Mini or MINI
The history goes right to the end of Rover and then turns into a news site on goings on with SAIC. Anyway, on the site I found this, and I felt sad.
Looks familiar? It was
Rover's replacement for this:
But BMW had a different
idea, which we all know about:
The difference between
them is simple. Rover wanted an economic city car,
and BMW wanted a sports car. Rover wanted something
radical and BMW wanted something pastiche. The last
point is what makes me sad, the question was, should
the mini look like an updated MINI, or should it be a
re-interpretation the ideas and ideals of the Mini?
Well pastiche sells, clearly.
But that Mini prototype was really radical. It had
hydragas suspension, a
sub-floor rear mounted 3 cylinder k-series engine,
rear-wheel drive and 4 seats in the same space as
the old Mini (the new MINI is not really a mini
car). The MINI on the other hand is conventional
and has a brazillian engine. Does the MINI
progress car travel in the way the Mini did back
in the late 50's? Does it address the issues of
today: emmisions, fuel prices, space constraints?
Ah, the witterings of a lefty greeny. But I think
it's a real shame, although at least it's certainly
keeping those Cowley workers in jobs. Ironically, it
is other German cars that do seem to address
the modern agenda, but the Smart is too small and
the A-Class too big. Oh well.
In other news, check out this '86 version of the
Police's 'dont stand so close to me'. I really like
it:
Herring Roe and Chips
http://www.frostsfish.com/roes.htm
Tasted fishy, but I gather it's not meant to be eaten neat. Yuk.
Going to Newcastle (and Simon Reeve)
So, I've a day, Thursday to look at the city. Well, not one to slack about town, I've planned a day of activities (in OmniOutliner, of course!):
▼ Tuesday Evening
• Millennium and Tyne Bridges
▼ Wednesday Night
• Performance at the The Sage Gatehead
▼ Thursday Morning
• Segedenum + Hadrian's Wall
• Laing Gallery
▼ Thursday Afternoon
• Grainger Town and Arcades
• Grey Street
• Castle Keep Museum via St. Nicholas Cathedral
• Baltic and Bridges
• Quayside Art, Bridges and Cafes
I'm quite pleased to have found Segedenum, it should add something different to the trip.
I just finished watching
the excellent Equator on BBC 2. It's
presented by Simon Reeve, who is great on screen,
one of those people who has a permanent smile,
even when grimacing. I just found his web site and he's more than
just a pretty face, he was the first to write a
book about Al Quaeda and he wrote One day in
September, which was made into a film - a prequel of sorts to
the stunning Munich. Check him out (and his
Rapid Weaver designed site - sad that I can tell,
I know).
BoA - other pics
Bradford-on-Avon weekend
You can't actually see my tent in the photo above, but it's to the left of the red tent, which is a Vango TBS Spirit 200+, mine being the Lite version of the same tent. The tent was great, although I only just fit inside. The flysheet is attached to the outershell so it all goes up as one and the tent poles are colour coded. It was really easy both to get up and to get down. The only down side was that the little porch had no floor so my shoes were left on the grass, and of course it's billed as a two man tent. Two lovers maybe. It's also only just long enough for me, my feet reached the end of the flysheet area while my head was at the other end.
Flysheets are great things, you're inside, away from the bugs, but you're outside in the fresh air. The side of the outer didn't actually touch the ground to there was excellent airflow, it was a warm weekend with cold nights, but the tent stayed comfortable the whole time. Once thing I'll need next time I go camping is a better pillow. I have a Vango pillow but it's far too thin for me. I had to use an inflatable neck pillow as a support - not very comfortable. I'll have to save up for a Tempur Travel Pillow. The inflatable ground mat through, very cheap from Decathlon, was very comfy, but then so was the spongy lawn underneath it.
The first evening we went down the the Swan pub in town, these are the first pics in the photo gallery. I met some riders who I discovered later were in tents next to mine. Lots of good Moultoneering talk - it's good to talk to others who 'get it'. I forget all names but one guy had come down from Scotland with his RAC Moulton - that bike had been built as a marketing wheeze, and we heard tales of heroic rides up mountains on two-speeders and the subsequent burning out of the coaster brakes on the way down again. That rider was Josh who rides one of these for his work as a gardener.
Anyway onto the bikes, and so many of them, we counted around 50 F-frames and around 70 X-frames on the Saturday. I saw my first TSR at the sale in the village hall, I don't think there were any TSR campers. They are very nice machines, confirmed when I got to ride a few in the Afternoon.
The Sturmey-Archer model (see above example), I rode a few times. Smoother than I expected, completely silent when riding and very quiet when coasting, I also rode a Rohloff equipped TSR, lighter than I expected and it gave more range, but it also gave less information at the changer, and on the TSR it requires a chain tensioner, ruining the clean look. The best feeling though was changing gear, and the gear just changing, no fussy cog-changing - this was particularly apparent when going up the hill, where I had to gingerly change down on the deraillieur equipped bikes before ascending.
So, I'm sold on the Sturmey gear, but I can't just buy a TSR, I'd need to get a V-braked version to be able to fit my Marathon Plus tyres, and looking at the official mudguards, it's going to be very tight to get it all to fit. The mudguards are designed to cover a 1.5 tyre completely, they look like they are the same 1.75 size as the Marathon Plus. Anyway that's for next year. I also had the pleasure of riding a New Series again, this year the gears were perfect, but I was shocked at how much give there was in the suspension. I had to lock out the front suspension when going up the hill - well, I think you're meant to do that anyway. The bike though was so pretty and so light, only about 7.5 kilos.
Talking about kilos, a funny thing happened in the talk. They did a weigh off between an old Moulton racer and a traditional track racer, the Moulton had beaten the racer in a time trial but the racer was 5lbs lighter. What was odd was they weighed the bikes and gave the weight in pounds. I've no idea really what a pound is, I only know kilos, so I can say the track racer weighed 8.15 kilos and the Moulton, 10.4kg. I wonder if all the Moulton bikes are created in imperial measurements then?
We were told about the time trial which the Moulton had won but also about the weight testing. The original F-frame Moulton was rated to carry 32kg of luggage. We were told how a barrel of cider was carried around on the prototype and how it was also ridden around the rough tracks of Iceland - not something I can imagine someone trying with a New Series.
In the evening we had a barbecue, I cooked some sausages and I was given half a tasty sweet potato. I heard whilst eating that 85% of Moultons are bought by the Japanese - that's quite remarkable, but I suppose as well as the Britishness cult, they also more likely have the saving to pay for one.
And that was it really, there was a ride on Sunday, during which I dried out the flysheet and I packed up, hoping to see the same faces next year.