Driving Training

For our tenth wedding anniversary, Helena bought me a day’s training at The Land Rover Experience training centre near Milton Keynes (she got me the winch course last anniversary – apparently I’m easy to choose gifts for).

I had an excellent day, starting with a short briefing, followed by five hours of of road driving, shared between the instructor, two other students and me. A great pub lunch in the middle (not included in those five hours) was included in the course cost. It’s not a cheap way to learn, but doing the basics on a private course, with a professonal instructor and in a brand new vehicle is probably the safest way of first getting to grips with the basics.

We gained experience of ruts, steep side slopes, ditches, steep hill climbs and descents, cross axles, wading, forest driving and a little clay-mud climbing, becoming competent at the basics of all of these. To be honest, I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know from common sense or reading about it, but putting things into practice is different from pure theory, and it was all very beneficial to confidence. I’d still be very wary trialing (if I had a vehicle capable of RTV trials, which the 109 really isn’t), but at least would be able to tackle a few parts of a course.

We did the whole day in a new TDCI Defender (the ones with the Transit engine and six-speed gear box). It’s gearing in 1st-LOW is incredible – on the long hill descent, which was a 35 degree down slope of about 80 feet, the engine note barely increased above idle and it just crawled down the slope. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the post Tdi Defenders (I distrust electroncs, for a start), but that low gearing made downslope control a damned sight easier than the Series Land Rovers can – I remember having to preriodically dab the brakes on the 109 durning long descents off road in the Alps to keep the speed under control, on inclines much shallower than this one dealt with. It was surprising to see what the vehicle was capable of on standard General tyres, which were road biased – they were nowhere near as aggressive as my BFG ATs and not in the smae league as a pair of MTs. Despite that, the vehicle didn’t slip once, even on the hills, which gives me a lot of confidence in the traction of the 109.