Interest in Landy Rally 2011

Count me in!!! Talked to Tom yesterday and the application form and cheque will be on their way monday. WOOHOO.

Hi FB, good to have you join us, but before you finally decide, the dates for LR`11 still have to be established. It's looking increasingly as though they will be ...

Tuesday 13th September to Wednesday 21st September 2011.

Still 11 countries in 9 days, only a little less mileage as the finish won't be in Calais, it will be PARIS!!!

This has a number of advantages:-

a) It would solve the problem of that long horrible last-day drive from the Dordogne all the way back up to Calais.

b) It would allow teams to spend a day or two in Gay Paris.

c) It would be better for those who need to get back for the weekend (i.e. Chefs).

d) After 9 days of intense action, it would allow teams to get back and recharge their batteries before work the following Monday.

e) Bearing in mind I want to get more foreign teams involved in LR`11, it would allow teams from the Continent a chance to return home with a little less mileage to undertake. Driving a 1,000 km back from Calais to ???????? can't be appealing!

f) It would allow traders/party animals the opportunity to attend the LRO Show at Peterborough (pre-event) and Abingdon 4x4 Festival (post-event).

What say you ... appealing or what?

Sounds great to me, time off is not an issue as work are one of my sponsors (hopefully). At least we eill be in the right type of car for the loony parisian driver to take on.

We,ve talked this over Tom. It is for us a perfect date. Nice place to end the Rally. Paris is perfect for party.

Welcome on board team Fukinbroken. You will have fun

TeamFukenbroken wrote:

Sounds great to me, time off is not an issue as work are one of my sponsors (hopefully). At least we eill be in the right type of car for the loony parisian driver to take on.

You said it, that roundabout at the The Arc de Triomphe is something else. Never mind bull bars, girders would be more appropriate. Could be lively!

We once tried Paris ring road on the way back in 2007 ! It was worse than the Italian Auto strada in 2008 !

Before you ask Tom one of the teams in our group had a problem and decided to set the sat nav for the shortest way home from somewhere north of Poitiers !

That aside it sounds like fun.

Lenny and the Eifel Tower !

As there's only Roadrunners that had done the rally before I have to say that the food at this years prize giving at Le Sybillien was far far better than what was served up at Cafe de Paris.

Anyway Tom can you guess which will be my favourite photo from this years rally ?

Welcome on board FB I'm sure you will enjoy the rally. BTW is your team name an indication of something about your vehicle ? We always have something that needs doing on one of the vehicles ! For Example at the moment Exhaust on Pinky and engine in the frontera and handbrake on Lenny !

Thankyou for the welcomes guys, did someone mention food? I made a promo LandyRally biscuit yesterday out of a digestive and a tube of red squirty icing.
My team name is anglo saxon for inoperative and also something said everytime I get back from laning on a Sunday afternoon. E.g "James! get your car out of the river now, that cv sounds fukenbroken"
Edna (proposed LR vehicle) is due to be taken apart again this week for the new axle,HD steering bars, winch, split charge system, front and rear dislocation thingies and a set of mach 5's with 285/75/16 bfg km2's. I still have loads to do after that. one thing a landrover isn't and thats finished.

How many toys in the shed sylvia? Im struggling with 1.

Jay

Hi Jay,

You wouldn't believe the state of our drive !
Keith (husband) and I have a 1993 discovery (aka Lenny), Marc (crazy~johno and eldest son) drives a Frontera but the engine is being rebuilt at the moment and Kieran (youngest son) has a 1987 LR 90 aka Pinky. He is also rebuilding a 1972 ambulance along with his friend James who also drives a 110. Oh yes and we seem to have an abandoned Range Rover on the drive whose engine bay needs a lot of TLC !

And if thats not enough we have a 1991 Chevy day van as well !

There's always something that needs doing round here !

Hope to see you around at one of the shows.

Dates sound good Tom, but I am very concerned about you at the moment. It appears that you are listening to people AND taking notice of them!!

White coats are just around the corner!

Tom,

Whilst in listening mode I know of some people who said they would like to do the rally again but are allergic to camping ! Will there be alternative accomodation near by ? If these people wanted it ?

I guess from my comments you will know who I mean !

9 times out of 10 there is usually a hotel within the vicinity. Camping is okay, but I readily accept that if you have a bad back or irrational fear of creepy crawlies, tents are not the ideal form of overnight accommodation. Besides, publishing the campsites pre-event mean that it's possible for anyone to find a nearby hotel through the internet.

Dirty Weekenders for instance would take up the hotel option.

Captain Chaos, you're not the only one who's getting concerned. Me listening to other people's opinions!!! Whatever next, roadbooks they can actually follow? Slippery slope if you ask me.

Just a thought, I loved the Suzy's photo in front of the Eifel Tower but I think it is one of those "dead of night" type experiences - right place right time etc. Generally I wouldn't have thought that Paris was a good stopover for Landy Rally - no mountains, no offroading and crucially no campsites. Wouldn't a better finish point be somewhere like Le Mans. Not such a long drive, strong motoring link, plenty of countryside and a choice of routes home, Calais, Le Havre etc? Do any of the museums there have a restaurant .....

Le Mans isn't a bad call, although it's a bit further for most folk. Also, I dispute the lack of campsites - I know of a campsite directly alongside the Seine on the Bois de Boulogne only 2 miles from the Eifel Tower! And again, in September it won't be full.

As for the channel ports, Calais/Dunkirk is only 3 hours / 185 miles from Paris, whereas Calais/Dunkirk is more like 4.5 hours and getting on for 300 miles. Big difference for us Brits, even worse for the Dutch.

I tell you, Paris would make a great finish as it's guaranteed a lot of teams would relish the thought of tacking on an extra day to visit the sights. Talking of "seeing the sights", personally I'd prefer to finish in Amsterdam, but that's just me.

If I remember from my driving days, (30+ years ago) thier is a big hill in Pairs, not sure if thier is a track or road to the top but once thier you can see over most of Pairs.

Are you sure you're thinking of Paris, as it's more or less flat? The highest vantage point is Sacré-Coeur on top of Montmartre, and that's more of a mound.

http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/394755

might have been a seinor moment

Campsite at the banks of the Seine sounds nice.
All we need are some Taxibuses to get us in the centre.

By the way, Calais is fairly flat too

Tom Mc wrote:

Hi FB, good to have you join us, but before you finally decide, the dates for LR`11 still have to be established. It's looking increasingly as though they will be ...

Still 11 countries in 9 days, only a little less mileage as the finish won't be in Calais, it will be PARIS!!!

Less mileage.. do me a favour thats like saying finish it in SPAIN... we still all need to get back to Calais for the ferry... it makes no difference... finishing in Paris is just like saying lets extend the rally for a day..

Tom Mc wrote:

I tell you, Paris would make a great finish as it's guaranteed a lot of teams would relish the thought of tacking on an extra day to visit the sights.

Name three !... We all love Paris but after 3000 odd miles in an old 4x4 its not a pleasant journey...It sounds great... but so does lets go from Brighton to Luton and drive through central London for the experience.

Get a newer 4x4! Seriously, I take your point about an extra day, but ...

1. It would make the final day considerably shorter; believe me, plenty of folk though that run from Cadouin to Calais was too much. Me I've always thought - yes it is a pain, but it's dooable + and it's amazing when pushed how much we can do. Let's be honest, sometimes we need 'pushing'. However, it is extremely tiring driving all that way in one hit, Paris would be a lot easier plus late afternoon we would be going against the traffic by heading into Paris Centre.

2. It's okay for you to say "We all love Paris", it's obvious from this you've already been there. Not everybody has, so to them it will be an experience ... especially all that madness of vehicles criss-crossing around the Eifel Tower. How they manage to avoid each other is a sight in itself!!!

3. I want the last landy Rally to be really memorable for folk, so whereas normally everyone melts away the day after prize-giving, I have a sneaky feeling the additional bonus of an extra day out in Paris would be the icing on the cake for many crews.

There's three reasons for you. That said, I can also think of three reasons not to finish in Paris, but hey, no need for negatives - ONE LIFE, LIVE IT!

unless your a cat then is NINE LIVES. LIVE IT

I hope finishing at paris has nothing to do with seeing a lovely 4x4 parked under the eiffel tower at the end off LR2010.....anyway greetings from Florida. After Val dsere i needed somewhere warm. So im now sitting in 30 degress of sunshine here in orlando florida

kieran wrote:

unless your a cat then is NINE LIVES. LIVE IT

just realised that ginger cat on our drive way is going to be harder to kill than i had thought
paris?
calais has worked this many times already surerly once more it'll work?

Rickyd wrote:

I hope finishing at paris has nothing to do with seeing a lovely 4x4 parked under the eiffel tower at the end off LR2010.....anyway greetings from Florida. After Val dsere i needed somewhere warm. So im now sitting in 30 degress of sunshine here in orlando florida

Sod off!!!! Meant in the nicest possible way of course.

Tom Mc wrote:

Rickyd wrote:

Sod off!!!! Meant in the nicest possible way of course.

taken in the nicest possible wayof course

Okay, now I've weighed up the pros and cons, I've come to the following decision.

The dates for LR`11 will be ...

14th - 22nd september 2011

This allows folk who want/need to be at LRO Peterborugh and Abingdon 4x4 Festival a fair chance to be at one or both. It also ensures that those people who work at the weekends now only have to take one weekend off. It allows those from further afield time to get to the start and finish lines.

Importantly, finishing on a Thursday means that on the final day of Landy Rally, we won't be travelling on a Sunday. Whilst Sunday may seem better traffic-wise, this is not so relevant in France as the road system is not so clogged with trucks as in the UK, plus, and this is very important, travelling on a weekday will ensure that shops and businesses are open. Punctures can be repaired, vehicles can be easily fixed, spares can be located. In the past, companies being closed has been a real pain - no more!

The start will once again be ...

Valkenburg, Holland

This worked well - lovely town and a good location that enabled the rally to spend more time in the Pyrenees, the place we all love and want to be.

The finish will once again be ...

Le Sybilien restaurant, Calais

Much as I would like to see something different, the possibility of heavy traffic in and around Paris concerns me. I have seen it before, and been caught in it, and believe me it is not a pleasant feeling sitting in virtual gridlock when you have to be somewhere at a particular time - the prize-giving dinner in this instance. Besides, I have to think of the majority, and the bulk of the entries certainly wouldn't appreciate a lengthy drive the day following prize-giving. Finishing in Calais means we can rise reasonably late (anything's later than 7am!!!) and for those who must return home immediately, jump on a ferry at noon or thereabouts. Also teams from mainland Europe have a chance of making it home in one hit, whereas Paris could prove problematical.

Also, when we finally make it to Calais (like I remarked previously, a pain of a drive it might be, but sometimes we need pushing) as has been remarked upon by several parties, the food at Le Syb was superior to previous years - as was the welcome! Quite frankly, the owners and staff couldn't do enough to help whereas the Cafe de Paris (the finish in previous years) was far too regimented in their approach. The short stagger to the campsite was an added bonus I have to say. I reckon Le Syb deserves another go, I hope you agree.

That's it ... sorted!


I will start a new thread within Landy Rally 2011 to confirm this.