^That is a pretty good suggestion
Well hmmmm.
One of the lads broke his brake line at bpw today, so he's out on my Trek this afternoon. I spent the morning on the Trek and felt I was going well on it.
As he borrowed it, I jumped on the Status 160 for the afternoon. PR, PR, PR, PR. Segment after segment best ever times on Strava. That was with a shock is not put enough air in and was a good 30psi too soft.
But, it's a really nice, fast and stable bike.
Massively impressed with it.
*awaits new bike thread
@weeksy you were going to buy a Status 160 at one point then backed out of it. Can’t remember why - maybe too close to the g170 you had before?
Was actually out of stock iirc?
Anyway, back to the point 😉
@pimpingimp - I can see them on matching Statuses(? - not sure what the plural of status is) and why not? They like biking and want nice bikes. Also Weeksy would have a complete spare bike/parts to keep his son racing. Now I mention it, that makes total sense. Lo
It's not actually the daftest idea ever.
Anyone got £3100 lying round for a Trek Fuel ex9.8 in immaculate condition? 2020/21 model. Ha ha.
Anyone got £3100 lying round
£31.00?? Absolutely...oh bollox... No decimal point 😢
Also Weeksy would have a complete spare bike/parts to keep his son racing
That's kinda what the Status is in its own right. It won't be used mostly on race days, but will be the spare race day bike.
For info, the lad used it yesterday at Afan and was flying on it and even uphill was going really well.
The GT though is his baby and I think he'd marry it if he could. At BPW he was properly loving it.
We're both tired though, really really tired.
Do it, you know you want to. Do it, do it😉
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/race-report-uk-downhill-national-series-round-1-rheola-wales-uk.html
Some of the pictures here highlight why the boy found Rheloa hard maybe 🙂
Well that and the front tyre on the wrong way round 😀
Nice that... sharing the track with some top riders there 🙂
looks like roots on roots on roots into rocks on rocks!
A lively looking course no doubt!
Random pub just down the camel trail about 1 mile from the race.
It's in the woods jus opposite Grogley Woods.
We're not allowed to check it out tonight, so track walk 9am.
Cotton woods? By the campsite?
long way to drive for a race on a very small hill?
worth a ride around grogley if you get a chance.
Correct Jam.
Won't have time to ride Grogley. It's a long way back. Lol.
Track is actually really good
I did an enduro1 race there years ago and the first stage was from the campsite.
isn’t it the guy who owns the campsites personal playground?
That's the impression I get yes, I think he's called Simon and owns the wood
Race 1, currently in 1st place.
currently in 1st place
What a difference the front tyre being on the right way round makes 😉
Ha ha ha. Walks away in shame
💥 Nice work!
Looks like it's celebration time.
Great result for him 🎆
Well it was a bit of a short-notice thing this event and in some ways a bit of a slog. Friday afternoon brought a fair bit of traffic which made the trip down slow going... but eventually we got to where we're supposed to park at 6.15pm. It wasn't necessarily that we wanted to ride the track, but with a new venue i like to at least know where i'm going. Weirdly this one had the parking and the event over a mile apart (although it actually transpires we could have parked at the venue).
Once we'd checked it out it was food, beers and chilling.
The morning brought bacon, coffee and a chilly start. The lad was moaning about being a bit cold "MTFU and get on with it boy" was about all i could manage as far as inspiration goes. We ended up chatting with one of the organisers for a while on the way to the top and were discussing where we'd come from. "oh, if you've travelled all that way, you must be here for the win".... The boy laughed and said "i'd like a top 10, maybe a top 5..."... Me, i was a little more confident in his ability though and thought he'd be on for a podium based upon entrants.
With the Pearce race being cancelled it seems none of the big boys had ventured down for this, so i knew it was a weaker field that we'd often see. Giving us something of a decent chance. The course walk was done and the boy was picking his lines and his why and where to go... It was WAY better than i expected for a local race and i'm most envious of the wood these guys have to play on.
While practice was on i spent a lot of time watching and chatting to various people including a few coaches of the Project. 'Ewan' was apparently one of the kids to watch and he'd only done 2 runs in practice because he felt he was good enough to win. He was asking who my lad was and i pointed him out on the DH bike and flying over the next section.... I had to laugh as Ewan didn't look quite so confident.
Just in the lunch break things got really funny. Behind the pit area there was a trail with a 22' gap jump, not massively tall but a decent length jump... 5-6 of the 13-16's were lining it up, running into it and not hitting it. I said to the boy "go hit that, it'll freak them out".... What does he do, but he walks over, checks the take off and landing and hits it first run. Their faces of "oh dear" were funny. We then had a laugh chatting with another of his age cat, Felix who also hit it.... My lad then hit it again towing his mate from our village who we'd also taken to come and race.
There was semi-live timing through and app so as race 1 went off, i could see where things were.. 15-20 mins later he was down the track and looking smooth,... but so were plenty of others.
Run 1 brought a P1 in his class and the 3rd quickest time of the weekend. As i walked to meet him at the push up, i asked him and he replies with "that went OK, i'll be happy with fifth".... "oh, you'll love being first then"... His face was a picture and we were both beaming. He had a decent gap over 2nd place of 3s... which at this sort of level is pretty meaty a gap, but you never know if someone made a mistake or left a bit of safety margin in there.
His time overall was 2s off the best, whether he could make anything up was open to debate though, he felt he'd had a sweet run at it.
Run 2, he was one of the last off the gate.. but happily even before his run i knew he'd won as his new buddy Felix was the only one who'd close the gap and he'd only pulled 1s on my lad, so still 2 behind.
In run 2 he managed 1s quicker overall, but he didn't pick up anything on fastest of the day in the U16s as both of those guys picked up a second as well.
So not only his first podium, but of course his first win... BOOM !
THe weekend, well actually the week as we've been to Afan, Fod, bought a new bike, BPW, hotels, fuel, then with the racing, has been CRAZY expensive... but i feel so so happy for him that i've given up caring and he's crazy happy to have won. Of course we both know that in his next race which is a Pearce, he'll be finding things a lot harder in terms of terrain and position, but hey, we'll take the win all day.
The afternoon finished with chocolate ice-cream and Dominos pizza in the car on the way home... Doesn't get any better than that in a 13year olds mind.
Today will bring some strip down and checking of the bike... but even if he wants to go out riding, i don't think i actually have it in me !
I'm sure we'll be buying a few more pics, but you'll have to accept a re-post for now.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52023559611_fb9b894bd5_5k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52023559611_fb9b894bd5_5k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2ng9kNk ]2022-04-23_10-29-30[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
Steve, that is awesome. Well done to you both.
Ian
Would your son / you be interested in vloging ?
I have no idea what is involved cost/time wise but some people appear to get loads of sponsorship from it (see Pinned TV)
I would certainly be interested watching every week
Depends if you are in to that kind of stuff though, or I guess if races allow you to vlog?
Thank you 🙂 it's taken a fair bit of time and effort, obviously a chunk of cash too lol. But he/we are exceptionally lucky that because i'm a MTBer too, it's not a chore... his race practice this week was flying down trails at BPW and sessioning it to get as high as he can. HE ended up 35th overall on Strava out of 34,000+ riders on a segment he was trying on... Now i wasn't anywhere near his times, but heck, i had a blast there too ! So it's awesome for me because i get to ride with the lad and sort of see him progress... from a distance !
I had to laugh when doing Vicious Valley the other day, i get to the bottom (in what ended up being my fastest time of the day), the lad says to me "did you crash" ..... No... i'm just not a bloody racer like you !!! hahaaha...
We've now got 6-7 weeks or so off from racing with nothing of note until JUNE !!! Seriously lol. Sadly i can't see that changing as it Fort William which we're not entering this year and Llangollen nationals, which again we're not going for. But we'll be keeping our hand in and practicing various stuff, along with some days out and messing about on bikes.
Got lucky with the weather. Raining down here this morning and from memory grogley is greasy as **** in the rain.
Would your son / you be interested in vloging ?
I have no idea what is involved cost/time wise but some people appear to get loads of sponsorship from it (see Pinned TV)
I would certainly be interested watching every week
Depends if you are in to that kind of stuff though, or I guess if races allow you to vlog?
THe only downside to that idea is that you can't film British Cycling races, no GoPros allowed. I think at some places you'd potentially get away with it in practice, but deffo not in any races. So a lot would be missed in that context.
The sponsorship side of things would be ACE, but in honesty it wouldn't play a massive factor in some ways to how and when we race... Something like a frame/bike sponsor would be a huge help, but i'm not sure i'd want to take him off his GT anyway, he absolutely loves the thing and swapping to something else now, well, i'm not actually sure he'd want to.
Despite some of our talk earlier in this thread about where we'd like to see ourselves in the future, in the DH world we're very very much a very small fish in a small pond and i just don't see why/how we'd get a sponsor. There's a couple of UK based junior teams and i have emailed a couple of them in recent months, but we're in mid-season, not in sign-up time for the teams, one in particular would be awesome which is the GT Viris squad, both for their bikes and their affiliation to Sprung suspension, which would be awesome for setting up his bouncy bits
Recently though we've become mates with https://www.rsrbikeworks.co.uk/ who do the GT Factory suspension so i'm pretty happy that unless we threw £1000+ at a set of forks, his bike is currently as good as it's getting and indeed as good as it needs to be.
He does do things like Instagram reels and stories..... but he's not gone full Vlog/blog type stuff yet... He's not a shy kid by any means, but i'm not sure he's quite there yet 🙂
It's a great idea though, thank you.
Good to see him doing so well on the Fury, I rode one a few years back and it was one of the oddest feeling DH bikes I’ve ridden (and I’ve ridden them since the 90’s)
Just imagine how fast he’d be if you put him on a Session or a Tues!
It's a question mate. But back in the day the GT was being ridden by some top riders like the Atherton crew, then later by some fast guys too. So it's clearly not a terrible bike.
Let's just say that, if next year brings nationals, it wouldn't be impossible for him to be on something different. But as to what, heck I dunno. He's still not convinced by 29, despite liking the Mullet. But something Andorran wouldn't be against the realms of possiblity.
We had the option of an older V10 when buying the GT, or even an older Tues. But at the time our budget was £2000 and you don't get 2022 bikes for £2000. As we've established in here, I'm not shy at throwing money in, but I have limits for sure.
There's many months and many races before that though. Despite the 6-7 week lull in racing, we've got plenty more planned.
His first win and you keep posting that photo that looks like you’re tracking the Predator 😉
Interestingly (maybe) still something slightly odd going on with his rear brake positioning. Not a huge problem but will lead to him having to use more effort or longer/steeper tracks. Thought I noticed it in one photo then there’s a really clear shot of it on RnR, I’ll send you the link
Great result! Good to see he's getting on well. Enjoy it.
His first win and you keep posting that photo that looks like you’re tracking the Predator
We're waiting for all the pics to be completed on roots and rain before getting the wallet out. So we'll put up some more later, just not yet.
Great writeup.
I wouldn’t bet too hung up on which riders did or didn’t ride a Fury, it didn’t have as much success as it should have given the calibre of riders that were on it and it was in a state of constant change. GT were just trying to keep their identity that they had built up with the I-Drive.
I’d consider the way the bike rides when judging how well he’s done, which is to say he’s done a brilliant job with it!
Obviously don’t want to detract from the thread too much, I’m loving following the story. Well done to him, and to you for supporting him.
Great stuff. Nice that he’s winning at that level. Like a boxer winning his first “area” title, gives the experience and confidence to get better against improving opposition.
The thread is in track, even if we discuss the bike too as it'll only be a matter of time before it's swapped. It's in a size M, so in say this time next year he'll be pushing a large.
This time though we'll be giving things a bit more thought and planning I think.
We jumped onto the GT due to timescales and impatience as much as an actual desire to have a GT. It was just shiny and the right price and condition.
Time will of course tell if he gets on better with something else, but will be interesting to find out, along with the adventure of what it may be.
I already know what his dream bike apparently is.
[IMG] 
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However I can bet that's 99% based upon him thinking it's pretty rather than anything else like spec, pivots, handling, forks etc. He'll just think it looks cool.
The one interesting thing for me after some posts on the thread was how irrelevant the DH aspect of the bike is. People were saying "it's very focused" etc, but they forget the teenager excitement side of things as I suspected would be the case. Yesterday he rode it 1.5 miles or so to the race, then 1.5 back. Last week he rode it 6 miles to the woods for the day and then back home at the end. He doesn't care it's inefficient, he just loves it. Lol
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That kid on the podium does not look like the guy riding the bike, riding beyond his years!
He's a funny lad, because sometimes he's still 10. Well, 10 is optimistic, about 8. He eats Petit Filous and still has his teddy.
Then nails the trails and gaps lol.
He's 5'6 maybe 7 now, but weighs about the same as my left leg. Has power and strength in abundance though. I can't outsprint him even in short hills that should suit me.
I see him sitting next to me in the car and think "am I really about to send you down xyz" but I do and yup, he does it.
It's a properly bizarre world me and him live and ride in. But I wouldn't change a single thing about it. The adventures we have really are second to none. I'm an exceptionally lucky guy.
Long may it continue and his interest in Mtb stay strong.
Good on you @weeksy! Times like these should build a father/son bond that will hopefully last a lifetime.
When my son hit 14 he took up drumming and became the drummer in our band. He was a big lad so could get away with hanging around pubs with the rest of us. The next few years were some of the best of my life with him and I pretty much living through music together and being the best of mates. He's been up and away in the world for many years now and we pretty much ride bikes together on the few times a year we get together but that bond is still strong!
