Club 80-90 Forums

Went out to reccy some lanes for Saturday this evening. Single vehicle with a passenger.
We got stuck!

Spent 10 mins being spotted through deep ruts.
It pissed down, track turned into clay stream. Then, through driver error (me) managed to get wedged sideways in the ruts and buried the exhaust 3 inches into the clay bank.

Engine died, so spent 30 mins digging the bank back with a trowel and unplugging the pipe. Proceeded further up the route and decided it was unpassable. Doh! Had left (sand) ladders at home and felt the verticals were too high to approach without them.

20 minutes reversing in fading daylight. 30 minutes to effect emergency exit through a field. Got home 2 hours late.

On Saturday I'll stick to the easy ones!

Lots of lessons learnt - take 2+ vehicles, walk or know route in advance, take full size spade, give ample time, be grateful for calm and game company, be grateful for get out clause (friend with capable vehicle + winch on standby 1 hr away), be grateful for 24hr supermarket which sold me a beer afterwards. etc etc etc

cheers
p.

Its funny how things can go wrong so quickly isnt it It reminds me of a time Jake Ollie and myself got well stuck on a lane and spet the best part of an hour getting round a tree that grew over the lane. We eventually got round it after Jake split his eyebrow open thinking thank god for that, only to find the banks of the lane had collapsed five minutes up the road so we had to the same maneuver in reverse Great buzz when you get yourself out of trouble though isnt it?







jed

Fair play Patrick to you for doing the ground work.
See you on Saturday.....hope my recovery kit has arrived
Looking forward to a bit of Mendip Magic
Rich

I went out the eve I got the syncro reg in france.. literally 500m from my house down a dark and dingy lane... parked it in a bit set of ruts... went back to fetch the little tractor in a vain hope it would snatch it out... got that stuck........ only took an hour to dig both out in the morn.....
Very steep learning curve....

It was a yingyang route.

The first half of the 1km lane was great. It was marked as an un-classified road, which we blithly assumed would be easier than a byway (homework needed to understand the difference). Nice rocky bumps to descend over, pleasant view, open aspect, paint friendly, high-top friendly.

Transition at valley bottom up other side to dank, low canopy, overgrown, very deep ruts with evidence of vehicles sliding over bank sides as they tip over. Bottomed out several times and scraped mud up using under carriage protection. Had one wheel or another significantly off the ground several times. I reckon it is passable with 2 vehicles with recovery kit, a couple of hours and better preparation. But I don't fancy it in my van again. Was worried when clay plug popped out of exhaust with a big bang.

Huge feeling of relief to escape unscathed. We wish we'd been on holiday so we could fall into a pub, get drunk and laugh about the adventure afterwards. Only now just coming down from the adrenaline high! phew.

Here's the beggar - Inglesbatch to Englishcombe http://www.multimap.com/s/T1K5biHp Its the bit by the spring which broke us.

p.

Single vehicle, not walking the route first... sounds familiar!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhGay0PA4hw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8zlAmI1rXI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMmMb1oO5II

Good job my neighbour has the JCB (& a sense of humour!)

Good on you for doing the recce; but really emphasises the need to walk ahead when it starts to look like its going to bite you; and to be in company wherever possible.

Quite a few lanes on the map round that area; did you get to do any more of them ?