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Race weekend.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53172207801_76a48cd458_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53172207801_76a48cd458_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2p1DsTt ]IMG_20230908_073355[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
The bike is prepped and ready to roll.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53172642000_828aa68a09_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53172642000_828aa68a09_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2p1FFXE ]IMG_20230908_073403[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
It's not a track either of us have ever been to before, but being a Pearce race you have a decent idea of what you're getting. Roots, a few jumps, some tech, some loam, some twists.... it's what they do and what they do well. He'll have all day Sat to practice along with an uplift, so he'll know the track by Sunday for race which will be 2 runs of racing and a bit more practice. It's always on the tricky side of results at a Pearce as they're well attended and plenty of racers who've done the tracks year after year, as well as being pretty darn fast 🙂
But we'll be ready..... well, once we put 3,000,000 things in the van anyway.
Another long and somewhat epic weekend.
Rocked up on Sat bright and early after a 5.15am start and driving to Bucknell in Shropshire. It was then a day of practice for the lad with me and the other parent doing camping, BBQ, tools etc duties.
James and Drew did 8-9 runs as my lad had never been to Bucknell before so wanted some course knowledge. I was slightly worried at the end as Drew kept coming down 20s before him. Lol.
An evening of BBQ, beer and trying not to expire from the heat followed with laughs and banter.
Sunday brought lower temps and overcast, but really nice for racing
The bike was ready to roll.
The boy was ready to go as well. The weather gods didn't quite live up to expectations sadly as when we were waiting for the Youth class the slight drizzle started. It was more psychological rain, but it didn't quite stop so got a little greasy in final section.
The boy came down with a solid time and run but "couldn't quite stay off the brakes with the wet"
He stuck in a 17th place out of 53 riders, his best result with Pearce and once again, right in the mix for places. He was right with Drew on 3/4 sectors, but lost a bit to him and Drew stuck in 13th, again a great result for Drew as well as weeksy08.
Then the bigger rain came in half and hour and drenched the track, 3 hours of rain. The fast guys were coming down 15s slower than mine, so we saw little point doing run 2 and called it a day. You could argue a bit more bike time is cool but we've got races on the next 3 weekends so pointless risking anything.
Tired and having a beer.
Video below of the run in to the line.
https://youtu.be/xUZWMpD0R-c?si=GSRZfBu6UbH0a0Q8
Is that an in-race timing sheet? Roots and rain have different results?
Yeah you're right mate... he dropped 3 places after run 2.... we honestly didn't think anyone could go faster on run 2... but somehow a couple of people did, so i jumped the gun a little it seems.
Still a good result. Personally I'd have had some rain practice though, even if not likely to beat the time, all good experience.
Guess he is liking the Trek then?
Missed your comment about more races coming up so calling it a day. You've explained it sorry
Guess he is liking the Trek then?
Yeah he loves it... but it's still in experimentation stages to an extent in terms of tyres, wheels, setup, mullet, 29er etc.. He felt it was a bit too tight after 3 runs on Sat so we swapped from 29/29 to mullet, he then felt better on it so we stuck with the mullet for the rest of weekend. That's all a bit weird as he preferred the 29/29 when testing the week before, but we may have to accept that wheel choice is course specific in his head.
I hear you and we did debate it and really it seems we should have done it. But as above, we 3 race weekends coming up, everyone was stacking it due to the wet (at that time, not when his Cat raced it seems) it seemed like a wise move to not risk a crash/injury for no chance of moving up places... It was clearly the wrong decision but he's taken it well and doesn't think he'd have been one of the improvers... but we can't go back in time and change it, so the result stands.
He/we are really happy with the result, not only the actual position but where he now is in the bigger picture. The Pearce races are slightly skewed as there's lots of riders who practice on them day in day out, the Pearce teams actually build, dig and design the courses lol. So it throws the results a bit, not much, but Harry Dallow in his class for example had an exceptional finish, possibly due to knowing the course really well. We're hoping that as next year comes around and the boy is now heading to courses he knows and has ridden before, that will play a little more in his favour as there's a bit less learning and more trying to go fast. Who knows 😀
Couple of minor things on the bike, i went to swap the front wheel this morning as the Bontrager wheel needs a truing, i then found that he's got the new HS2 220mm rotors on the front of the Trek FFS... that's another £50 i need to find lol. Nightmare.
But other than that the Trek is going really well. We're up at Hopton for uplift practice day on Sat, the off to a little FoD race just for a day out really and a bit more race practice. The race is on Elephant Man, which i've also raced and ridden, i was going to enter myself, but the simple facts are, 1. I'm not very good. 2. I'm a bit skint lol... So it'll just be him racing this weekend. I'll be getting out mid-week for a few rides though to keep my hand in.
Well our racing season is done now - the last BMX national was last weekend at the manchester indoor, and my offspring got his third podium and wrapped up a long and successful season: 3rd in the national series on cruiser, 2nd and the british champs on cruiser, and 16th in the national series on 20" which should scrape him worlds qualification on both bikes, so hopefully we'll be off to Rockhill in the states for the worlds next year which is a bit more exotic than Glasgow was this year!
So now he's done he wants to 'relax' by doing a bit of mountain bike racing and we're looking at the MIJ race on Sunday at FoD. I see James is signed up @weeksy ? He's not done any mountain bike racing and doesn't have a DH bike - he's on an aether that used to belong to @joebristol and is now a bit small for him, with a very worn DHR on the back. It looks like the courses are trail bike suitable and short, and not too mental? He thinks he's a bit of a badass on the MTB because he can jump but he doesn't ride it very much - a couple of times a month - and he's going to get a shock when he sees how quick racers go, but it looks like a pretty laid back sort of race and a decent first step? Looks like it will be wet too!
Right the trail is 100% OK for Enduro bike... Funnily enough me and the lad are off there tomorrow evening doing uplifts with Katy to test between 141 and DH. I'd say my lad will be in the minority on a DH bike... maybe 10 out of 70 riders... 15 out of 100 will be on DHers.
However we do have another option for you which is to either use my Slayer or our spare DH GT Fury. Don't just say no because it's a hassle, honestly it's really not a hassle 🙂 I'll have space for a spare bike in the van and happy to bring whatever really. I exepct mine to race on the Trek. The Fury is running mullet, the Slayer running full 29. Both are sitting in the garage and 100% ready to roll.
If you'd rather just have a tyre, we can probably find you something less worn and swap it for you.
The track is loamy, bermy and a bit jumpy at the start, small rock garden, but a reasonable red rather than a black.
MIjs are deffo laid back, it won't be a paddock full of motorhomes etc and always a good vibe.
By the way, MANY congratulations on the results... that's bloody awesome.
Wow - that's incredibly generous Weeksy!! He's desperate for a go on a proper DH bike... if you'd be taking it anyway he'd bite your hand off for a run on the Fury, but I'm not sure about racing it - it's a very different beast from his bmx (74 deg head angle and 1.5" tyres at 100 PSI)! I'll send you a PM...
It's just a bike man... 🙂
He's more than welcome to play on it for 1 run or 5 runs and race, or not.... no pressure either way from us.
If he needs a tow down for a run or two i can either give him the lad, or give him a mate or two we know depending on his speed, we know a few lads at MIJ races of varying speed/ability that he'll be able to get a wheel down from.
It'd be great if he could get a few runs in and some tips! No idea how fast he is but 'not very' would be my guess. He's a good rider but good trail speed and good race speed are pretty different, and he's never had to push on riding mtb. I've had a quick look at his bike in the shed and realised that I've already swapped out his DHR... for a minion semi-slick!! Perfect for hitting hard pack jumps at Belmont but maybe not so good for slowing down on a DH course. But I also discovered a hill billy and a wide trail DHF so we should be able to get something sorted with a bit more grip depending on the weather.
Jesus BMX is cheap and easy compared to DH!
LOL you don't need to tell me about costs. This weekend gone just cost me another £400 on top of usual stuff as he's now thrown the 27.5/Mullet into the debate. I bought a 29er Hope Pro5 last week for him so he'd have a spare rear. Now i've just bought a Pro5 in 27.5 and a Nukeproof as the spare... £400 gone... That's not including tyres yet but i think we have plenty.
My lad will happily do a few chill runs if he needs... You may be surprised, the BMX boys usually go pretty damn well... especially ones as quick as your lad seems to be... So maybe he'll shock you and go well 🙂
Last night was a properly interesting evening. We met up with @ianpv and his boy for a chat at Elephant Man where they're both racing this weekend. Me and the lad were with Katy and Drew and lapping the track using uplift, they got 10 runs in 2 hours on the race track.
What made it interesting was some of the tactics, training, coaching etc. They were working on line choices and with James and Drew being almost exactly matched on the first few runs, it was great to then test different lines and see if a rider gapped another, one high line, one low line, one inside on a turn, one outside.. Then see the consequences of the actions. My boy also did a fair bit of testing and swapping from the Privateer to the Trek. It's potentially a pedally track on the top section so was interesting to see on timed runs which was quicker... But also interesting to see where he lost time or gained on Drew in sections to compare together.
Really was a cracking night and everyone came away from it happy and laughing.
We were using the GoPro for timing which gave times of
1.07.2 for the Trek
1.07.4 for the Privateer
Considering he's got the Trek setup better i'd argue in terms of suspension that's pretty impressive from the Privateer and not what i was expecting.
The boy last raced this track in MArch of this year, coming in 4th place and a race run of 1.09.2 in what were arguably better and grippier conditions. So another interesting little thing picked up there too. The next 7 riders behind him were all within 1s, so he's going to have to bring his A game anyway 🙂
It'll be different on Sunday anyway as the rain is coming Sat and Sun, but we'll have a decent array of tyres to pick from, which won't give him ulitmate grip of course as nothing can do that, but it'll give him as much grip as anyone else.
<p style="text-align: left;">@weeksy and @ianpv- sounds like a good evening and good luck both for the race on the weekend. Have to get there pretty early to get parked. I went to fod last weekend without realising there was a mini enduro on. Got there at 8.30 and there were only a few spaces left in the main car park.</p>
Glad to hear the aether is still going well - is it worth checking to see if CRC still have those cheap 27.5” Mega’s frame only if he’s getting a bit big for the aether - think pretty much everything would swap over?
Ah it was the Vitus Sommet that was really cheap (£399 with shock) but it’s showing out of stock now in 27.5
Parking is fine, it's in another location for parking/start, so no issues there.
Lap of the track
Yeah I rode elephant man on the weekend - albeit quite a bit slower than that 🤣
No idea how long it took as we stopped to session the little slab jump thing near the top
I'm trying to work on the upload quality to get the higher resolution, we're doing it on a new super GoPro so i should be able to get this cleaner than it is...
I think it’s a YouTube thing isn’t it? I’ve got a hero 8 black and the picture quality watched on the pc or through Google drive is perfect. You upload it to YouTube and the quality goes to crap. A lot of videos I watch on YouTube seem to be like that - I wonder if there’s some premium account they want you to buy to get decent resolution?
I think it’s a YouTube thing isn’t it? I’ve got a hero 8 black and the picture quality watched on the pc or through Google drive is perfect. You upload it to YouTube and the quality goes to crap. A lot of videos I watch on YouTube seem to be like that – I wonder if there’s some premium account they want you to buy to get decent resolution?
There's apparently some settings on 'upload quality' but i can't find that within my settings. I've uploaded another and left it as Private, which apparently lets it go to full resolution in the background... but i do seem to be missing something here. Which is a bit of a shame. I did used to have another App which i managed to use, but not sure if that was the video or the Youtube that worked, Mmmmmm.
Some of my other vids give me the option of viewing at 720p, but these only seem to allow 480p.
Nice vid! And nice to meet you both last night. Joe wants to know if James got the GBU footage 🤣
I think he forgot to press the button sorry mate... but i'm sure we can do the same on Sunday if it's dry enough and send them for a run down it before heading off.
that's the sort of thing I do... no problem! Weather looks bad for Sunday so I'm not going to race with my bad back! I also missed pre-entry so will have to enter Joe on the day...
@Joebristol - I think we're sticking with bmx for next season, so I'm reluctant to buy another bike, but we're vaguely thinking of buying a shared bigger bike as he's pretty much my height now. I wish I'd got Mark's old aeris, as Joe is a bit wary of big wheels being a bmx-er.... I guess a frame/fork swap for him is an option, but he really loves the aether at places like belmont and bikeparks as he can chuck it around pretty well. He'd definitely be quicker on a bigger bike.
When you say bigger bike @ianpv
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52711288487_f939a52a2b_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52711288487_f939a52a2b_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2oiV8CK ]2023-02-26_08-43-27[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
Getting there on the settings... Hopefully this looks better, but if not you should be able to increase the resolution.
I was thinking more about an enduro bike so I could ride it! He'd love a DH bike without a doubt, but it just wouldn't see much use when he's racing bmx 20 weekends a year... but maybe he'll swap disciplines. Be a shame to miss the BMX world champs in the USA though, although that would be a good way to sign off on bmx!
LOL i was mostly kidding anyway matey. It's not really worth us selling the GT at the moment due to a crappy retail price we'd get.. I can't see it making more than about £1800 and it's worth more as a spare to us than that.
We are sitting with a random bit of crazy on the Pinkbike watch list.. https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/3585900/
another Session frame, then have the spare bike the same as the race bike again... but in truth, we've got better things to be spending the funds on in the next 12 months.... (more on that to follow in winter) as we've got lots of potential plans in our heads... none of which are cheap as you'd expect 😀 😀
I’m sure @weeksy will be along soon, but just to say massive thanks from Joe (and me!) for the loan of the fury today, he loved riding it and is full of DH bike love this eve 😂. And congrats to James on a great result 👍
Once again i'm a bit tired and drained from the weekend. Pearce was a long day with a 6.30am start and by the time we'd headed for food at the pub it was 9.30pm home, but the bike was cleaned and the kit was ready.
We headed to FoD for the MIJ race. He knows the track, likes the track, so all was good. He did 6 runs of practice with 3 on the Privateer and 3 on the Trek Session. He decided the PRivateer was being used for run 1. The rain had been forecast and hadn't arrived, right until about 15 mins before the first class was due out, it started spitting . By the time my lad went out for his, 30 mins later it had turned into rain rain, but the track was holding up mostly fairly well. I went down to the bottom and this is where it went a little wrong as the rain turned from rain into RAIN !!!! He then decided the Trek may be the better choice but it was with me at the bottom and no phone signal meant he was racing the Privateer.
He stuck in a time of 1.10.300 which gave him 5th place... We were slightly surprised with the lad in 1st who'd put in a 1.06 or 1.07 and normally isn't that quick.... (however we found out he'd been sent out to check the timing when dry and got his run in... Not exactly sure i agree with that)... But the 1.10 and a 5th place was happy.
Lesson learned from last weekend and we stayed for the duration this time, by the time i got to the bottom it looked like this
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53193615817_30de9156ee_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53193615817_30de9156ee_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2p3xbKc ]IMG_20230917_153224[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
As we were waiting for run 2 a guy comes over, still don't know why i seem to be 'mechanic' in the pits but i was as usual. He'd snapped his 12sp chain on his Rocky Mountain E-bike, not a racer but just here with his mate and couldn't get home. Happily i had a 12sp link, well that and another 1 and a 10, 11, 8, LOL ... just to be safe. Well his Ebike had more idlers than i've EVER seen, it had 2 above the motor along with a tension from MRP on then bottom... Weird weird.... Wasn't too hard a fix, fiddle with the idlers, but sorted..
As i'm finishing that, another lad comes over and he'd broken his bike... "Give me 2 mins .."
He comes over with a Blue GT Fury Team !!!! Arrgghhhh. He'd been dropping his chain which was as always caused by the idler pulley, yup we know that one !!! Easiest way to get it freed was to remove the crank, it was a Shimano Saint with the usual Shimano system so 30s and it was free. But then looking at his chain alignment that needed sorting, so the idler setup was tweaked while the dad sat and chatted with Mrs Weeksy as the went to school in the same village.. Anyway, Job done... Oh... wait...
I had to then re-tension 12 of his spokes, 4 of them were finger tight and could moved SO much... But that was done in 5 mins, not a pro-job, but a "get down race run 2" type of job.
So i sends the boy out in the monsoony rain 🙂
Yup, proper wet for sure. The riders in front of him were not improving their time, mostly losing between 4-8s on race run 1.. Apart from 1 kid who went from a 1.10.0 to a 1.07 !!! Jeepers.
The lad came down with a 1.10.5 and retained 5th place.... Absolutely made up but a bit gutted he'd not been on the Trek in run 1. He was really really happy... Filthy and happy he'd put in a proper hard run.. I was suitably impressed.
https://youtube.com/shorts/BLUrLvn_ie8?si=oalZK4qgq8e02kzQ
We then had to clean up, sort, dry stuff and get back home... Another long long day.
Back home, washing the bikes, cleaning loads of kit and a bit of food.. the gazebo is drying, the sides are drying and i need a lie down 🙂
I’m sure @weeksy will be along soon, but just to say massive thanks from Joe (and me!)
Honestly, it was a pleasure to see the lad so happy and desperate to do both runs on it 🙂
Honestly, it was a pleasure to see the lad so happy and desperate to do both runs on it 🙂
Yeah he was thrilled to ride the Fury. I think he'd have probably gone quicker on his own aether (he certainly looked quicker on it, and it was marginal whether a DH bike was quicker on that track, especially if you've never ridden one before!), but he was more concerned with the experience of riding a big bike than his result.
Also didn't help that he started in his lowest gear on his first run when the track was still holding up! He still got a 1.16 and 10th out of 30 odd in the age group below James, which seems pretty good for kid who only gets out on his mountain bike a couple of times a month.
So thanks again and maybe see you at another one soon, he had a great day despite the pissing rain - he was always going to do a second run on the fury whatever happened!!
He did really well man, but i wasn't shocked at that as BMX fast kids quickly turn into MTB fast kids, so whilst i was impressed, i wasn't astounded... They're just skilled boys.
We'll be hitting the next one there in Oct and he's more than welcome to use the Fury again if he wants.. It's actually useful at times for me as a parent/owner that someone rides the Fury every now and again to keep things moving. It also means they can pick up any issues, we had one of the lads try it at 417 once and snapped a chain on his first run... So it got a new chain. I can also the get someone to see if over lay-up any bearings have struggled etc... So honestly, it's a benefit to me and now i know that it's ready for Antur Stiniog this coming weekend. I'll just be giving the chain a 2nd clean this morning and then a dry/lube and it'll be golden.
Regarding the track... I think your lad had the right rubber in that he actually had the best wet weather combo we own lol. The Hilbilly is a great wet tyre, so played nicely into his hands and would have helped for sure 🙂
We made the mistake in run 1 that he had the Assgeai on the front which was ace, but he was running a High Roller on the back for rolling speed... It wasn't until after i'd left and it started raining more than he felt the combo was wrong for run 1.... But as always with racing, you'll never know the answer, he may have gone quicker or he may have fallen off and broken an arm, you simply never know, you make your choices and you go out. 🙂
Run2 on the Trek he had the Magic Mary on the front which again, was a pretty decent front, i don't know what he's got on the back, either a new DHR or DHF, but again was pretty decent, hence a good time. He actually was 3rd quickest in Cat on run 2.... but as you said, 0.2s off his run 1 time.
ahh - I hadn't thought to look at run 2 times on their own - Joe's would've got 5th in category, but there were 2 DNS and 1 DNF from the boys quicker than him from run 1. So perhaps not quite as much an improvement as that looks, but he did pick off a couple of the quicker kids and stayed upright!
He'd love another shot on the Fury obviously - I'll see what we're up to for the Oct race although I think that may clash with a race at the manchester indoor bmx track - it never rains at those!
So straight away we're onto next weekend now. Yeah i know... but it does come to a bit of an end soon. Or certainly at the very least a bit of a calming of the storm.
Antur Stiniog this weekend for National DH series. Obviously having missed Glencoe and Llangollen he's not put in quite the results he'd have liked in Nationals this season. But his form is good and he's riding nicely. The only main downside is that we've never been to Antur before, so it's all going to be very new to us.
Somewhat weirdly i get the impression that the non-pro-pit paddock is in a very different part to the pro-pit.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53196719755_3bb62cff5c_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53196719755_3bb62cff5c_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2p3P6rn ]antur[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
But having never been i don't know exactly how these 2 locations relate to eachother.. or indeed how the parking will actually work. Due to times and distances i've booked a B&B for the Friday night for us, despite the costs being higher, if we drove up in the morning we'd have to get up at 4am which is somewhat silly... so we'll get a bit of food, a decent nights kip and suck up the costs.
We don't know (or really care as we've not been before) which course/track it's on. So he'll turn up, learn it in practice and see how he gets on 😀 None of the team are racing Nationals so it's just us. But we both know plenty of people in the paddock nowdays so we'll have people to chat to for sure. I'm still debating what we do regarding camping overnight as the 'camping' field seems to be 1.1miles away and i don't know how we'll manage parking if we head off from our location from Sat... plus there's the weather, which is looking typically north welsh and wet... It's possible we'll end up in the same B&B overnight as we are in on the Friday lol.
We're still learning, still making mistakes, still picking up knowledge of racing, riding, tracks.. I'm really hoping that next year which is year2 of Youth all of this will come into play and we start paying dividends as we arrive at tracks knowing a bit more than this year.
The boy still seems to be enjoying the racing and we have a fair few deep and meaningfuls about where, what, how and he tells me he still wants to race more and more... So that's how we're playing it.
I'm starting to find a bit of a happy place for myself too with racing/riding, i have been missing out a fair bit due to not being able to ride the tracks he's racing, so i've been doing more outside of race weekends, but also learning what and where i can do a bit when he's out playing too.
Part of me is looking forward to a break in the racing, part of me will be climbing the walls all weekend looking for something to do 😀
<p style="text-align: left;">Antur has always been wet each time I’ve gone there. It’s a very bleak place if you get sideways rain and the trail surface stays grippy but a bit of a grinding paste. Pretty sure that was what finished off the stanchion on my old Yaris.</p>
The yellow triangle at the bottom looks like the main car park that has toilets and a cafe there - although it’s hard to tell from that picture. The uplift there is very efficient / it goes out the car park and up the tarmac main road and then right onto another mostly tarmac track to the top from memory. I assume it’s either non official trails especially for the race, or one of the blacks from the top. If so they’re not wildly technical - there’s a funny rock / droopy arrangement near the top and then the bit near the trees at the bottom can be tricky if wet. There is a large drop on an alternative route at the bottom but wouldn’t imagine the DH race would use that.
If you end up going into Dolgellau a lot of the takeaways were cash only last time I went there a few years ago - and just the one cashpoint hidden away in a corner.
We appear to be staying in Ffestiniog which I think is almost walking distance, but I can't see us getting there before 8pm with traffic so it'll just be a bite to eat, a beer and bed.
There's on site catering for the Sat evening of Mexican which is cool for us. Sunday, we'll just wing it and it may just be XBuns and cereal bars lol.
Absolutely agree... in all the time we've been there i've never seen anyone photgraph from that position, it's a fantastic angle that's for sure. The funniest part is, it's not nearly as drastic a feature as it looks in that pic... it's a true pic that shows off the rider for sure.