Alaskossie's Big Adventure

[solder_guy]

good grief! glad to hear that he is well and back on the road.

 

I have driven my seven once in the past few weeks due to the heat and humidity and frequent rains here in the south.

 

Rob

[athens7]

If one subscribes to the notion of "the more severe the initiation, the more committed the particpant", then Tom's assembly and break in saga should make him the most fervently dedicated Seven owner alive!

 

Good luck on the rest of your journey, Tom :cheers:

[slomove]

.........Apparently there was a batch of bad wheel bearings and he has replaced both of them.............

 

There are several Caterham owners in SoCal who had wheel bearings go bad but the bearings were not the root cause. A certain batch of hubs were incorrectly machined that did not allow for proper pre-load. Caterham replaced them for free.

[Sean]

It is good to know that Tom is okay. Man, what a journey he is making! I was thinking today that, if he left the Silicon Valley area on Monday or Tuesday, as I believe he did, and averaged 300 miles per day, he would be about half-way home by now. But then I remembered he planned on taking "the scenic route" from SV to Washington, so I guess he is probably somewhere near the U.S./Canada border now (the Southern one!). Dang!

[KiwiBirkin]

So how long is Toms drive and how long will it take him to get to his final destination ??? is anyone able to do a google maps route for me in the Southern Hemisphere so i can fully understand his undertaking.

[Sean]

I only know the basics: He started in Colorado, and went to Los Angeles, Monterey, then a "tour" from there to Washington (state), and on to Anchorage. Just putting Denver, CO>Los Angeles, CA>Monterey, CA>Anchorage, AK into Google Maps yields a distance of 4,510 miles, so I expect his trip will easily cover over 5,000 miles.

 

For a Kiwi-friendly comparison, it is right about 5,500 miles as the proverbial crow flies from Auckland to Tokyo.

[KiwiBirkin]

So thats 8046.72kms thats pretty impressive for Toms first time in his car :auto:

[scannon]

Tom has the trip figured at about 4,800 miles. By now he should be home or close to it. He plans to write up the trip for a Low Flying magazine article.

 

Without knowing his tour route through Oregon and Washington state, this link should give you an idea of the magnitude of this journey.

 

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?1c=Greeley&1s=CO&1y=US&1l=40.423302&1g=-104.708603&1v=CITY&2c=Anchorage&2s=AK&2y=US&2l=61.218102&2g=-149.900299&2v=CITY#b/maps/m:map:3:40.810331:-112.382811::::::1:1:::::::::/l:::Greeley:CO::US:40.423302:-104.708603:city::1:::/l::SR-57+S:::::33.975269:-117.843673:latlng::2:::/l::US-101+N:::::36.658634:-121.62152:latlng::2:::/l:::Anchorage:AK::US:61.218102:-149.900299:city::1:::/io:1:::::f:no:en_US:M::/bl:/e

 

Per Mapquest: Total Travel Estimate: 81 hours 44 minutes / 4673.84 miles Fuel Cost: $571.24 at 25 MPG. I'm sure the Mapquest estimate is for regular fuel. I have to wonder if 91 octane is available all along the route. The car has an 8 gallon tank and he has a four gallon reserve tank in the boot but he has to unpack the boot and pour the reserve into the main tank.

 

Zoom in on the portion through Canada and Alaska and you will see vast areas with no towns or roads other than the road he is on. Tom has driven the route several times in the past so he knows what to expect.

[Kitcat]

Hopefully paved roads?

[jlumba81]

My aunt and uncle w/ my cousin and his new wife just drove from Haines, Alaska to Anchorage, Alaska. If my aunt complained about potholes in a toyota corolla then they're probably big enough to swallow a 7. Apparently the canadian side of the alcan highway is in need of maintance while the US side is in good shape. Last time I drove to Anchorage a few years back the frost heaves were pretty bad on the canada side. Enough to lift you out of your seats when the driver doesn't see them and hits them at 80mph.

[scannon]

Got a call from Tom this AM, he is in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, the last town before he crosses the border into Alaska. He is planning on making it home to Anchorage this evening or tomorrow morning. He has been out of cell phone coverage for the last four days and still is, he called from a pay phone today. He mentioned seeing a sign a few days ago announcing that he was leaving 911 coverage.

 

The trip has been going well except for an incident in Whitehorse yesterday. He was stopped in traffic with nowhere to move to when a 3/4 ton Ford pickup backed out of a parking place and into the ESL. It was a crowned road and the Ford's rear bumper hit the ESL in the bonnet and scuttle. Both pieces will have to be replaced and he doesn't know if there is damage to the structure under the sheet metal. The windshield stanchion was also damaged. He laid on the horn as soon as he saw the backup lights on the truck light up but the driver didn't hear him. The driver admitted to being deaf in his left ear and was very apologetic and concerned. He took Tom to his insurance agent and helped with the paperwork with the police.

 

He reports good road conditions most of the way but the last stretch has been in bad condition, often forcing him to drive on the wrong side of the road and dodging around the worst parts. Sort of like an hours long autocross.

 

No close calls with wildlife on the road but did have a black bear cross a path just in front of him when he was walking back after a soak in a hot springs. He was a bit concerned because a black bear had killed two people at this same resort last year.

 

He has only had to use his spare fuel tank once so far but expects to use it again today. 91 octane has only been available about 1/3 of the time but the car seems to do OK on 87 octane.

 

The scenery has been spectacular and the leaves are already in color and new snow is on the mountains.

 

He sounded upbeat and in good spirit even considering the damage to his car yesterday.

[JohnCh]

Thanks for the update Skip. I've been wondering how it's been going, but knew he didn't have cell or internet access. Really hate to hear about the damage, but sounds like it could have been worse. If Tom was just a couple of feet forward the bumper might have hit him.

 

-John

[scannon]

Just received this from Tom:

 

Good to talk with you this morning. I was out of cell phone coverage for at least 4 days.. That is some remote landscape -- hard to believe it unless you see it yourself.

 

I arrived home about 30 minutes ago, after an all-day drive from Beaver Creek, Yukon (8 am to 9:30 pm -- that's a lot of time in a Tillett). Better roads than yesterday, which were the most unpredictable and evil paved roads I have ever driven on, from Haines Jct. to Beaver Creek, approx. 250 miles.

 

No more mishaps, after the unfortunate incident in Whitehorse, YT yesterday morning. Looks like I'll have some things to keep me busy with the Seven ESL over the winter.

 

More tomorrow.

 

Tom

---------------

13.5 hours in a Tillett seat!!! That has got to earn Tom the Iron Butt award for Se7endom. Glad to hear he made it home safe and sound. I'm sure we'll be hearing some first hand accounts very soon.

[lancylad]

congrats Tom, thats one heck of an adventure. Look foward to all updates and pics .

 

Hope your beautifull machine is back in pristine shape real soon.

[Alaskossie]

Here is a brief update on my recently-completed Colorado-Alaska trip by Seven. Some of this has been reported earlier, by my faithful contact scannon, who I was out of touch with for long stretches where there was no cell-phone coverage.

 

I departed Greeley, Colorado on August 10, 2010, and arrived in Anchorage at 9:30 pm Friday night, August 27, after a long drive from Beaver Creek, YT starting at 8 am on Friday. It was a 581-mile drive, some of it on pretty bad asphalt. That almost equalled my longest one-day drive, 601 miles by Interstate from Salina, Utah to Los Angeles, California, across the Mojave Desert -- that was brutal!

 

Total trip mileage was 6159 miles (9912 km) -- not insignificant, considering that it was all in a Seven.

 

My first day and a half in Colorado was spent driving some of the dream roads that I had always wanted to cover in a Seven -- scannon should know that he lives in some of the best Seven country anywhere. I did six above-timberline alpine passes (Trail Ridge, Berthoud, Loveland, Fremont, Cottonwood, and Monarch Passes) and one long twisty road (north rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison) in one full day, before resigning myself to the Interstates for the rest of the trip to California.

 

i reached Los Angeles in the evening of the 12th of August, in time to meet my two-week-old new grand-daughter Grace for the first time, and to give her dad, my son Brian, his first ride in a Seven, blasting around the Santa Monica streets at night and seeing flames come out of the tailpipe from downshift backfires....I've got to get that muffler changed to something more friendly.....

 

The whole trip was a great experience, punctuated with individual mishaps. My second full day in California day, heading to a Lotus Club breakfast before Saturday's Historic Car Races at Monterey, I lost the right rear wheel bearing (that had apparently been a problem with 2007 Caterhams, but long since fixed on most cars built in 2007 and soon afterward). I didn't lose a day, though, as Rahul (rnr on USA7s) and the local Lotus club put me in touch with a great Lotus mechanic, Rob Dietsch in Santa Clara, who dropped what he was doing and fixed my car with air-freighted parts the next Monday. My wheel-bearing incident could not have happened at a better time and place -- not in the Mojave Desert or on a busy freeway, but amongst Lotus folks who knew just how and where to fix the problem.

 

Right after Monterey, I had the wheel bearing replaced at Rob's shop (and the left side too, just in case). I caught up with my two Seven touring companions John Christianson and Ed Hudson (in a Westfield/Duratec and a Caterham/Vauxhall,respectively) in Gualala, California, after a great solo night-time drive on Highway 1, the legendary Pacific Coast Highway, with no other traffic of any kind on the road (I met four oncoming cars, and caught up with no cars at all) -- probably the greatest 75-mile night-time driving experience of my life. Fog rolling in and out, the Botts dots in the center of the road outlining the next curve, excellent, smooth pavement, lots of variety in curves and dips -- an experience to savor, for sure.

 

Then, the next day, after a hard, hot drive all day on the narrow, twisting, demanding back roads of north-central California at 100 degrees F., I fainted twice from heat exhaustion at our gas stop in Weaverville, CA at 6 pm, and I was taken by paramedics to the local hospital's Emergency Room, where I got 3 litres of fluids by IV, and was released at 10 pm. I slept in the next day, and caught up with John and Ed the next evening in central, Oregon, by taking the Interstate, instead of the planned back roads.

 

They started suffering from what we think was salmonella poisoning from breakfast eggs, and weren't entirely up to par for the rest of the week. I bounced back from the heat (I ran the rest of the way with the bikini top up, and stayed out of the direct sunlight), and had no further health troubles.

 

The three of us drove many great twisty back roads in northern California, Oregon and Washington, through the national forests, and Rainier and North Cascades National Parks, through a week ago Friday.

 

John and Ed split for the Seattle area on the morning of Friday, August 21, and by that afternoon I had crossed over into Canada and headed up the Fraser River Canyon toward Dawson Creek, Milepost 1 of the Alaska Highway. Lots of smoke from recent forest fires in the area, but light rain was clearing the air and there were no road closures.

 

The Alaska Highway was overall quite good, completely paved except one 10-mile section under repair but with tightly-packed gravel, and with with one 100-mile section of great, mountainous Seven road, and much of the remainder cruisable at a steady 80 mph (or faster, in a suitable car). I did not see a single police car on the entire Alaska Highway, in either Canada or the US. Quite a bit of of heavy truck traffic, mainly fuel tankers and semis, of the 8-axle, 9-axle (and even one 12-axle) "oversize load," double-trailer variety.

 

However, there was one atrocious 250-mile stretch from Haines Junction, YT to the Alaska border. Only a relatively few potholes there, but thousands of nearly-invisible dips, ridges, valleys, diagonal crevices, bumps, etc. I spent a good part of that drive in the opposite lane, choosing the best path through the mess. The Seven is so nimble at the helm that it is like running a slalom, to find the best way through such a tangle of hidden prtoblems at a reasonable speed.

 

The only other incident of note, unfortunately, was last Thursday the 26th in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, when a guy in a big Ford pickup backed out of a diagonal parking space on Main Street and into the right side of my car. I saw him reversing, but I was stopped in traffic, and could only blow my horn -- it turns out he was deaf in his left ear, so the warning didn't do any good. The bonnet and cowl damage is repairable of course, and the car was thankfully drivable, but this incident sort of took the glow off of what had been a successful trip up to that point. But it is the type of accident that could have happened to a Seven anywhere....

 

It feels good to be home. After the length of time I had spent in the car, the realization that you were so low to the ground went away, and it felt like a normal car -- but I avoided getting in and out of the car any more than necessary, since it looked and felt like clowns packing a phone booth. The Seven drew stares and questions and photos everywhere I went (which I had been forewarned about). Surprisingly, I averaged one person a day -- even in remote BC and YT -- who knew exactly what the car was -- one bush pilot in northern BC even said that he had owned one in Vancouver, 25 years ago! The rest recognized it from published road tests, Top Gear TV programs, the Prisoner TV series, or by attending car races on the East Coast or in Scotland years ago.

 

My Seven is filthy right now -- I hope to spend much of today cleaning it up, vacuuming the small rocks out of it, evaluating the damage from the Whitehorse incident, etc. I'll post some photos of the car before, during and after, as soon as I get them onto the computer.

 

Anyway, that's my saga, and I'm sticking to it.....

[MHKflyer52]

Good read looking forward to seeing photos.

May I suggest that you install an airhorn in place of the regular horn, it is what I have done with my 7 and it has saved me more than once with people that just are not looking for a small vehicle or are as my wife says "brain-dead" but still moving.

[Croc]

This has been a great thread to read - the highs and lows of Se7en ownership!

[MightyMike]

Sounds like you had quite the adventure. Glad you and your Seven arrived safely. Look forward to seeing photos.

 

Mike

[rnr]

Glad to hear you made it back ok. If you do write an article for LowFlyer I hope you are allowed to post it here as well.

[Alaskossie]

Attached are two photos of the damage I incurred to my new Seven in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory last Thursday morning, when a Ford Pickup backed into me. Not extensive, but a real pain to get fixed right. Any suggestions?

 

Alaskossie