Greetings

Will do a re-bleed then especially as it probably hasn't had one for years. Ads, indeed Just feels weird how hard you have to press in order to get the ABS going. I feel something needs to be done about this because I almost hit a cyclist who didn't quite know how to move around public roads the other day. Had the brakes been sharper it wouldn't have been such a close call. I'm not expecting them to be as sharp as in the M3, that said though the sharpest brakes I've experienced were actually on a new X5. Almost an on/off button but after getting used to them, they felt fantastic.

Too much of a fuss to be honest, looking for something available off the shelf. The daily driver is just something I get from A to B in and the less time I spend working on it or thinking about it, the better. I can't even be bothered to service it myself, the car is going in for a massive service this week. So I just need a pad model I can write down on a sheet of paper and collect the car a few days later with the pads installed. I know Mintex are not easily available which creates a problem. Textars were recommended to me for the daily driver by a few of my rallysprint friends who seem to think they wear out very quickly and create massive amounts of dust but have great bite when cold and good performance when warm. You also seem recommend them so I think I'll give them a shot especially as they're easily available. Plan to take the M5 out for a spin today and film an onboard with some proper audio and telemetry, might post something in the evening.

Thanks Ads. Mintex aren't that easy to get over here unfortunately, I've heard some good things about Textars, any experience?

Brake pad question. Is there any upgrade I can perform on a daily driver to get more bite? This is for a 7 series bimmer so the pads need to be as user friendly as OEM pads. Brake pedal is nice and solid but requires a lot of pressure to lock the wheels up - too much in my opinion.

Missus went skydiving today, I didn't jump but had a great time anyway. Loved how informal the whole thing was and how everyone was so positive. Such a pleasant bunch of people to be around. She got some epic pics and a video which were taken by another skydiver who was flying alongside her and the instructor. Got more urgent expenses currently so I stayed on the ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ0nkStZnWo

I think distinguishing the results between mod and stock would have been wise. Modern geometry is what's wrong with trials currently. This sport just isn't appealing the way people use high bb bikes. Before these came along, trials riding was pretty much what Rowan did - now it's what Damon does. Hence this whole street trials revolution - trials has become such a specialized sport that there is no room for the oldschool stuff in it anymore. Street-trials goes back to the roots of trials, hence it's popularity. I'm not saying this is a bad thing - on the contrary, now you have a choice of what style you want to take up. 10-15 years ago, you didn't because there were no trials bikes around which offered such ease of riding big obstacles.

I got a small present from my friend. I put said present behind the dashboard to be on the safe side. The present fell into the heater. Now I need to get the dashboard out.

I've driven both, well the M6 to be precise and it's a bit of a nuisance to be honest. The car second guesses you all the time or gives you that impression when it's not. A manual would probably be a lot better. Also the problem I found with the M6 was that it was too quick. The E39 M5 comes with skinny tyres for it's weight and power which means you're never further away than a quarter of the throttle from having it sideways. The M6 has a lovely engine/exhaust note but to be honest, it's just too quick to enjoy the noise. Perhaps the speed is something you get used to and can then enjoy other things, I only had it for about 30 miles and the power overwhelmed me.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I'm putting it up for sale immediately but I intend to enjoy it as much as possible until it goes.

Removed the diff from the M3 by myself. Saved a lot of time, money and actually found it fun

A few more pics have surfaced. Patrick Stewart also takes part in these: Got so much motivation after the last round to improve my driving, all thanks to a friend in a poorly prepared M3 who completely destroyed all of us on two runs. Going to visit a trackday asap, braking and fast corners are my biggest problem currently.

The topic title is gibberish Dan.

Cheers More in the vid below. Amazingly it did! New record! It was the most fun I had in my life. Lot of ape noises came out after each run. The rush you get during a run like that is unreal. Bloopers and outtakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXbxVA2IcFo The clip with telemetry seems like good braking but a lot of poo came out. Grass is full of stumps and on smooth tyres there's no way you can correct where you're going once you're off. Personal favourite is 1:29. On the last clip one can also hear the diff starting to fail, it will not last more than about 5 more miles.

Comp over, came 2nd in Open, 2nd in BMW Challenge and 4th overall. And judging by the times two of my competitors posted on the last stage, I genuinely suck. One of those times I'd ignore because the driver has a really light car, but 0.5s behind this chap (and almost 5s ahead of me) came a driver who has a car a lot worse than mine in every way. So I'm not going to do any weight saving, that is clearly not needed at this stage. And clearly we are only now starting to explore the limits of the M3 which are so far beyond what we're doing currently it's unreal. These cars are genuinely quicker than N group Evos which there were two of yesterday - both with pro rally drivers behind the wheel. One of them apparently gave up half way through because he found the experience humiliating - or so my friend says who knows him personally. Explains why he disappeared from the leaderboard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27pvhKB7zVQ Also experienced a really odd feeling in a few places because the car is now so much quicker. When going down two straights in the opposite direction I would reach a stage where I knew I had to keep the car going flat out but subconsciously I was getting really scared and wanted to lift. You start experiencing the speed as though you're no longer in charge of the car and observing what's going on from the passenger's point of view. After experiencing this a few times I actually started enjoying it a lot. Will upload a few outtakes later on, almost binned the car in one place.

Took a sleeping pill yesterday and had some lovely visions before nodding off. I imagined myself as a very pretty custom painted little teapot, one of many in a pyramid made of pretty teapots. And there was a tiny human being trying to climb up to the top of that pyramid. I was also that human.

So just came back from my mechanic who finished fitting the rebuilt Vanos. I took it for a test drive, returned shaking and with tears of joy in my eyes. This car is the quickest thing I've driven in my life and I owe it all to some chap in Germany who worked his magic on that unit. The way this thing gains speed now is quite literally a terrifying experience. To put it into perspective - I have an uphill straight which I get onto when leaving the garage, then there's a set of lights and you turn off to go back to the garage through a village. Before, I would hit 180kph on that straight passing the lights. Today I hit the 220kph rev limiter and stopped to turn off into the village. There is no traction in 1st or 2nd on intermediates on which I did have traction in 1st in the WET before the rebuild. Shit me, I'm crying like a 3 year old girl. I'm so happy.

Following Dan's poll, I was wondering if there are riders who don't cover the front brake lever when tapping? One of my very old riding buddies picked this up from an Andrew Tonkery vid of Hermance back in 2005 I think. I soon followed and have been tapping like this ever since. Find it way easier but then again, it's probably all in my head anyway. Any other firm believers of this method?

Usually pull the brake, just before preload to let the wheel spin backwards a bit. Looks cool. If we're not talking about extreme scenarios and weird obstacles I guess there's going to be virtually no difference whether you go up with a locked front wheel or not.

Definitely. It's most apparent when you don't ride a spot for a long time, improve and then re-visit it. Everything seems so small although it's exactly the same height. I bet you that if you just changed your mindset you would ride better regardless the actual skill. Edit: just noticed I wrote exactly what you did but in different words I recently asked one of my friends what it's like to sidehop an obstacle taller than your head during preload and he says it's completely normal. Doesn't think about it. Wish I had that attitude

Went out for a ride after a week of dealing with a flu or something similar. Still improving, biggest change is my perception of obstacle height, what I'd consider large a few weeks ago is now standard which makes things a lot easier considering the mind has always been my greatest limiting factor. Didn't hold this but still getting this far was something I could only dream of a few weeks ago. Happy

I did actually, a few posts ago in a different thread but it was well hidden Which would of course not entitle anyone to post it in here if someone indeed found it. Please.

Well the calendar has been confirmed - 7th BMW Challenge round is going to be held on a Czech rally. Never drove with a co driver before. This is one of my past competitors taking part for the very first time, he used to drive a Megane RS. He was one of the top drivers in AB Cup which BMW Challenge is a part of and if not for that ditch later in the video, he'd have finished 2nd overall, competing against semi-pro teams in both RWD and AWD cars. Just shows what level of driving we have in our comps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQIr2yyKnmo Got a lot of time to get ready, need to find a co-driver, need to practice listening to pace notes (computer game?). But first of all, I need to print some 'left' 'right' stickers and stick them onto the windscreen! This is shaping up to be an amazing season so long as my budget lasts.

Either all my scales are f**ked or there's something really wrong with my body weight. I used to weigh 75kg back in my riding days and had no fat. Recently I weighed around 70kg, had a little bit of fat (probably 1cm on my stomach) and have since been working out intensively. Muscles grew quite a lot, fat disappeared and now I weigh 68kg. I'm scared. Of the good things cold/flu/whatever is finally starting to clear and the missus has a free weekend after all so we're going to a motorsport competition together.