What are the factors involved with ruts on an asphalt road? Weight of traffic, sure – what about the quality of tarmac or weather, use of studded tyres…? These ones on the high roads of Poland have got to be the worse I have ever seen. Jigsaw is sliding about so much that we’re down to 30mph and still the beads of sweat are dripping of my brow, hands clamped to the wheel, concentrating like I’m pulling a bus round the Himalayas – I’m in Poland! If it’s like this all the way then our schedule will have to be revised.
Now part of this is due to the fact that I’m only driving Jigsaw for a few hundred klicks so far. She is a bit of duck – she’s tall, she’s wider than the wheels and she hasn’t got a roll/sway bar – and I’m going to have to get used to that.
Back at Earthcircuit HQ during the Stage1 construction phase, we were questioning the need for installing a roll bar. Jigsaw’s waddling qualities were well understood but I felt I was unlikely to be reaching high speeds much of the time and I was advised that on muddy, uneven terrain a roll bar would decrease traction. Truth is we ran out of time sourcing a suitable candidate from the scrap yards. Regretting that now.