Driven: Volvo XC60

Is there a finer family vehicle that blends form with function than the Volvo XC60? Its big brother is too large for my liking, but for everyday running around and as a base vehicle for a holiday, I think the XC60 is near-perfect. A particular highlight is the interior, which I think is as smart as any on a mainstream car. I love the minimalism of the dashboard and centre console, the carefully considered design of the buttons. I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about cabins recently, for one reason and another. Some new vehicles costing just as much as the XC60 are so far off the design/quality pace that it’s frankly embarrassing. My vehicle for the bank holiday weekend was the D5 AWD, and if the Yarrow family needed a new car – and could afford one – this would be on a very short list of choices.

Not quite as rusty as I thought...

So last Friday’s ‘rusty rider’ training course was pretty successful. It was as much a photo/video shoot as me actually learning a great deal, slightly delayed when Cambridgeshire’s finest took an unhealthy interest in the snapper hanging out of a car’s open boot at 30mph in order to get some action shots. Before that it was riding round cones in a private car park, and there were plenty of niggling things I was doing wrong – too low revs at slow speeds, not looking where I wanted to go through corners, etc – but it’s nothing that couldn’t be fixed with training if I wanted to ride regularly again.  And my instructor said they’re the common faults he finds with most people coming back to biking after years away. You’ve either forgotten what you were told decades ago, or more likely training techniques have improved and it’s not something that was advised in the first place. 

Long-term report: Skoda Citigo

The Skoda Citigo I’ve been driving for the last three months is about to return to its home. I have to say, it’s been a pleasure. Along with its siblings, the SEAT Mii and Volkswagen up!, it takes city cars to a new level of refinement and enjoyment. Plaudits and awards have followed – and rightly so – and I can’t help feeling many, many drivers considering a new urban runabout are going to choose one of these three. The adjustability of the driving position is excellent, even for a big chap like me, and it rides and handles like something much bigger. There are niggles; if you need to get little ones into the back seats on a regular basis buy the five-door version as regular use of the badly thought-out seat back mechanism on the three-door will quickly irritate you. Also, selecting first gear now seems to be accompanied by a mildly annoying squeak, but it’s probably something the dealer could sort out. Also, 60.9mpg over the last 600+ miles (compared to an official economy of 67.3mpg) is pretty good. All in all, an excellent experience.

The born again biker

Rather looking forward to tomorrow. Will be spending the day on two wheels rather than four, refreshing my rather rusty motorcycling skills on a rider training course for a feature in the Honda customer magazine Honda Dream. It’s about people coming back to bikes after a number of years away, and it’s about 20 years since I last owned one. These people – dubbed ‘born-again bikers’ – are making up a sizeable chunk of purchasers at the moment, driven by a desire to relive something they enjoyed in their youth, but also the fact that running a motorbike instead of a second car – perhaps to do the daily commute on – is a practical and cost-effective way to get around. Sadly, they’re also a big accident statistic. The attitude is “I had a 600cc back in the day so I’ll get the same again”, not appreciating it’s a very different machine; lighter, faster and with much better brakes. The refresher course I’m taking tomorrow is offered by www.camrider.com through Honda bike dealerships in the East Anglia region and I can’t wait.

Driverless cars: a vision that didn't quite come off

Spent Friday in Harrogate at the world’s largest gathering of Citroens and Citroen enthusiasts (above). Blessed with great weather, what a fabulous way to celebrate the brand’s design ethos, past and present. I was there to write about one particular car, a DS19 which doesn’t show its face in public very often. It was a prototype ‘driverless car’, a topic which anyone who reads this blog regularly will know I have a keen interest in. The car, built in the Sixties, was fitted with sensors to follow a magnetic field. That field was created by an electrified cable buried under the road surface. Wherever the cable was – and in this case, it was under several miles of private test track and the inside lane of the M4 near Reading – the DS would follow, and at speeds of up to 80mph. The limitations of the system are obvious, eg, what happens when you want to overtake something ahead of you. But this was genuinely being considered as a practical proposition for the future of the car in Britain. A truly fascinating story.

An Olympic task

There’s only one story in town at the moment, and I will confess I’ve not been as work-focused as I should have been. Watching the Olympics has been part of my life since I was a kid – my dad was a keen athletics fan and sometime marathon runner – so having it in London has been amazing. I’ve been to the Olympic Park twice in the last fortnight, to see water polo and athletics (sorry the blog has been a bit patchy!) and to be part of the experience is something I will always remember. Interesting to note that all the doom and gloom about transport chaos doesn’t really seem to have materialised. The story has been about British success, not the traffic jams caused by the Games Lanes. I’m sure things have gone wrong behind the scenes – given the scale of the logistical operation that’s hardly surprising, and I’m sure they did in Beijing, Athens, Sydney, etc as well – and I’m sure there’s been some cheesed-off drivers in the capital. But it’s not been serious enough to be newsworthy. And that’s fantastic. People will remember the Games for the right reasons.

Driven: Citroen Berlingo Multispace

“You’re driving a box on wheels!” The hard-to-argue-with comment from my kids’ child-minder as I collected them earlier this week. The box in question was the Citroen Berlingo Multispace, and if you’re looking for practicality in a family car – and you can cope with the styling – there’s no better machine. The driving experience is instantly forgettable. There’s nothing offensive about it, and when you turn the steering wheel it goes round the corner, but equally there’s nothing memorable. No, this car scores big for its versatility and storage solutions. Aside from the massive boot, there are cubby holes everywhere and I’m particularly fond of the overhead ones, which nobody really realises are there until they are pointed out. The car has been upgraded for 2012, with a revised front end and higher quality materials in the cabin. It coped admirably with the Yarrow family’s camping gear for a trip to the north Norfolk coast last weekend. Of course, I’d never buy one. It’s a box on wheels…