a couple of links to PDF reports on the Aberdeen City Council website from which we can infer the institution of a bizarre anti-car-ownership policy by our council.

http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=12635
http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=10028

The texts refer to the setting up of a so-called "car club" in Aberdeen. Not only will the vehicles for this weird "car-sharing" (eh?) scheme sit dog-in-a-manger like on the street in parking spaces which should by rights be the preserve of proper motorists who own their own cars and pay road tax, but these "car club" motors will be made available to non-car owners! Indeed, it is expected that existing car owners who join "car club" will give up car ownership! Honestly! You couldn't make this stuff up!

From one of the council reports:

Broadly speaking, a car club is an organisation that owns or leases, and maintains, a fleet of cars from which its members can book a vehicle whenever they need it. The club pays for tax, insurance, servicing, cleaning and fuel, whereas members pay a joining fee and a subsequent fee for each journey made. 48 cities or towns in the UK (including London of course) currently operate successful car clubs. The concept has only failed once, in Liverpool, because of vandalism in poorly lit areas. Studies by Carplus, a national charity supporting responsible car use, have shown that 10% of car club members will give up owning a car or sell a second family car or defer owning a car in the first place. Typically, this results in ten vehicles slipping off the radar for each car club vehicle. The environmental benefits are evident, and individuals are encouraged to consider more closely whether they really need a car, or (more likely) whether they really need a second one.

Clearly this plan is a “green” initiative – dreamed up by politicians and “urban intellectuals” – to reduce the number of cars in the city centre by trying to persuade people that they don’t need cars. Hahahahahaha!

From an urban realist’s perspective, this initiative will have little effect on city centre traffic which has become a problem as a result of poor planning: over the last 30+ years, developers have over-developed city centre sites by being allowed to “buyout” the lack of parking.

The motor car has been around for more than 100 years. It is quite unacceptable for the Council to be treating city centre residents and visitors as pariahs for daring to own cars. What these "urban intellectuals" fail to realise is that we urban realists represent the majority of people in Aberdeen who aspire to the convenience of personal motor transport, pay dearly for the privilege, provide much employment, contribute greatly in taxes, and then people like the "urban intellectuals" expect them to ‘leave the car at home’, while their money is spent creating cycle lanes and the like for freeloading cyclists, pavements and the like for freeloading pedestrians and parking bays and the like for freeloading car-club members.

For this reason car club will fail in Aberdeen.

Stokes Croft "gate" -back to normal

A few minutes at the Stokes Croft/Ashley Road junction shows it is quiet there.

A van sits half over the ASL, waiting for the lights to change

Two cyclists wait to turn right, above them the "Think Local" graffiti

When the lights change, someone drives into that ASL

The only hint of recent troubles is this sign on the pedestrian crossing.

Incidentally, some press coverage likened the area to "Camden". This is ridiculous: Camden is about the same size as NW Bristol, includes Hampstead and its Heath (local version: Clifton and the Downs), as well as places like Camden High Street, Gospel Oak, Kentish Town, even the University of London area.

A more accurate description of the area would be a main road that has some areas that went upmarket so long ago that most people have forgotten when they weren't (Kingsdown, Cotham), some areas that are undergoing more recent change (Montpelier) and some areas that have a long cultural identity based on ethnic diversity -but a culture that is itself at risk from ongoing gentrification. The street itself is a mix of classic local venues (Slix and Ritas) as well as new places (the Canteen), leading to diverse options of an evening. Even we, the 'traffic van drivers, like to walk around there, eating our cheese chips while skimpily-dressed working ladies ask us if we have a light.

For London-based reporters, an equivalent in Camden would be something like Edgware Road, with St Pauls being replaced by Notting Hill & Portobello Road; Kingsdown and Cotham by the Abbey Road area. Kilburn and Cricklewood would represent the areas further up the A38 -Gloucester Road and Horfield respectively, though these areas lack the ethnic diversity of NW London, where the older Irish and Caribbean areas have merged with the new immigrants to produce a dialect and culture all of their own.

#30DaysofBiking: Urbana, Eater of Potholes

The single best word to describe the Urbana is "tough". This isn't a bike you pamper, this is a bike you use. The big tires handle smooth pavement, rough pavement or no pavement with casual indifference. In rain & mud, the bike keeps going. With a big load on the back the bike handles basically the same as it does unloaded. In weeks of riding, I've never had to adjust the brakes or the shifting. This is a bike you just hop on and ride.

The 26*2.6" Niddepoule tires are the key to this bike, it was designed with the clearances needed to handle such big tires and fenders. When my friend Hughie rode the bike he commented that it "rode like a 29er!" Indeed those massive tires make the Urbana eat up terrain in much the same way a 29 inch wheeled mountain bike does. In fact, the tires on the Urbana are even fatter than those on my Octocog. And the Urbana is just as tough (possibly tougher) than any mountain bike I've ridden.

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Stokes Croft: Picton Street is normal

There's some paint on the road at the Stokes Croft/Ashley Road junction

The Bristolian Cafe is offering special "Riot Fry-Ups"

Claims were made in the press that people had been digging up cobbles and throwing them, but the only cobbled street we know of nearby -Picton Lane (good secret parking, BTW), is unchanged, except there is now a security person sitting in the sun at the back of the mini-Tescos (not photographed).

The local stores have a police car blocking the usual staff range-rover parking

but as there is still some spare yellow line space, this is not an issue.

Again: normality.

NEW 2012 VOLVO S60 R-DESIGN - 325 hp !!!

The 2012 Volvo S60 R-Design will get a significant horsepower and torque increase when it goes on sale later this year. Volvo’s T6 engine, a turbocharged inline six, will now produce 325 hp and 480 Nm, up from the standard 304 hp/440 Nm.

Volvo’s most dynamic model ever will also get a strut brace under the hood to stiffen up the body structure and improve steering response. At the rear, the R-Design features monotube dampers. Unlike the twin-tube dampers used in the T6, the monotube system features compression and return damping via the same valve, giving shorter and faster fluid flow. This translates to quicker response.

Looks wise, the R-Design will get a redesigned lower front fascia with a grille painted in glossy black, 90 mm twin pipes, exclusive 18-inch diamond cut wheels, rear trunk spoiler, standard Dual Xenons with Active Bending Lights and a special colour – Passion Red.

Inside, a number of new features help to further differentiate the R-Design. The front sports seats get new seat cushion with deeper side bolsters. The upholstery will be offered in off-black leather with contrasting stitch and a textured leather accent with embossed R-Design logo across the backrests. The dash also features a sport steering wheel with R-Design logo, gear selector, sports pedals, floor mats and a blue instruments.

The springs have been shortened by 15 mm to give the car more visual attitude. Spring stiffness is 15% higher compared to the dynamic chassis in the S60 T6, while the bushings with which the rear dampers are attached to the body are 20% stiffer. The front tie-blade bushing is a massive 400% stiffer than before to counteract wheel bouncing and shaking.

As with the T6, the R-Design will have Volvo’s electronically controlled AWD system with Instant Traction and Corner Traction Control with torque vectoring, as well as safety highlights such as Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake.