Range Rover | Moto-Abruzzo

23/01/201628/04/2019

Muddy Chef Challenge 2016

20140508_143707_Richtone(HDR) As some of you may know, I’m not really one for driving our four-wheeled cousins … I didn’t even get a licence for them until quite late, then I tried a variety of styles and performance and came to the conclusion that they just didn’t do it for me – all except the Land Rover / Range Rover. I had so much fun in a slow old clunky Series 3 hand-me-down that I ended up buying the P38 Range Rover primarily for off-road work when here in Italy. Best buy I ever made, smooth and comfortable on the highway and 95% as capable as any standard Defender when off-road ……. and don’t believe all the press bullshit about reliability either! 😉

So when Eric, founder and event director of muddychef.com got in contact regarding a Caponord matter, I was immediately curious about what Muddy Chef is …. well in short, it’s a marriage between Land Rovers and cooking!

(quote) “off-roading and a vehicle based gourmet cooking challenge (think Top Gear meets Top Chef).”

Unfortunately I’m no cook. I can cook, but I just don’t seem to enjoy it – even the BBC’s Hairy Bikers only got 10 minutes of airtime before I changed channel! But I can appreciate good food, especially the time, dedication and skill required to prepare it from the back of a vehicle in the woodlands! I think this meeting of two different interests is fantastic and truly hope the muddychef challenge goes from strength to strength over the coming years. So if you haven’t already clicked the Muddy Chef link to get away from my drivel – do it now!

31/01/201531/01/2015

The Fissure King

Civitaquana, Abruzzo - Cda di Ginestre road (strada) subsidance & landslide What good is a motorbike or a car for that matter, if you don’t have a road to run along?

About 10 days ago Jan and I went to do the weekly shopping and I must admit I was already starting to get a little nervous about movement within the road – In one particular place the Range Rover was beginning to bottom out bodywork even when on its highest suspension settings and the traction control was starting to make itself useful when hauling us up the slope.

The next evening after walking the dogs and eyeing the recent movement and ever bigger crack in the adjacent field, I felt very uneasy …..

….. with the dogs tucked up for the night I grabbed the keys and decided to move the car beyond the bad section. In the end it took 3 attempts to clear it, but the good old Rangey did brilliantly with the traction control working overtime as it clawed its way over. That was it then – no going back. Life would be different for the forseeable future for sure.

That was over a week ago ….. since then the land has moved something like 2m down and 3m sideways with more cracks and fissures appearing across its width, soon the road will have separated completely with a section about 30m long moving inevitably down into the valley below.

The reality of our predicament is sinking in …. moving anything, shopping, gas cylinders, rubbish bags etc has to be carefully thought through. Each item has to be carried by hand over ankle-breaking terrain up (or down depending on which way you’re going!) a 200m stretch of steep road that is changing every 24hrs.

The fact is, this road doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to the Comune (Council) and as such they have responsibility over it. It’s not like this problem is new either, in fact we were promised it would be repaired and resurfaced throughout 2014, it wasn’t and now the problem is a magnitude worse. Unfortunately all I can say is we’re disheartened by the lack of response to our emails and phone calls for assistance over the past week.

So until something spectacular happens it gives me time to dream up new and novel ways to free the Capo from its incarceration …… zip wire over the valley, kids balloons tied together (I’ve seen ‘UP’) or turn it into an X-2 Skycycle and fly the bugger out!

Anyway until then, chin up ….. and do what Brits do best in a crisis

KEEP CALM AND DRINK MORE TEA!

29/11/201329/11/2013

….and winter hasn’t started yet!

Now I’m not a superstitious fella, but 2013 is certainly making its presence know as it drags out its final days. First we have typical warm autumnal weather, rather rudely pushed aside in favour of a month’s rain in two days courtesy of ‘Cyclone Venus’. A couple of days respite and ‘Cyclone Attilla’ barged in …… lowering temperatures and dumping 2ft (600mm) of soggy wet snow everywhere. By now our road is well and truly battered. Run-off and landslides have seen three sections obliterated and turned into mud-holes fit for a fully grown hippo! The trees haven’t fared much better either, the wet snow has devestated the olive groves, ripping branches from mature trees and bending the young until their trunks snap …… what a waste.

Has it finished? Not on your proverbial nelly …… now we’re waiting for ‘Cyclone Neptune’ to wander over on Monday/Tuesday and dump another months rain. So the Capo sits rather forlorn in the barn while I favour the warmth of the Landy ( soz old girl!), but an extended lay-up may be just what’s needed. I could get the crashbars and sundry brackets sent away for powder coating and take time out to give the wheels a damn good clean…..hmm. Something about clouds and silver linings comes to mind! 😉

31/05/201326/05/2016

Someone watching over us……

Jan and I took a run up to Mosciano Sant’Angelo in the Range Rover today and everything was peachy until the run back down the Autostrada. There’s a long, tight, right hand bend as you pass the Città Sant’Angelo junction and we’re sailing a touch north of the 130Km/hr limit, but no sweat, I’ve run this bend hundreds of times at this speed and the Rangey handles it just fine.

Until a near-side tyre catastrophically fails mid corner that is.

Range Rovers are tall old beasts and have to be eased into any manoeuvre, you can’t just throw them around will-nilly or the whole thing starts to sway and roll like a drunk elephant. A flat tyre on a sharp bend certainly qualifies as a destabilising influence! How we didn’t roll I don’t know. But it was close and I mean pit-of-the-stomach close.

21/01/201226/05/2016

A mouse in the works

What with the mild winter and the vastly improved road surface, I’ve been lucky enough Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid good times! to use the Capo far more than previous winters. That has meant the Range Rover languishing in the corner. And that has been the cause of yet more trouble.

One man’s car is another mouse’s home, especially when it sits day-after-day slowly dropping to its bump-stops and enticing grass and weeds to grow through the wheels. So muncher-mouse duly set up home under the battery compartment lid and made a comfy nest – from the bonnet liner, cable insulation and some hoses!

The car still started and ran, but what a mess! So I served the little darling an eviction notice (waved a big fluffy chicken!) and took stock of the damage. All this meant a trip to town for spares, so on an obscenely sunny afternoon, I took the Capo for a whiz around Pescara.

Long-story-short, I got the bits I needed AND luck would have it, I got the last bit of aluminium chequer-plate (on sale!!) to finish off the capo pannier lid modifications I started a couple of years ago. I already had the marine grade stainless steel tie-down points and hardware on the shelf, but the plate just seemed to get forgotten each time we’d been in-store.

So the Range Rover got shiny new cables and pipes and the Capo got the topbox make-over I’d waited aeons to get around too. All-in-all, a tidy result.

Oh and the mouse? Last I heard it was doing impressions of a dog whistle at Mouseville!