Agency were on the bell yesterday. Can you do a run for Micheldever Tyres at Elland up to their place at Airdrie, drop and swap and back down again?
Yeah alright. A rate was agreed and off I went. Got an 04-reg Axor 430 and 16’4 step frame curtain sider with those tiny wheels 
.
Never been a fan of the Axor in general, mainly because it’s the cab from the rigid Atego bolted on an artic chassis and only has an 8 speed manual slap-across box in it. Unlike other Mercedes trucks, the 430 in the Axor pulls VERY well indeed and has a huge amount of torque. Even with approx 20 tonne of tyres on board, I never had to drop out of 8th all the way up to the enemy territory; the cruise just handled it all.
Getting back to the point … I really do not know how anyone can trunk the M6/M74 every night. With the exception of a bit of “excitement” 
going over Shap on the M6 and the hilly bits of the M74, the rest of the run is totally borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. By the time I got past Annandale I was seriously starting to drop off to sleep, mainly through boredom. You can’t pick up jack [zb] on the radio apart from the BBC stations and none of them are any good at that time of the night. Cranked the window open a bit but that just annoyed me.
Made it up to my planned stop at Hamilton MSA and had a good hours kip on the bunk there but woke up feeling even worse .
I wanted to make it from Airdrie down to Birch MSA in one hit but I just couldn’t do it. My eyes were starting to close on me once again and for my own safety and everyone elses I pulled off at Tebay MSA and had another hour there.
Weird thing is, I felt just the same all the way to Birch where I had to stop anyway to get fuel but after that I was right as rain and still am now, despite having been up for a full 24hrs now.
If Elland wasn’t so far over, I would have come off at Penrith and run across the 66 and come down the A1 but I thought that would be taking the [zb] a bit. If I was going to Leeds then I would have done but Elland’s a bit far out.
Hope I don’t get asked to do that run again because I shall have to politely decline the offer. 
