Forum menu
I possibly should have entered fun 😀
If i'd been in fun yesterday at BPW i'd have been 4/7 instead of 11/12 😀
Looking outside at the moment, my boy will be racing without me as i'll be sitting in the gazebo with a coffee and bacon roll 🙂
Van loading and getting ready for the drive
https://flic.kr/p/2op7cxe
Oh wow. Talk about the most bonkers courses ever. It walloped with rain all night and the tracks were I felt over and above my skills, so I pulled the plug and didn't practice/race.
Seeing the absolute carnage this morning hasn't made me question the decision not to race.
The boy is finding it hard. But everyone is.
The boss is currently doing the transition between stage 4&5 and about to do her last stage of the day. Leading her Cat by 45s
https://my.raceresult.com/238087/
Live timing here
@weeksy,I am glad I checked, I almost sent her a congrats message! How did the boy do?
Saw Katy’s insta post and looks like you got the standard Newnham weather. I’ve raced 2412 there a few times and the weather is often hideous (worse than you had) which makes conditions difficult. One year I’m not joking when I say I had to stop every minute or two to clear mud from my glasses as they’d be totally covered in no time at all.
Not done the enduro course, not sure if any links to other races there, but hope your lad had plenty to take away. Not all about the results (no doubt they keep him keen though!)
It went well right up until I went really wrong. With the final stage left he was in 10th or 11th (out of 40ish)
Then the last stage was tech fest and 10s before the video started he crashed right in front of me.
Then this
Then crashed lower down.
Lost 32s compared to his mate who he'd been quicker than on all 4 previous stages. If he'd matched his mate he'd have ended 9th or 10th.
I think he ended 24th.
It was a cracking weekend but some parts of the track were ridiculous.
My lad said the trails had dried up a bit by the time they raced. Exeter boys got top 3 in Fun with my boy 3rd. Happy with his mug prize 🙂
Congratulations!!!!! Tell him well done!
Cheers! will do 😀
In what way ridiculous Weeksy? Conditions or general tech? I saw one preview of an A, B and C line with big drop, medium drop or “skirt around the lot”.
Both to me, 🙂🙂🙂
To him it was the conditions and grip.
Neither of us are blaming anyone at all, he had a blast and we all had a top weekend. But after walking the track Sat arvo I decided not to even take the bike out of the van. I wasn't convinced I'd survive it. The rain cemented that.
About 2pm I had a few pangs of regret. But stage 5 removed any of these.
The ABC line you saw, yes the slower one was possible for mortals, but it was just a horrifically tech course imo.
On stage 4 finished 0.1s behind Katy, which really pleased him. Drew was 1s behind Katy on 2 stages, the boy was 3s behind her mostly until stage 5.
But mostly we, them and everyone seemed happy. We learned a lot. Mostly about how much I hate tents and rain.
They run that rock line on the xc series.. 😉
I saw the amount of fresh cut tracks they seemed to be digging and thought it was ambitious. It’s rained pretty solidly all week.
Well it's the aftermath, the cleaning, the washing, sorting gazebo, tents, bags, kit, of course the Privateer, the shoes, jerseys, jackets etc etc...Along with being knackered from a lack of sleep and walking up and down the hills 300 times and standing round all day..
At least we don't have to do it all again next weekend.. oh... yeah, next weekend is Rheola.. So another full on weekend.
That means prepping,checking and sorting the both DH bikes instead now of course... The blue one should be 100%, the purple one we've barely seen so will need a bit of a check over before it gets ridden over the weekend (potentially)
Whilst doing all this i need to start working on getting my fitness sorted, weight sorted and even some riding sorted now the evenings are lighter...
Sweet pic from Roots&Rain of my son going down a gnarly looking section. Might have to get this on my wall 🙂
(sorry for invading the Weeksy08 thread!)
Maybe its time for the boy to do more of his own mechanics?
Even if you do all the wrenching I'd at least expect him to do the cleaning so that you can focus on the mechanical side!
I get not putting too much on him to begin with as don't want to make it a chore. But I think he's hooked now so now worries about that side!
Yeah absolutely... but he's at school, i've got time before work etc... So i generally get things done and dusted.. It's arguably the wrong plan and would be better making him do it himself... But i also enjoy a bit of tweaking, checking. The DH bikes will be getting done this evening and he'll be joining in with that for sure. It's not that he's lazy or not interested, i've just got a spare hour here or there.
(sorry for invading the Weeksy08 thread!)
Crack on matey... it's an ace pic... You should be proud.
Onto the weekend.
Rheola. This is a national level DH track and a prequel to the National DH in 2 weeks time. Riders entered are Jordan Williams, Charlie Hatton, of course weeksy08.
We went here last year but he crashed in practice on run 5 or 6 and hurt his shoulder which kept him out of the race on the Sunday. So he knows the track a little bit at least. It's classed as being one of the harder/hardest track in the UK series, so will be somewhat challenging that's for sure.
We'll have both of the GTs present and correct.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52650208298_ebf0fbddb5_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52650208298_ebf0fbddb5_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2odw5C3 ]2023-01-26_08-11-27[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
Along with a selection of wheels and tyres and spares. Although i very much of course hope we don't need any 😀
It'll be a full weekend away potentially from pre-dawn on Sat until Sunday evening. But that partly depends on the weather and what it throws at us. Lets just say i didn't get on well with the tent at the weekend in the rain and if it's like that this weekend than i'll be driving home and back up for Sun morning. There's going to be a bucket load of dirty clothes, dirty bikes and muddy insanity.
Jobs left before the weekend... well, nothing really. Unless we come up with a solution for catering ourselves... which is certainly a possible option for me/us. But in truth i don't know what we want or need for that really or whether we just do our usual and wing it. There'll be a catering van on site and lets fact it, a bacon roll each and a coffee takes a while to be off-set in terms of costs from whatever a cooking machine of some description will take to purchase, (along with the bacon and breaded products each time hahaha)
Couldn’t you just pickup one of those cheap single hob gas grills from go outdoors? Quick and easy with a frying pan for bacon / sausages etc and could boil a kettle on it as well
https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/16233482/campingaz-camp-bistro-elite-cooking-stove-16233482
Yeah that's kinda where my head is going at the moment. Can get from Halfords with a 4x of canisters, each one should last 2 hours of cooking apparently. So easily last me a full weekend.
Abigale has managed to live weeks travelling around Europe cooking on one of those. She had a small deep frying pan and cooked everything in it.
We bought her one of these last year for her trips
The gas canisters seem to last ages on those little cookers - bought a stack of them years ago and still not through them all.
I did have a bigger double job thing of a big gas bottle but I’d rather have 2 cheapie seperate hobs tbh. They come in a nice solid plastic case so it’s easy to chuck in the car.
If you wanted a portable bbq to compliment it the Webber go anywhere is quite compact. I’ve got the charcoal one but I think they do a gas one too. Quite pricey though.
Anyone giving odds on Weeksy starting a “What Motorhome for three plus many bikes” thread?
Anyone giving odds on Weeksy starting a “What Motorhome for three plus many bikes” thread?
Maybe in 3-4 years if he's still at it. Currently, no chance. I'm skint
It’ll be a full weekend away potentially from pre-dawn on Sat until Sunday evening.
ouch. 06.30 arrival for course inspection?
ouch. 06.30 arrival for course inspection?
Unknown until we get a mail @mashr on times etc. But realistically we'll be out the door before 6 that's for sure
Happily he's ridden this one before so we won't need to do Friday evening for a walk. They'll get 10-12 runs in a day which is more than enough and the track will change constantly throughout the weekend as it's ridden.
So really I'm thinking 5-6 runs, a couple of watch sessions and then either home or to the camping a mile or so away.
It's all part of the adventure but will prefer when the warmer sunny days are here
Doh, the BC website being the wonder that it is had the 2022 (in a 2018 url, very confusing) timings up, didnt realise it was old info.
Happily he’s ridden this one before so we won’t need to do Friday evening for a walk.
Thats it, you've done it now. That means they're cutting a fresh trail as I type this 😉
Might I be bold enough to observe from that crash reel that his handlebars look very wide for him. Are they 800mm?
Might I be bold enough to observe from that crash reel that his handlebars look very wide for him. Are they 800mm?
Course you can, you're not the first to say it, even his coach and suspension expert have commented. We've run narrower and he's not liked them. We've got bars in spares from 750/770/780 and the current 800s.... He likes the 800s.
I suspect Weeksy and Weesy Jnr are happy they were no worse than that as his OTB/Collar bone incident was another level....as a Dad myself to a keen 16yo lad rider, I'd have been papping myself seeing that and wondering what the aftermath and injury was going to be.
Oh, of course! I wasn’t disapproving. Having escorted my boy down BPW after bumping his head and saying he was dizzy, would by far prefer unspectacular.
We're good 🙂 i didn't take it as him saying anything bad 🙂
Just looking at the depths of fields...sadly Gravity Events don't show the entrants like most do, but they're often fairly lowly subscribed compared to some. Last year in this event in the juvenile class there were only 8 riders.
But the good thing is, that means there's plenty of points up for grabs. Even the guy who got 7th still picked up 25 British Ranking points. (this is one of our main goals for 2023, to get in the top 10 UK ranking in Youth at end of season), 25 points for 7th in an A race, is the same as winning a B race basically.
Obviously we don't know how many are racing yet though in his Cat.
Last year we didn't complete the race after a decent off in practice he ended up in the car holding his shoulder and unable to move it... We decided to bail as he couldn't even get out of bed properly the next day. It's a tough course and last year was slippery through the dust, this year will be slippery mud on Sat, but a drying track for Sunday.
We're pretty much good to go though and just need to load up the van, the kit, the bikes and all the stuff..
It is as they say, Game Time.
You've mentioned british ranking points a few times. Who is giving these out? Ranking points on a national level for enduro outside of the BEMBA races isn't something i've ever heard of before. Given British Cycling don't recognise enduro as a discipline where are they coming from?
Or maybe your talking about this weekends DH race above rather than last weekends enduro?
The rankings are DH Rankings for British Cycling, not Enduro. As far as i'm aware, yes you're correct, Enduro doesn't do a ranking system outside of each series. In the boys mind, DH is still his priority for this season, the next, the next... He'll race Enduros of course as he enjoys them and they're part of the Privateer sponsorship, but his main focus is DH.
He's currently showing as 11th (very early in season) but his last result at MIJ was worth 28 points which hasn't gone on yet.
You’ve mentioned british ranking points a few times. Who is giving these out? Ranking points on a national level for enduro outside of the BEMBA races isn’t something i’ve ever heard of before. Given British Cycling don’t recognise enduro as a discipline where are they coming from?
If it’s a BC sanctioned DH event then generally there are ranking points available. How many depends if it’s a Cat A race B, etc, etc.
The problem with it is the same as it has always been. It doesn’t actually reflect anything and for the most part is meaningless. The reason is you can pick and choose low attended A races as highlighted above and basically come last in your category yet pick up significantly more points than a stacked field of racers at a B race who would all smoke you.
Unless you are right at the sharp end podiuming nationals and feeding into a World Cup programme it is basically who is prepared to enter the most races and travel the most.
it was the same 15 years ago when I was coming out of juniors and going into seniors. There were riders going straight into Expert which is a non age specific category as a feeder into Elite who were there purely on the number of races they entered.
so do lots of easy races for easy ranking points then brag online about being ranked x in the country. gotcha
Well yes and no..
The kid who won his class last year only did 6 races... all National and won them all. LOL. You'd need to race 4 times a week and win them.
There's no such thing as 'easy' these days... there's easier... sure... but heck, they're all fast, young, old, middle-aged... all fast. I guess some people could theoretcially race like that though, if they were stupid fast.
The bigger races get higher points, so whoever wins this weekend is likely to go straight to #1
There's also not that many smaller races even if you were trying that logic. We are working on it to an extent though, but more through circumstance rahter than anything, we are racing big ones, small ones and medium ones, A race, B races and Nationals. I'll be the first to admit though yes, if he stays fit and races well, it will likely be a higher rank we end up with than his actual place in the UK in terms of outright quickest racers.
manorath-j
Free Member
so do lots of easy races for easy ranking points then brag online about being ranked x in the country. gotcha
Points chasing us been a thing for as long as racing’s been about. In the old points structure 1 point allowed you to enter a World Cup - so you can imagine how that appealed to a certain group of riders even if they got an absolute shoeing and we’re miles off qualifying
it doesn't really play a factor for him until another 2 years when he's then racing in the Juniors (17-18) as that affects whether a rider can go to Elite etc and will allow them to attempt qualification for a World Cup. One of his mates (sort of ) from school took this route last year at Fort William and was offered a place to try and qualify.
He was 6s away from Qualification, which sounds a lot, but was a 5min track.. so only a very small amount away.
(all of this above makes the assumption we're still racing then)
What's the weather like this weekend @weeksy? Not sure you've mentioned it 🤔😉😂 good luck!!!