From Barrie to the SC Palace

Here's a quickie map of what I've found to be the best driving route from Central Ontario to the house in SC. Make sure you go through Asheville NC instead of going through Charlotte as that takes you way too far East. This will be posted in the SC info page.

The quick and derrrty

Ok my friends. Yes I am really slacking on this whole blog thing. You'd think being that cycling is winding down that I would have lots of time to do all the posting I want, nay need! This doesn't seem to be the case.
So it's 9:45pm, 15 minutes before bed time. I will make this short and sweet.

Life after the GTi-R has been a whirlwind. Just as I was picking up the car I was also getting a cold. Now if you can remember from my posts way back (it has been so long since I've been sick) that it takes me for-ev-er to get over the stupid things. This time was no different. Kept sticking a toe in the training waters every once in a while only to find that I really wasn't ready for any real exercise. Well that is out of the way now, I think it will hold me over until after the holidays lol.

So the past couple weeks have been good for getting caught up on some stuff. I've done a bunch of preventative maintenance on the R which has been fun. Have a few show-no-go parts installed as well with plans for a few more. Mostly though just working on getting her up and reliable for daily driving.
Clutch started slipping yesterday which is somewhat unfortunate, but better now than in SC. Gonna tackle this one myself since I have no real need for a car for the next couple months. I can take my time. Likely getting an ACT heavy duty street kit for a nice mix of drive ability and performance. Oh cars, so awesome.

Went for a nice night ride tonight. Trails are amazing when they are frozen. Tons of grip and fast rolling. Getting back to the strength training tomorrow morning if I am well enough.

Also went to the Rally of the Tall Pines in Bancroft on Saturday. This is something like my 7th year in a row and it is certainly not an option to miss. Has a great time with the bro and Cory at the new spectator area. Seemed a lot more laxed for marshals, who let us stand close enough to touch the cars drifting by.

Ok so it is now 9:59.
That's it for now.
Night night,
Benno

Decided that was close enough.

Prob my favourite car there. R32 Golf.

For those that know, enjoy.

For those that don't.......sucks to be you ;-)

Benno's R adventures - Part 2

So there we were. Cory, Joel, and myself, sitting in the Civic in the middle of downtown Toronto. Cash in hand, heart in throat. Waiting for my new baby to arrive from the shop after being safetied.
It was 4:20pm. The license office closed at 5pm. I needed to get there with the signed ownership so that I could get the car plated and registered in order for me to get it back to Peterborough.
4:35 rolled around and my brother chimed in.
"We need to think of a plan B."
Hmnnn he was right. We were men, we could figure this out. One day I had fixed the exhaust on my Civic with a can of beans, that is the day I became a man.
Joel - "Don't you have CAA?"
Me - "Yeah I have premium. We could just get it towed, I get up to 200km's per tow."
Joel - "That's an option!"
Me - "Yeah right......."
Joel - "No seriously"

So we called CAA and did a dry run. Unfortunately my poor baby had broken down in Toronto and my shop was in Peterborough. I needed a tow. CAA informed me this would be no problem. Excellent. We left the Civic feeling liberated from our previous time frame constraints. After a delicious Subway meal we returned to the scene of the crime to see that my baby was back from the shop. It felt like I was finally getting my fix of a sweet sweet drug after being apart from her for a full 3 days.
With ownership in hand, my brother and I took her for a good rip around the block. Hilariously enough it was the first time that I really got a sense of the cars potential. Not so hilarious was the violent acceleration experienced. I instantly realised why owners of this car love it so much.
Coincidentally the engine would not start when we got back from our drive. We then called CAA and had it towed to Peterborough. We all sat around in my moms living room waiting for that damn truck to pull up with my baby. It finally did, about 25 painful minutes after we made it back to Peterborough in the Civic.
Luckily it fired right up no problem when we dropped her in front of moms, strange ;-)
The next day I got her registered and plated. My brothers (Joel and Joe) and I took 3 cars from Peterborough to Barrie. Joe in his Hyundai Elantra Car-Truck Special Edition, Joel in my Civic (rowing the gears to keep up, poor little guy), and me in my new GTi-R. A day that I had dreamed of for a loooooong ass time.

So that is the story of my GTi-R. A dream that I've had for many years now and the very car that I've wanted for about 12 months. So far she hasn't missed a beat. Sure she has some quirks and rattles, it gets 450km to a 50L tank, only uses 94 octane gas.......... but it does its job very well. The underside of the car is so clean you would never believe it is a 1991. She has a little extra mustard courtesy of an upgraded ARC intercooler (will keep the engine temps down when I'm boosting in South Carolina), massive upgraded exhaust, K&N intake, lowering springs.
She is on winter tires and rims right now. Hope to get some big ;-) 16" rims for the summer with some sticky rubber.

Taking my sister out in the R. My real life Gran Turismo garage :-D

She's got some bright lights and a factory skid plate
Minty interior

99,000km's on the clock

Nissan knows the market for this car

Can still fit a bike even with the rear strut bar

Factory big ass rear spoiler.

Now on snow tires. AWD + Snow = Awesome

Cory made a nice vid of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Zm3y7Nawo

I will keep you posted as I'm sure there are many more R adventures to come.

Benno

Good things come to those who wait. Great things come to those who wait longer.

Soooooo wow what a weekend! That was some crazy stressful, awesome, scary, adventure. For me it has been the realisation of a dream. Something I have been painfully lusting for ever since I learned of the existence of Japanese sports (super) cars.

Of course the old cliche rings true. I was exposed to these cars while playing Gran Turismo, which started at a young age. Fast and Furious has given all sorts of bad publicity to the whole import tuner scene. Somewhat justified by the fact that economy cars (aka grocery getters) were never intended to suffer the indignity of what some would, and do, put them through.
It was probably unavoidable that I was steered, nay herded, towards the Nissan Skyline by the Turismo. It would seem that this car was given somewhat of an unfair advantage by the game designers. Easily tuned up to 1000bhp coupled with AWD meant pretty well all else were left in your wake.
Probably most are familiar with the Skyline. To many it is seen as unattractive, impractical, outlandish. Others would step over their own mother to get one. This seems to be the trend with these 1990's Japanese sports (super) cars. Wasn't until about 7 or 8 years ago that I actually saw a Skyline in person. I was amazed and wondered how someone in North America actually got their hands on one.

Enter the 15 year rule!!!!! There exists this rule in Canada that as long as a car is 15 years or older it is considered a classic car and importing regulations are almost non existent. This means we can finally get some decent used cars. I can tell you for a fact, after dreaming and searching and shopping around for the past 4 years, that 1990's Japanese cars are safe, environmentally friendly, and just plain awesome.

I decided upon returning from South Carolina this year that I was going to adhere to a new plan to purchase a JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) car before I headed down South in 2011. Mostly fueled by the fact that the roads down in SC are incredibly fun to drive. It was also the first point in my life that I could actually follow through with buying something like this since I have now become comfortable living on my own and paying my regular bills and all that junk.
I knew I wasn't quite able to afford a GTR Skyline and also since the car would be my daily driver that somehow I would be doing the GTR an injustice. I was seriously looking at getting the GTS-t model of Skyline.
The breakdown between the GTR and GTS-t is like this:
R32 Skyline 1989-1993
GTR - 2.6 litre 6 cylinder motor, twin turbo, 320bhp, awd


GTS-t - 2.0 litre 6 cylinder motor, single turbo, 220bhp, rwd

However I remembered seeing a car a few years ago in the parking lot of Mosport that really caught my attention. It looked like a strange VW Golf on steroids. I believe my brother informed me that it was made by Nissan and called the Pulsar. I think I had forgotten about the Pulsar until about a year ago when it appeared again on one of my frequent visits to various websites of Japanese importers. I always like to look at all the cool cars they have.
It then became a hotly contested battle for my affection between the GTS-t Skyline and the Pulsar. They both had their strong points. What really sold me though was that the Pulsar had the edge in the speed department. In fact the Pulsar accelerates as quickly as a GTR for the first 3 gears. The Pulsar being AWD is a big bonus too. I don't drive much in the winter but it would be fun to do some donuts every once in a while.
1990 - 1994 Nissan Pulsar GTi-R
2.0 litre 4 cylinder single turbo motor, 230bhp, awd

So I followed through with my plan and it actually progressed much faster than I thought. Fueled on by the fact that the JDM car scene is a real buyers market in the fall since most like to garage store theirs over the winter. I knew I wanted to get one mid-November because I wanted to make sure it was reliable enough to take down South with me in the spring. I started getting more serious about a month ago and began going to see a bunch and test driving them. Funnily enough I never really did get a good test drive until the day I bought one.
So now we are up to speed. This brings us to this week and my plan to buy one once and for all. I had intended to do a road trip on November 6th to go and see some in Montreal that I was very interested in. I had looked at a few already in Ontario and nothing had really jumped out at me. I figured I would test drive as many as I could in Ontario before heading to Montreal to see the one I liked.

The plan was
Friday Nov 5 - drive to Peterborough (my home town) and get insurance all sorted out.
Saturday Nov 6 - drive to Montreal and look at Pulsars. Buy one if I like it.
Sunday Nov 7th - if I didn't like the Montreal Pulsars then buy the one I liked the most in Ontario.
Monday Nov 8th - Register and plate my Pulsar and be happy.

Well I was super anxious to get on with it. Wasn't sleeping very well, felt very stressed, it was killing me. I went ahead and re-arranged the plan last weekend, it now looked like this.
Tuesday Oct 26 - drive to Peterborough and tie up lose ends. Look at 2 or 3 more Pulsars
Saturday Oct 30 - drive to Montreal.
Sunday Oct 31 - buy one in Ontario if I didn't like the Montreal cars
Monday Nov 1st - Register and plate my Pulsar and be happy.

The first car I drove on Tuesday was decent but just didn't feel right. The next car I went to see was a completely different story. It was by far the best example that I had seen to date and was actually by far the best price of any of them. I wasn't even motivated by price, it was just an unbelievable bonus.
I had seen enough. It wasn't getting any better than this. I emailed the guy and instructed him to please not sell to anyone else. I cancelled the trip to Montreal. I had bought a Pulsar!

to be continued.....

Week 1 now full in SC

It is exciting to see so many folks returning to the mansion. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people enjoy themselves while staying at the house. However it makes me sad when I have to turn people away on weeks that are full. But I guess that's just life sometimes. I promise you I'll get a 2nd house one of these years so that we can handle the overflow. In the meantime please accept this old picture of me with a sad face. A face that very well could be saying "What can I do, I told you to book early."



Keep doing what you do,
Benno

There's plenty of Benno to go around

Thought I should take today off from exercising. I got to sleep until 8am, which was glorious. I woke up at about 5:30 am so it really did feel like I was sleeping in. I think going to bed at 10pm is the key.
Anyways I took the evening off from riding and, despite some protesting, I only worked a 9-5er at Hardwood. We are super busy getting ready for the ski swap this weekend. If you need ski gear or want to try it out then this weekend is a good time to buy. I think the snow has gotten a lot of folks excited. Though 10 minutes North of Barrie where we are, we didn't get much snow at all.
Lots to do with getting SC up to date and keeping track of all the folks that are coming down. Week 1 booked up solid today, the house is now about 40% full.
Also have to lay the framework for the Hardwood DEVO Gold coaching that I am doing again which starts Nov 1st.

I have been calling around a bunch of insurance companies. State Farm quoted me $250/month for the GTi-R which seems a little steep since I am only paying $120/month for the Civic. I am still willing to pay $250 but thought I would call around and see if I could do better.
Nov 6th is probably the weekend that I will be buying the car. I have taken the 5th-8th off work.
-Up to Nov 6: Looking at Ontario cars
-Nov 5: Get insurance sorted out
-Nov 6: Drive to Montreal to check out a couple cars at an importer (and hopefully buy)
-Nov 7: Buy one in Ontario if I don't like anything in Montreal (or drive my Montreal car around and be happy).
-Nov 8: Certify, e-test, validate plates, all that jazz. Drive car around and be happy.

I have been trying to make arrangements to see some more Ontario cars. Just in case I don't like the car(s) in Montreal then I can buy one in Ontario.

What else? I have a couple bikes to work on and need to clean out the barn for our Halloween movie night. But other than that it is business as usual. I am also putting together a proposal for next weeks Cycle Solutions AGM because I think they might want me to do some coaching for the team which would be alotta fun.

As for the sucka that thought I would fail after one week of training, well did I ever show you!





Let the good times roll,
Benno

Week 7 in SC is now full

Another large group has booked the whole house in SC for week 7 (April 9 - 16). Don't worry though, the house is only about 1/3 full at this point.

Now I am going for a ride, you should do the same :-)
Benno