Croisiere Blanche 2010

[optima]

Hi all

Well I'm off again heading for the French alps to cause complete chaos through the snowy tracks, oh and this time I have a Frontera friend joining our little group so well done vaux_2 he must be completely mad, and we also have 2 110 landy's joining us so it's going to be alot of fun..

I'm leaving next Saturday and will post some pic's and video's when i'm back.....

[N1ova]

Have a nice and safe trip.Looking forward to the pictures and the videos.

[Drift]

Brilliant, I will look forward to your write up again.
Thats one Frontera that has lived the offroad jetset life

[vaux_2]

Haha, soon to be 2 I can't wait, work is dragging oh so slowly now!!!

[Krusher]

Great, cannot wait to see all your pics and vids etc. I drove up into the french alps 4 years ago to Grenoble on a skiing weekend. Most
excellent place. Have a fantastic time

[bobbinsjob]

jealous jealous jealous

Have a great but safe time lads

[Drift]

The 2008 pictures

http://www.pc-infotech.com/croisierebla ... /index.htm

[optima]

Hi All

I'm off tomorrow morning on the boat heading to France then only a 640 mile drive to the Alps...

I think everyone is ready but who knows.....

Will let you know when I'm back.

Optima

[Drift]

Good luck fella ........ jammy sod

[john (smifffy)]

have a good and safe trip

[bobbinsjob]

take care and have fun

[optima]

Hi All

Well that’s another Croisiere Blanche trip completed without breaking anything well me anyway

It kind of went a bit like this...

Take boat to France on the Saturday morning and head straight to the supermarket so my friend in is Defender Black can purchase memory cards and a replacement stereo as the memory cards for the video camera didn't arrive in time, And he couldn't cope with driving to the south of France without music.

Monday

nice easy day to test chains and stuff ready for play day Tuesday, Well it didn’t take long for a few more problems. Mr Vaux_2 ( FOG Forum ) well his chains were to small for his monster tires so loads of phone calls to resolve that one… and my Jersey friend in is Defender had more wiring problems with the CB cables this time deciding they will just burn up and melt LOL while we were stretching the winch cable which had only been fitted a few days before. Then just to make our lives easy his split charging system decided it would join in with the list of failures so another little bit of rewiring on the batteries.

Prologue day

All was well with my Frontera and defender and Mr Vaux_2 had a result with the chains because one of the companies sponsoring the Croisiere said they will lengthen his chains

Event day 1

Well all 3 4x4’s were working and the morning pasted by with some great tracks and view’s until I came access a long track that had a slight slop and deep snow and that caused me no end of problems with clearance, nearly cooked the motor twice I was just not going anywhere fast, so the marshals cleared out an entrance way for Mr Defender so he could go in font and pull me up the hill which as I found out later went on for another 1 km. But when he tried to turn around in deep snow the front Diff gave way because of the chains catching the front radius arms. So we reversed down part of the hill to fined a better turning point so we could all go to lunch which sounds easy but that’s another story LOL.

Lunch was very nice and Mark had already taken out the small half shaft to check what had happened but from a quick 5 min look we couldn’t see any damage so time to head to the Croisiere appointed garage for further work, now a place I would not want to spend anymore time at !! but the French mechanical did give us wine and pizza at 10pm. I left him there shortly after because we needed to be up at 3:45am to arrive in time for the next days start.

Event Day 2

All was well good news from the defender camp they had some parts which should arrive at the garage at lunchtime so it should will be fixed ready for later in the afternoon or at least for the last day  and as for myself and Vaux_2 well all was well at last the tracks and views from around the mountains were brilliant the pictures just don’t do the place justice but cold well how about -11 Degrees C and with the wind chill brought the temp down to -22 degrees C just what you want when you have to put 2 pairs of chains on….

Event Day 3

Mark had the Defender fixed after replacing the short half shaft, CV join, and two gears in the Diff and a large bill from the garage which only took cash LOL did he feel the pain oh yes but it was worth the repair bill to run on the last day with us and the tracks they took us down were just fantastic, and I will admit that at 4:15pm I decided not to climb up a very steep hill the marshals had already taken us up earlier that morning because the last time I went up it I had to winch myself up around 15 feet of it and the event closes at 4:30pm and I wanted to bring the Frontera home in one piece as this was it’s second time of completing the Croisiere Blanche without missing a beat. I will let Mr Vaux_2 explain how he got on trying the killer climb the second time round….

So that was the Croisiere Blanche 2010 event done only 650 miles to drive back..

I would recommend this event to anyone with a well prepared 4x4, it’s a long week without that much sleep but you meet some great people along the way and they don’t care what 4x4 you have. I will post up the picture gallery soon and maybe some short video’s.

Regards

Optima

[Drift]

About time too, we have been waiting

Sounds like some needed that credit card stash and pin number

Looking forward to the pictures

[Sir-Doris]

Excellent! And a testament to the ickle Frontera as well.

Looking forward to the pics

[optima]

Hi Peeps

ok some of the pic's are now on my gallery web site.. have a look http://www.pc-infotech.com more pic's will be added shortly

Regards

Optima

[gregster]

Wicked pickies mate....looked like an awesome adventure....soooooo jealous!!!
Well done that man!

[bobbinsjob]

Fantastic photos guys, I really wanna do that next year. How do you get involved

[marlbororman]

Hey, great pics wot size tires is that b series 2.2 sport running ?? im shopping for bigger tires myself now, noticed he cut the arches down a bit. Sorry for hijacking the thread but searched the forum without success

[vaux_2]

Lol, they're 285/75//16's. It took a bit of modding to get them in ok. If you're going to be at Bala you'll be able to have a good gander at them then and see what it takes