2019, June. More Classic Tours in the DHC

Black Mountains Classic Tour

Immediately after coming home from holidays we had two classic tours booked on consecutive weekends.

The first one was the Black Mountains based at Talgarth in mid Wales.  We have done this one a couple of times before and it is a lovely area.  It is run by Brecon Motor Club who are a long established and hard core rally club so they always put on a good route.

This year the route took us up into the lanes around Builth Wells but before we even reached the morning coffee and biscuits stop our run was over.  I noticed a couple of notchy gearchanges then the clutch pedal went straight to the floor.  A quick check showed a small puddle forming under the clutch slave cylinder and a fluid top up just added to the puddle.  I would have expected some warning of a developing problem, maybe some fluid loss on the garage floor or a poor pedal but didn't get any. I have never carried a spare cylinder so all we could do was to drive the few miles to the coffee stop without a working clutch and then call the breakdown service. Curses.

At least we got one picture of us taken by Chris Huish of Rally Sport Media

before this happened:-

Aquae Sulis Classic Tour

Soon as we got back from the Black Mountains I ordered a new clutch slave which came the next day.  It is an easy job to fit and normal clutch operation was restored.

Aquae Sulis is the Roman name for Bath and the run is organised by Bath Motor Club.  This was a new area for us, taking us down into Somerset and North Dorset.  Start was at a posh golf club in a place called Farrington Gurney, near Midsomer Norton.   The route included a trip down the amazing Cheddar Gorge.  The weather was lovely so we were able to appreciate the full experience of driving the gorge with the roof down. Fantastic.

Cheddar Gorge, we even had some climbers in action.

Somerset seems to have quite a lot of villages so the route was more built up than our usual ones and the traffic was heavier.   Lunch halt was at Montacute House, a lovely old Elizabethan mansion near Yeovil.

Leaving Montacute House after lunch

Finish was at another posh golf club just south of Bath where they gave us a rather nice roast dinner.  It was a nice day out but with the extra traffic we would probably not do this one again.