Driving a Seven in modern day Traffic

[Dave Mann]

The Police don't move protesters blocking the roads but they arrested the 4 who painted the road outside the Russian embassy and charged them with criminal damage!

[Reckless Rat]

It took a while to upload, probably due to my slow internet connection (which hopefully will be sorted later today when we go fibre optic). This is another short video taken on the way back, on a minor D road between Brignon and St Maurice de Cazevielle, through the vineyards. No grapes on view, everything is dormant:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wDzlWPxYUbA&feature=share

[Duncan Grimmond]

That's a fair old climb!

[Reckless Rat]

The old bus pulls quite well these days. Unless it's mighty steep it will pull up most gradients in top gear. As long as there is 30mph on the clock I just let it do its own thing because if I go down to 3rd I'll lose 5mph in the change. The 4 speed crash box is fine, but it's slow. You just learn to adapt. I've got one more video to upload, which is through our village. The entry is traffic calmed with single file traffic, with incoming vehicles having priority. I had an "interesting moment" with someone...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4zMOgBepKKY&feature=share

At least the horn and the brakes work!

[Graham Barker]

I found your last video the most interesting,  particularly because of the braking incident. I was amazed at how quickly you pulled to a standstill. I would be surprised if I could do that in my Ruby, even though I have new oil-free brake linings. I guess that lighter weight of the RP is a factor, 
Those bumpy roads must seriously test the suspension, but it seems to handle them in a well-damped manner and not thrown sideways either. 
Thanks for the posting.
Cheers 
Graham

[Reckless Rat]

The problem with the chicane at the entry to the village is that the view ahead for those leaving doesn't come until the last minute, intended to make those that should give way slow down. Unfortunately some drivers dont look or think far enough ahead and dont drive defensively. The road through the village is the victim of services renewals, water, electric, fibre etc. It should be fully resurfaced this year, fingers crossed. The phone mount tended to shake abit on the bumps but the car seems to cope well enough.

[Tony Griffiths]

Good to know that you are getting fibre to the premises. We also - surprisingly - have this in my relatively remote village and I've no idea why when parts of Sheffield still don't. Chaps just turned up one day and started digging trenches followed the next week with reels of cable, etc. Even remote farms and houses outside the village were connected. Upon contacting the various service providers to discover the cost all denied any knowledge of its availability - until one day BT came up with £100 per month for a maximum of 500 Mbit/s  and ZEN at £75. Taking the latter, after a couple of months on a rolling contract they offered 1000 Mbit/s for £50, so I took that. Tip: you don't need it; the 20 Mbit/s on our old radio link was almost perfect and I can't imagine that more than 100 Mbit/s would ever be necessary - unless you have a house full of teenagers simultaneously downloading goodness knows what and playing shoot-'em-up games in real-time with contacts in Australia.

[Reckless Rat]

We had the fibre installed at the house yesterday by SFR. 32€ a month and the speed is 90Mb/sec (verified) which is plenty fast enough for what I need. We are making progress down here in the boonies. When we first moved here there was no phone signal at all. Now we get 4G. Internet was 512Kb dial up and copper cable. Then it was upgraded to Broadband at 12Mb/s so the new one is 8 times faster. I will have to make another video and see how quickly it goes to YTube...

[Duncan Grimmond]

Don't be fooled by the "fibre to the house" number. They want to remove the "redundant" copper wire from your telelphone connection! We happen to live in a dead spot and although the BT 4G coverage map shows that we have 4G we certainly do not! The house has walls 2 feet thick built in cobble and lime mortar, impossible to fit a damp-proof course and totally impermeable to WiFi.
As long as I'm within 10 yards of the router we have 4G but beyond the reach of the new fancy-dancer improved router from BT Business it does not work. Furthermore we seem to be susceptible to power failures and no power = no broadband or computer. Falling down the stairs in the dark and gaining a broken ankle (heaven forfend!) I would have to limp, screaming the while, 100 yards to get a signal to call 999.
It was the devil's own job to force BT Business to allow me to keep the copper wire to the house. The only way round this anomaly would be to instal a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) at my own expense. Progress? Mmmmm....
This also means we cannot have a Smart Meter as 4G is a requirement.

[Reckless Rat]

I've just found another short video of last sunday, on the run back on the "old" road. Before fibre they were taking about 50 minutes to upload to Ytube. This one took three minutes!
Enjoy.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tjka1ulFVpE&feature=share