There is an Off Road event that I'll be attending soon - Weekend of 20/21 June. 45 minutes north of Eau Claire, WI. I've been there twice, so I can let you know what to expect, if you want to contact me. I'll be driving from Madison, WI. Camping in a big field, and they have a couple of porta-potties. I'll probably be bringing a pop-up camper. There's also a few hotels in a small town about 10 minutes away. They have trails for all levels of bravery/stupidity, from very gentle to very silly - There will be a bunch of 'rock-climbing' vehicles which are essentially no more than rollcages with wheels with an engine - it's fun to watch these. There are usually also some areas with mud, depending on recent rainfall.

Website - Real Performance Machines - Apple Valley Farms Offroad Park


Hope to see you there! Simon

 

Hi there! I recently moved to Madison & I am looking for a good mechanic in the area for my '04 Disco2. Could you recommend one? I have had bad experiences with going to the alar a Dealership. Thank you!

 

I already have plans that weekend but it might be worth canceling.

Jeni, welcome to Madison. As far as mechanics go, i haven't heard of a good place to go yet. Maybe someone else could chime in

 

Are you both based on Madison? Maybe you could let me have your contact details, and we can chat. There's a guy with a yellow Camel Edition Disco here in Madison - I'll try to track him down and see if he wants to come with us. I also saw a very nice black Disco 2 the other day which was quite 'chunky' - Obviously lifted, and had some other off-road mods. It was at a house when I was Garage-Sailing - Perhaps I'll go and see if he or she is interested.

Here's a photo of me at this event last June -



You really should come along....!

Regarding a mechanic, I previously used a guy called Clint, who is the ex-head mechanic of Fields. He started up on his own. I needed to use him all the time when I had my piece-of-crap Range Rover HSE (03-05 L322's are extremely unreliable). But since getting the LR3, I have had ZERO issues, and we've not kept in touch, so I'm not sure if he's still available. I have a vm into him, and I'll send you a private message when I hear back from him.

You could also try Westside Service Center, behind and to the left of Home Depot - Westside Service Center I know they do a lot of work with Land Rovers.

 

That's a good lookin lr3. ive seen that camel edition one near my work. Looks like I won't be able to make it to apple valley. I took the wife muddin for Mother's Day so she says I'm shopping for Father's Day

 

Did you go Simon? I've heard of Apple Valley but always thought it was just a big mud pit? How are the trails?

 

It was great! It did rain VERY hard Friday night, so basically it was very muddy and slippery, but certainly there's a ton of normal trails, and being in mud is definitely 'optional', and when it's not so wet it's obviously easier to get up some of steep and rocky trails. It was $40, with free firewood, free camping, and enough porta-potties and a rustic shower house. The small town of Chetek is about 10 minutes away. At one point I was chatting with a bunch of Jeep guys in a field, and their engine caught fire, which was kind of exciting. It was quickly put out. I had enough repair gear and tools in the back of my car, so I backed up and we used my tailgate as a table. We actually managed to repair all the damage onsite. No damage to my vehicle this time, but of course I did need to use a hand-held pressure washer to clean all the mud out of my wheels - major wobble going down the highway otherwise. Here's a link to some snapshots - click on arrow bottom left to view them all. My white LR3 doesn't look very muddy in the pictures, but by the time we left around Sunday lunchtime, it was very brown! https://plus.google.com/u/0/11493824...eed14e2215ad75