Another solo trip into Europe.

[br d]

Funny you should say about the beer bottle, took this a couple of hours ago before I left to watch the match:



I'm sitting in a bar in Hammelburg that has no WiFi and terrible mobile coverage waiting for the England Iceland game. I will keep trying to update and reply to some of your thoughts but it is really up and down in here so not sure if I'll get a connection.

Plus I'm going to be drunk shortly and I'll probably forget I'm even doing this blog.

[g3org3y]

Great write up/pics, thanks for sharing.

Car looks very shiny. Good effort buffing that AutoGlym.

[TR4man]

This is such a good read that I'm devouring everything you've written despite the footy being on.

[CoastalHawk]

Brilliant! Please keep it coming!

[Vroom101]

br d said:

I've been doing a lot more lifting than I normally do on this break and I've noticed my man boobs have become little pointy tits.

So apparently I now have the body of a 13 year old girl with a beer gut.

I am sitting here literally wiping away tears of laughter reading your posts! I'll have to find the threads of your other trips.

See from your previous threads you are in Essex - I'll keep an eye out for your McLaren. Lovely car.

[limpsfield]

Remember your Lambos travels and enjoying this brd

[Artey]

br d said:

I saw some brilliant driving. Two estates (Merc and Audi I think) came barrelling passed, they must have been doing 130 and pretty close together when a much slower car ahead moved into the fast lane. They both just instantly switched into the middle, passed him and then moved back out again, didn't even dab the brakes.

I presume the Germans really are ubermensch because Brake are very clear that if you drive at 80mph you'll be killing children with every mile, I really can't imagine how hundreds of thousands of Germans can drive like this without decimating their population.

Can only be magic.

That's what I love about driving in Germany. Nothing better than storming down an Autobahn in 3/4 car convoy doing 120+ mph with everyone including slower traffic being respectful and aware of eachother.

[br d]

We're out.
Disaster.

[drivin_me_nuts]

Enjoy your beer you funny bugger.

[Cfnteabag]

br d said:

We're out.
Disaster.

Not this bloody Brexit again surely!.😜

[Boshly]

Have fun me ole mucker! Sounds like you're cillin' nicely.

One of the most memorable days of my life was sitting in a quiet hotel sauna in Germany when an all female aerobics class finished and they all came into the spa ...... nak'd



PS you should have borrowed my car

[br d]

Well I had plans to do a video today.
"Hi!"
"I'm Brad!"
"This is a German dog turd I just trod in!"

It's pissing down today though so that's out.

On my interminable bike ride yesterday I came across a lovely single track road running flat over some high fields. It was an access road for farm vehicles and just petered out into a muddy footpath so nothing using it.
You could see up the thing for miles and it was lovely and smooth.
I was going to find some way of fixing the phone to the car grill and do some launch control starts which I've never done in this car before.

Probably would have turned out crap anyway.

AndrewEH1 said:

As an aside I'm guessing English fluency in even rural Germany is embarrassingly good?

Very good Andrew. And people always say "I'm afraid my English is not good" and then speak it perfectly. I really must make more effort with French and German.

Allyc85 said:

Cheers for the update, I often travel alone and there's only 2 things that bother me about it, and they are eating out and people asking why I'm travelling alone. Personally I like the freedom and being able to go where I want, when I want. I can also only blame myself on the rare occasion things go wrong!

Yeah solo trips are great.
I do love going away with my other half (we did a brilliant Road trip together last year) but I also like the freedom of being on my own. If I don't feel like doing something then I don't, it's that easy. I'm also happy with my own company, I love to chat to people and stuff but if I'm just sitting on my own having a beer then I'm fine with that too.

What sort of trips do you do solo Ally?

[br d]

e12mat said:

Just a quick question, without a doubt the 650s is a capable car but do you miss the tingly magic of the Lamborghini at full chat?

Oh yes! That Lambo howl bouncing back at you as you hurtle down a forest road is impossible to beat!

People tell me that they can hear the McLaren coming from far off but inside the cabin it's pretty subdued compared to the Italian stuff, and I have the sports exhaust.

Boshly said:

Have fun me ole mucker! Sounds like you're cillin' nicely.

One of the most memorable days of my life was sitting in a quiet hotel sauna in Germany when an all female aerobics class finished and they all came into the spa ...... nak'd



PS you should have borrowed my car

Yeah, next time!
You do adjust quickly to it though don't you? I don't even think about it now, straight off the train straight into 'other side' mode.
Funny enough when I went out biking yesterday I completely forgot, rode about 3 miles on the wrong side of the road, scared the life out of me when a car came flying up!

I'm well over the sauna thing now!
It's just like the changing room in a gym except there are naked women walking about, once you get that right in your head it's no big deal.
I was quite blasé about the whole thing in the end, walking about with the towel over my shoulder.
"Hallo!"
"Guten tag!"

It's not like anybody is staring at your cock.

One thing you have to resist though is doing that typical British bloke thing where you keep touching it and shifting stuff about to get more comfortable. That wouldn't go down well sitting next to the women in the Solarium!

[br d]

The Crack Fox said:

How does the McLaren compare to other stuff you've owned? What would you change about it?

It's tricky to be entirely objective about Supercars, it's too easy to get caught up in hype of the things.

Tbh I'm really struggling to think of anything I'd change about the 650S.
I'm sure it's not perfect but I don't know how it could be improved, looks wise I suppose, a lot of people think it's ugly. The exhaust could make a better noise but that really doesn't detract from the experience.

It really does do everything well.
It's very comfortable for long trips, really easy to punt about in town, has all the clever gadgets, handles better than anything else I've driven and is massively, stupendously fast!
That's the thing that grabs you every time, it's just silly quick.

I've owned a succession of fast cars and at first you always think "Well I'll never actually use all this power" but after a while you get used to it. You know the places you can max out the car and get through a couple of gears at full throttle, I could do that comfortably in the Lambo at certain times, it was still hugely exhilarating but I could get it on the limit however briefly.

In the McLaren that just isn't going to happen.
I've had it over a year now and driven it a lot but I haven't got anywhere near "maxing it out", I would definitely die if I tried to.
If you floor it in third it just fking leaps at the horizon and you'll be double the speed limit in a couple of breaths.
I know there are lots of PH's who race cars and do a lot of track stuff so they will know where I'm coming from but if you got in this car with no experience of this sort of power and floored it you would be truly shocked. And dead probably.

Frankly I love it, it's completely insane but it would take a far better driver than me to tap all this cars potential.

Yesterday I drove out to another town. The road was fantastic, flat and fast. Like so many roads in Germany and especially France you have open, flat country on either side so you can literally see for miles, you will see any other traffic minutes before you pass it or catch it up and you can see that there are no junctions or unexpected corners. It's all there laid out in front of you.

The locals drive these roads pretty fast because they are so well sighted.
In the McLaren I drove like a fking lunatic.
My OH won't be pleased if she sees this but on these sort of roads the car just becomes a complete animal.
With the punch it has and the perfect grip you just have to hang on for dear life!

I'm not going to talk "leptons" and all that old bks but it's safe to say that at times I was going massively over the speed limit, well past anything even remotely sensible.
But there's nothing to hit, there's no one else for miles! The worst way I'm might head off across a field but the car just fills you with so much confidence losing it doesn't even cross your mind.

It's pretty staggering, to me at least and I really can't imagine needing anything quicker than this. I've said that before but this time it's stuck.
With the way the UK is going anyway fast cars will soon be unusable, I may just keep this thing for good because anything else really isn't going to be any more usable.

I've thought of something that annoys me. It has a digital read out of the gear you are in and a little tiny arrow that comes up when it's time to change up. For some stupid reason they've put the arrow above the number so it's hard to see from a normal driving position. It should be beneath the number.
I wonder if they've sorted that with the new ones?

[br d]

It's a bit of a crappy day here, raining on and off so I don't think I'll be doing anything interesting. Stay in, drink and play guitar!

This nice little 900i was in the car park earlier:



I was out this morning and saw a little monument thing at the side of the road. I pulled up and tried to take a couple of clever, arty pics that you always see in car mags and on the Internet. It never works when I do it, they all look the bloody same!

[Artey]

br d said:

I was out this morning and saw a little monument thing at the side of the road. I pulled up and tried to take a couple of clever, arty pics that you always see in car mags and on the Internet. It never works when I do it, they all look the bloody same!

This is so true... I don't know how they do it!

[GreatGranny]

br d said:

You've cut off the bumper with the plinth on the monument :-)

Apart from that brilliant write up.

Love the car.

Saw an identical one on the way back from the Peaks to Lincolnshire on Sunday morning.
Colour looked stunning.

[br d]

GreatGranny said:

You've cut off the bumper with the plinth on the monument :-)

Oh yeah! Clueless!

[Allyc85]

br d said:

Yeah solo trips are great.
I do love going away with my other half (we did a brilliant Road trip together last year) but I also like the freedom of being on my own. If I don't feel like doing something then I don't, it's that easy. I'm also happy with my own company, I love to chat to people and stuff but if I'm just sitting on my own having a beer then I'm fine with that too.

What sort of trips do you do solo Ally?

I do short fly and drive holidays, generally to the French/Swiss Alps. The plan was to get the Mk5 Golf Gti I always wanted and explore europe in it, but I just never have the money for it. I love the freedom of being able to go where I want, when I want etc, but I really like all the random people I get chatting to, even if there usually is quite a language barrier. On one trip I was on the Sutenpass chatting to a old French guy, who was curious as to what an Englishman was doing on his own in an Italian hire car in Switzerland! All good fun

[br d]

Allyc85 said:

I do short fly and drive holidays, generally to the French/Swiss Alps. The plan was to get the Mk5 Golf Gti I always wanted and explore europe in it, but I just never have the money for it. I love the freedom of being able to go where I want, when I want etc, but I really like all the random people I get chatting to, even if there usually is quite a language barrier. On one trip I was on the Sutenpass chatting to a old French guy, who was curious as to what an Englishman was doing on his own in an Italian hire car in Switzerland! All good fun

Sounds great!
Flying and then hiring is a really good option, I like to take my own cars but that means lots of miles if you want to get down to the Alps or the south of France.

And it is amazing some of the people you end up having a beer with, never gets boring.