Hubb UK

Well finally landed after a very busy and long weekend.

The event was great, went to loads of taks and the venues for the talks were excellent (never mind the talks themsleves)

The trade stands were very bike orientated but thats good as it just stops me spending money (although I was tempted by the £79,950 merc and the very nice Bimobile people tried to tempt me with a new daily 4x4 camper at 150k euros - and that was the discount price !)

The talk on the LRDC jeep trip was presented by Toby Savage again which was good as I didn't get to see it last year. The road kill cookout was not for the squeamish , those 2 will have a TV show soon....... Did anyone find out what the mystery meat was ?

Two very late nights aswell, after seeing tembo, yoda and wideformat disappear off to bed (good to meet you guys) I headed to the bar on Saturday night, then back to the campfire where I stayed drinking with the nice folk from overland junkies and overland cruisers till 4am - thought I'd better head off when we saw it was getting light again, long time since I've done that (it was a mere 2am the previous night with mike from bushpig and the mad transalvaynia 4x4 man)

Other talks were great too, it was nice to see the great ted simon and see his photos of Jupiters travels bought to life and quite an interesting talk on motorbiking in central asia to mongolia

We gathered 3 ivecos together including phil and angie who have been on the road since 2006 but sadly they will have hit the road again by adventure overland.

I got to do my talk twice over the weekend so by the time I got a bigger crowd on sunday I was better prepared.

From toms point of view that there were lots of 'see you at adventure overland' shouts as we said goodbye to people on the sunday

Definatly one for the calendar next year, nice to have events since the demise of the rgs weekend and we don't do the normal 4x4 events these days as they seem just to be big market places for shiney bits that we don't need

So roll on adventure overland

as rich says the HUBB was a good show have taken some good tips from the bikers, and interesting to see their overland travels.

Bo ho, I missed all that.

However, I did manage a 4am 'campfire session' Fri night/Sat morn and a 3am Sat night/Sun morn with the folk from FT Design. The German company who make the plastic water tanks, they were at ADVENTURE OVERLAND last year with the big blue Merc expedition truck.

I'm not used to such late sessions either!

The crossover is obvious, so there will always be something for the "overlander" regardless of transport, but I think HUBB will always be more bike orientated and ADVENTURE OVERLAND always 4x4 biased, so in that respect alone they compliment each other. Definitely room for both.

I agree Tom, The hubb has taken the role of the now defunct RGS meeting.

And having them at the beginning and end of the show season means they are far enough apart too

I think the 4x4 traders may have been a bit disapointed with the Hubb but they were in on the 1st one. Overland prep people like Julian don't rely on selling a bit of stuff but making contacts , so I think it works well for them

Rich

Actually, I would love to see a single display where you have a series of 'overland vehicles' from all the different categories in one place. A bicycle, a motorcyle, a 4x4, a campervan and one of the Heavies. Each would lay out, a bit similar to a military inspection, all the gear they are capable (and choose) to carry. Each display would also have photographs, lists of trips undertaken and a cost summary for kitting out their choice. They did this a little bit at HUBB in the center of the Adventurezone, but only motorcycles were asked to participate...(snobs!)

The shows tend to have all this info, but it is spread around and hard to visualize all at once. I think the value would be to show that all categories can have equally challenging adventures, but a widely different 'cost' in terms of comforts on the road, vehicle/equipment costs and travel expenses. While one could say that a bicycle is the most cost-effective option, I think many would opt for the comforts of a 4x4/campervan/Heavy. As mentioned in another thread, there seemed to be a fair number of motocyclists who were geatting a little grey to be taking a 600lb bike into remote country.

You could even incorporate this into presentations where representatives from each category holds talks by their ride and explain why they chose their particular category and the plus's and minus's. THis would be especially valuable to people new to overlanding who are still making up their minds about how to get involved.

Tembo wrote:

As mentioned in another thread, there seemed to be a fair number of motocyclists who were getting a little grey to be taking a 600lb bike into remote country.

Tis true. Another point is that bikers will swap to 4x4's when their accumulative injuries over the years force them to stop riding.

Your idea of a display is a good one BTW, something that I will look at for next year as all the areas have been allocated this time around.

Tembo wrote:

Actually, I would love to see a single display where you have a series of 'overland vehicles' from all the different categories in one place. A bicycle, a motorcyle, a 4x4, a campervan and one of the Heavies. Each would lay out, a bit similar to a military inspection, all the gear they are capable (and choose) to carry. Each display would also have photographs, lists of trips undertaken and a cost summary for kitting out their choice. They did this a little bit at HUBB in the center of the Adventurezone, but only motorcycles were asked to participate...(snobs!)

The shows tend to have all this info, but it is spread around and hard to visualize all at once. I think the value would be to show that all categories can have equally challenging adventures, but a widely different 'cost' in terms of comforts on the road, vehicle/equipment costs and travel expenses. While one could say that a bicycle is the most cost-effective option, I think many would opt for the comforts of a 4x4/campervan/Heavy. As mentioned in another thread, there seemed to be a fair number of motocyclists who were geatting a little grey to be taking a 600lb bike into remote country.

You could even incorporate this into presentations where representatives from each category holds talks by their ride and explain why they chose their particular category and the plus's and minus's. THis would be especially valuable to people new to overlanding who are still making up their minds about how to get involved.

Their was a bit for overland 4x4 motors to get a prize only 3 turned up and they all got a prize,
i did not know about it, but Sam has asked me to run it for next year, so when they get the booking page and more info, I will be asking every one with a vehiacl to give me their names so I can see about getting some goodies,

We didn't enter cos we havn't really been anywhere interesting in this vehicle yet

Would have felt like a bit of a fraud

iveco4x4 wrote:

We didn't enter cos we havn't really been anywhere interesting in this vehicle yet

Would have felt like a bit of a fraud

What??? You made it to ADVENTURE OVERLAND last year, how much more interesting can you get?