@weeksy just spotted your tool box quest, I may be too late but I have a mate with a business who makes these things for the entertainment industry, I can get him to give you a quote for a bespoke case and foam insert and ensure there is no ripping off, would probably do it for cost. Drop me a message on insta or here (i usually miss them on here) if it isn't too late. Cheers, John (The bloke who you never recognise but your lovely wife kept me company at Dyfi following a crash) 😆
Posted : 17/04/2025 8:52 am
weeksy reacted
Topic starter
Lol you were too far away with my old eyes 🤣🤣🤣
Not sure if it's too late yet. I've got a sheet of shadowfoam here so may give Mrs Weeksy something to do this weekend first as a tester/fitting.
I'll keep you posted, thanks mate
Posted : 17/04/2025 9:05 am
johnjn2000 reacted
Topic starter
Got a hard plastic case today that's much better for the job. It's slightly bigger so a bit more space in there too.
Only downside is that the lid doesn't 'stop' around vertical, so i may need to employ the brackets i had from the old one for the job, either that i when it's open it's fully open. Not sure yet. It does have 'stops' in the moulding which means it doesn't go completely past flat, so i could modify that to stop just past vertical.... Not sure yet what will be the perfect plan.
First layup of the tools to go in...
Next debate is whether i used Red Box Tools and have all the items precision scanned/cut into their foam or whether i use some shadowfoam i have for the job... Setup and cutting out is about £125 including the foam.
Posted : 17/04/2025 10:48 am
Is £125 for the foam only or the case as well?
Posted : 17/04/2025 11:56 am
Topic starter
For the layout, cut out yourself. You will change stuff about over time. I'm on my second iteration since the photo below and about to embark on going up to a Peli 1510, to fit more stuff (spares mainly).
agree 100% and this years layout is quite different to last years as there's tools you thought you'd use a lot and rarely come out and ones you never thought you'd need much that you really need a lot more.
Posted : 17/04/2025 1:24 pm
Topic starter
Is £125 for the foam only or the case as well?
£125 is for 2 layers of foam, plus scanning/cutting. 30mm foam depth.
Posted : 17/04/2025 1:24 pm
I have tool box envy now. Done the draws for the tools at home but not for the mobile version
Posted : 17/04/2025 1:44 pm
I have tool box envy now. Done the draws for the tools at home but not for the mobile version
ᴛᴏᴏʟʙᴏx ᴡᴀʀꜱ™ (@toolboxwars) • Instagram photos and videos
Posted : 17/04/2025 2:30 pm
Topic starter
Today was Caersws for him. Conditions were a bit meh for first 2 runs but absolutely perfect from them on. He got 14 full runs and 22 total. He didn't stop for more than 2 mins to grab food.
Sometimes I'd question that a bit but today he was quite clearly having a laugh with riding mates, so I went with it. With all the racing he's doing I worry we don't see the fun side enough, so I've been trying to encourage that for him and today was the perfect example of it.
He still used timing from GoPro a fair bit to see how his times were compared to earlier but that's ok as he was still enjoying it.
He slept most of the 3 hours home after an early start this morning.
Mrs Weeksy was at home doing tool box lol.
Getting there. May need a few tiny little trims to make sure things are secure. But it's pretty damn close.
Posted : 20/04/2025 8:33 am
dirkpitt74 and weeksy reacted
Topic starter
So we're into what's going to be remembered as a bit of a crazy month.
Fort William
Rhyd-Y-Felin
Fort William
That's the schedule for the next 3 weekends running. It's going to be hard on him, hard on me and hard on the bike and van lol. Logistically we're pretty much sorted, we've got hotels booked for breaking up the journeys, we've got a tonne of spares, bits and tyres etc. But i think the driving and even the 'sitting' there for him followed by the intensity of racing is going to be pretty hard-core over the next few weeks.
The first FW is his first chance to try and score a UCI point. The race is part of IXS and Warner Discovery Continetal series, which is where riders get UCI points which gives them eligibility to race World Cups. We didn't get a GB jersey this year, but 2 of his closest rivals in the paddock are on the reserve list, one of the lads Seb who we've battled for last couple of years DID get one, but currently Seb has pulled away from the other lads a little bit which gave him P3 at Cwmcarn last weekend, so completely justified that he got the coveted GB jersey. I think due to a couple of Wildcard spots just being picked up by 2 lads due to their team getting entries that potentially 1 of the close rivals may jump onto a jersey, but we're still not on that list. That said, i didn't think we'd get one this year anyway and wasn't really a realistic goal. But scoring a point is sure a possible thing for him.
I'm trying to take the 'fun' rider with me this weekend, not the one who looks at others and compares himself to other riders, but when you're watching lines, watching riders, it's hard not to kinda get slightly sucked into it and see the fast lads and think "wow, they're fast" but he can hopefully just enjoy the riding instead as he IS one of the fast lads, even if he doesn't always believe it.
Thurs afternoon we get in the van and head to Scotland (again) and track-walk and practice Fri, the practice and seeding on Sat, with a last bit of practice on Sun morning before the race. It's then working out the plan to get back to school/work on Monday lol.... can't wait.
Posted : 21/04/2025 7:21 am
I should be at Fort William & I'll come & say hello if I see you.
Posted : 21/04/2025 9:23 am
weeksy reacted
Topic starter
Posted : 21/04/2025 12:27 pm
I'm borrowing a mates camper for a week, gonna watch the race & ride a few places, nothig certian. I'll see how the weather is.
Posted : 21/04/2025 4:36 pm
Topic starter
As far as I know it's looking great all weekend
Barring mishaps we'll be there early Fri until Sunday.
Posted : 21/04/2025 4:39 pm
To the uninitiated on the UCI series format, where does he need to place to get a point?
Not a criticism of you in any way, but must be tough knowing that this is a really important race in terms of comparing him to GB riders and trying to break into the next level and then saying that you want to just take it as a fun race. You allude to that anyway but not sure how you square that circle. Maybe Kati can help with that with her experience.
Posted : 21/04/2025 8:55 pm
weeksy reacted
Topic starter
Its a good question and an answer I'm waiting for from IXS organisers as I'm struggling to find the info.
Regarding the serious/fun aspect, it's a state of mind rather than an effort or speed. I just do t think I phrase it well. Katy is very much of the ethos that results don't matter, but well, of course they do. I know that, you know that and he knows that. But to see his best riding he has to keep the fun factor as that relaxes him, keeps him smooth and makes him fast. But racing at this level is a very serious sport of course.
Again, I'm not sure I fully get the words out correctly above, but hopefully it makes sense.
This race is equally as important or not as most of the others, there's always something bigger in the background to play for, whether that's a win/podium at FoD, a podium push at Pearce or seeking top 10s at Nationals. But one race won't define his future, not by a long stretch.
There's as always a tonne of background things going on for him regarding his future, but as I say, this race or the next won't make or break these things. The people we're chatting too watch all his results of course, but understand that riders have good days and bad days, sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. We're trying to make it now that the boy himself makes some of these decisions and both me and Katy just advise/guide. But it's his future he's planning not mine, so my job is just to try and make things happen.
We will still and probably always make mistakes here and there, but mostly we just keep trying to learn and go fast.
Well explained, what you’ve written makes sense.
Good luck with it. Lot of travelling so stock up on coffee and bacon!
Posted : 21/04/2025 10:07 pm
For continental series races 20th place junior upwards get UCI points, 30 for a win. It's tiucked away on the second last page of the 2025 MTB rulebook memorandum.
We came back from Portugal with our girl's first ever points, which was a huge boost. I'm not telling her how many more she needs to qualify for world cup on rankings!
Posted : 21/04/2025 10:50 pm
Topic starter
For continental series races 20th place junior upwards get UCI points, 30 for a win. It's tiucked away on the second last page of the 2025 MTB rulebook memorandum.
We came back from Portugal with our girl's first ever points, which was a huge boost. I'm not telling her how many more she needs to qualify for world cup on rankings!
Massive congrats to you both 🙂 and thanks for the info 🙂
Posted : 22/04/2025 6:28 am
I know. So many cool toolboxes.
Posted : 22/04/2025 10:51 am
It's possible, and important, to remember you can take things seriously, without being too 'serious'. Going fast and racing is fun, and the moment it isn't then you're done. The training is too much , and you won't commit in races. But these things ARE a lot of fun, and realistically these races aren't very important, and there are many years ahead, so you don't need to fret re. a single disappointing result.
Remember that so far you've had a good progression in performance and results. At some point that will stall, hopefully temporarily but.... That's when it becomes really important that you remember you're doing this for the fun of it
Topic starter
It's possible, and important, to remember you can take things seriously, without being too 'serious'. Going fast and racing is fun, and the moment it isn't then you're done. The training is too much , and you won't commit in races. But these things ARE a lot of fun, and realistically these races aren't very important, and there are many years ahead, so you don't need to fret re. a single disappointing result.
Remember that so far you've had a good progression in performance and results. At some point that will stall, hopefully temporarily but.... That's when it becomes really important that you remember you're doing this for the fun of it
Not going to argue with any of that matey 🙂
The progression curve i wouldn't say is stalled, but it's basically now that all the riders are on the same progression curve mostly, so unless one/some of them find 'something' extra, it's really hard to change positions mostly now. So it can't be slightly disheartening that you're not getting higher in the big races, but when we look at the gap to the guys in say P3 in Nationals, it's SO much nearer than it was 12 or 18 months ago. Back then he was 30, 45s maybe off those guys, now it's not even a handful of seconds.. but the higher you get up that level, the harder to make those seconds up 🙂
He's still enjoying it... So he tells me 🙂 and has no desire to stop.
Posted : 22/04/2025 12:48 pm
Topic starter
Posted : 23/04/2025 4:52 pm
For continental series races 20th place junior upwards get UCI points, 30 for a win. It's tiucked away on the second last page of the 2025 MTB rulebook memorandum.
We came back from Portugal with our girl's first ever points, which was a huge boost. I'm not telling her how many more she needs to qualify for world cup on rankings!
Did you Côme to the race in Millau ?
Posted : 23/04/2025 5:18 pm
That first clip is lairy!
Posted : 23/04/2025 5:34 pm
Topic starter
That first clip is lairy
It was a gap he was eyeing up last time but didn't want to hit on his Fuel. In practice Katy went to watch and texted him that a few had been hitting it, but not many. By the end of the weekend I think 20% we're hitting it. Apparently it comes in about 35' roughly.
Not something I'd even look at, let alone consider 🤪
Posted : 23/04/2025 6:01 pm
tomdubz reacted
3rd video.
Far too much air being taken*. He needs to learn to bubba scrub. Also needs an aero skin suit.
*no one has ever said that to me. 🤣
Posted : 23/04/2025 7:02 pm
Topic starter
3rd video.
Far too much air being taken*. He needs to learn to bubba scrub. Also needs an aero skin suit.
*no one has ever said that to me. 🤣
Practice = fun jumps.
His race jersey is pretty snug. But due to delays and cold up top he raced in hoodie
Posted : 23/04/2025 7:05 pm
Did you Côme to the race in Millau ?
Regional cup: passage obligé !
Talking of regional cup races, I'll be marshalling this weekend in Combes near the bottom of the track. There's a possiblity of Vergier and Pierron turning up in addition to the locally based muc-off riders.
Not quite fort William though, is it
Posted : 23/04/2025 10:07 pm
Topic starter
For anyone coming over, weekend schedule has changed for Friday with practice now being 'open practice' from 9.30-3pm. Then track walk 3-5pm. Practice was 12-6.
I won't change too much from our perspective but i don't know if that means we have to pay for uplift for the day or not... we'll find out in the morning when we rock up.
Posted : 24/04/2025 10:08 am
Did you Côme to the race in Millau ?
Regional cup: passage obligé !
Talking of regional cup races, I'll be marshalling this weekend in Combes near the bottom of the track. There's a possiblity of Vergier and Pierron turning up in addition to the locally based muc-off riders.
Not quite fort William though, is it
I was marshalling on the saturday before the bridge and driving lorries on sunday.
Posted : 24/04/2025 3:56 pm
Topic starter
Top day with 5-6 laps for the boy, he came down happy after all of them. Very positive day for him.
Some funny moments as he (and many others) were asked to give signatures for a load of kids
They had no clue who he or anyone was, but he was laughing lots at it.
Track walk then stir fry
Posted : 25/04/2025 8:33 pm
Cracking course preview video on youtube with Nina Hoffman and Steve Peat, excitement for us dreamers!
Posted : 26/04/2025 8:57 pm
DNF in seeding for Weesky Jnr, hope all is OK
Posted : 26/04/2025 11:02 pm
Topic starter
Another whirlwind weekend of insanity and craziness.
As we saw, Friday went pretty damn well, Sat started off in the same fashion really, i sent him up for first run, he came down happy, the weather was holding and the track was good. By the time we got to 3rd practice it had all gone well and he was up for it.
Mid morning he was getting play in the main pivot (again) so bearings out and new ones fitted but i think it's the spacer that holds it all together that's worn, so £40 out of the bank for that)
Sadly the feeling of "oh" came around soon after lunch as it was seeding and he was due down.. but after a gap, another rider appeared. I seem to cope fairly well with it though and wasn't hugely worried. 30s later a text message arrived "flat tyre, walking down".
By the time he arrived at the bottom he'd managed to find 2 flats, both front and rear. The bloke repairing wheels had run out of rims, 3 of our mates did 15 rims over the course of the weekend between them, yeah really.... wow... 15. I ended up giving one of our 27.5s to one of them for Poland World Cup in 2 weeks as he didn't know if he could get a spare for it.
So it was wheel stripdown and when i re-inflated the front it looked and seemed like he'd just blown the air, but i stripped it and checked wheel, tape etc...
Wheel 2 wasn't quite so smooth. I inflated that and it was leaking straight away, after whipping the tyre off it seemed it had a few little snicks in the tape, so i decided to re-tape it. But then my sodding Mobi washer seemed to have lost the ability to pump water as an o-ring had gone since it was last used. (£200 later an order for a Worx Hydroshot was placed at Screwfix for collection Mon). So i couldn't get the wheel clean easily.... GRRR.
Eventually i re-taped it and threw the tyre on, it STILL wouldn't stay up, so the tyre is very suspect and i think he's damaged it on or around the bead. A new Argotal came out of the box and that went on. It stayed up fine. We then noticed that the rotor had been fitted incorrectly by the previous owner, so that was flipped.
The bike was then all back together and due to the forecast i'd fitted 2 x Argotals for the coming rain.
Sausage pasta was thrown together and people fed... It was then an early night in the tent/gazebo.... But that went about as well as you'd expect in FW as the overnight rain and wind came in hard... I didn't sleep well.
Sunday was a short practice and the boy looked at the rain, fitted his kit and went out. He came down shaking his head.... Eeeek.
"gears don't work, they're all over the place and the chain dropped off the cassette."
So it was a bit of work again on it, setting the high/low screws and sending him out for his last practice. The rain was still light but the wind was getting up.
"still no good"
I then diagnosed an issue with the SRAM UDH, it was coming loose.. maybe a thread issue, maybe something else, but it went in the bin and a new UDH was fitted... high/low set, brake aligned and ready to go.
We tested it in the car park and all seemed OK enough.
The wind and rain was playing a factor now and the early Youth riders got the best of it.. "got blown of the track 3 times" from the later of the Youths we know was a pattern.
The boy was down early out of the list due to his DNF in seeding with Seb in front of him (who borrowed our wheel, but not fitted it for race). Seb didn't come down though and on live timing hadn't gone through split 2.... It seemed he'd killed his 4th wheel of the weekend. Massive dent in it... Damn.
The boy came down and looked OK, but had clearly had a lying on the floor moment looking at the sky, there was mud on his trousers and shoulders... Arses....
He'd got blown about a lot up top and exiting the woods he went for an inside line and got in wrong and went down. But he was up and OK. He came over the line and the ending was a P38. Not what we wanted from the weekend that looked pretty positive early on, but we can't change it and can't do a lot about it.
But the bike held up fine (apart from hie brake lever which he's broken the adjuster (another £80 on top) and he got down in 1 piece.
It was then packing all the wet things away, it's amazing just how much stuff you have when cooking, gazebo, camping, tables, kit etc for a weekend.
5 hours later we're in a TravelLodge getting some kip before a 5am start to get back for school.
Pics if/when i have some energy back. There'll be some stories about bike stuff too maybe 🙂
Great to meet and chat to LeeGee, sorry i missed you today mate, hope you got a good nights kip in the camper 🙂
Topic starter
There was another new DT Swiss 511 on the other side with a new Kryptotal on it, but this was mid wheel insanity.
Posted : 27/04/2025 10:03 pm
Well done ill bet you are proud of him. 👍
Posted : 27/04/2025 10:08 pm
Topic starter
Well done ill bet you are proud of him. 👍
Always. I'm proud of all of them in truth, it's a lot that we ask of them, riding that place at race speed time and time again, in pressure situations. It's also tough for each and every one of them who do t get the results they hope for.
They all then get up and go again next week. Well, hopefully, as long as I can sort his bike lol. But it should be a 5 minute fix and him ready to go. It's Rhyd Y Felin this weekend, so just a few days and we're back in the mix and ready. It's funny at races, you can see us all getting tired and weary over the weekend, people running round getting bikes, wheels, riders etc all sorted. Then the tension of seeing the parents at the bottom, especially when their child doesn't come down when they're supposed to. It's a tough game we all play at.
But there are rewards we all get from it as well. Sometimes they're just hidden a bit lol.
Posted : 28/04/2025 6:38 am
Tracey reacted
Topic starter
This leads us nicely into a few things, the main one being next year's plans for bikes.
The Session is 3 years old soon and has been hammered, maybe not as many miles as some riders, but in terms of intensity it's hammered week in week out.
There's also the suspicion it's getting a bit small as he gets his last bits of growing.
We've debated the obvious and easiest choice of the Session but he fancies a change and fancies going a little radical, Zerode G3. So with that in mind he did some car park runs on a mates G3 Sat evening. He felt (as did I) that the front end felt really really heavy, but is that because the rear is so light? Not sure. Or were the massive Fox forks just weighty? Again not sure. He had the option to do a run on it, but matey would have been stuck if he'd broken it, so wasn't the right time or place. But a long long chat about the Zerode was had and it being 90% positive. Happily this guy isn't sponsored by Zerode although it is an ex Hardline bike, so we could get honest answers. They seem good on reliability with a few minor quirks in the belt system, but nothing major. The boy felt the rear rebound was too fast, but we didn't discuss that with the owner till after his race run as we didn't want to put him off.
Theres a plan forming
Posted : 28/04/2025 6:53 am
dirkpitt74 and anorak reacted
Fox40 is circa 300g heavier than a boxxer. Also worth looking into the geometry and how that could change his position. Weight distribution on the bike will be different, 9 speed pinion box is 2kg, an XO carbon crank assembly is around 900g, so there is a fair shift weight forward, so picking up the front will feel more odd.
Whatever you are picking it first and foremost needs to reliable, with no wacky fasteners or other nonsense thats hard to get hold of.
If I was going the gearbox route, would be hard to look past the Gamux (as its available) and the Atherton when they launch it. I'd also be quite tempted to long shock a Geometron G1 GPI or see if they'd do a G18.
Posted : 28/04/2025 10:56 am
I have a Zerode Taniwah with the 12 speed Pinion box. Faultless in just over 12 months. The drive train is fit and forget apart from an annual oil change.
I fear you will have too much time on your hands 🤣
Posted : 28/04/2025 11:06 am
hardtailonly and weeksy reacted
Nice to meet you too Steve & James & girlfriend..
I was at the top watching and missed the opportunity for a great photo as I was talking to a marshall when he came past!
His run coincided with probably the worst if the weather at the top. I saw riders almost stall as they turned into the wind, it was horrible up there.
I came to find you again about 3.30 but you'd gone, I was interesting to talk to you and learn a bit about what goes onm
Posted : 28/04/2025 3:00 pm