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He's happy enough. The weekend is complete, well apart from the new headset to be fitted, possibly some new tyres, a strip, clean and sort. But first it's beer and a relax in the pool.
Bit of a holiday blog type thing for today. We headed up to Pal Arinsal Andorra for some riding, for not other reason than, well, we both love riding bikes and it'd be rude not to when we're so close.
We both absolutely loved the place.
My trails were mostly blues, he was riding the World Cup track. Both were brilliant in their own way. The fact the blues had a bit more tech to them than Morzine really made them.
Commencal HQ/shop was visited but somehow I managed not to buy a new bike, not sure how, if we'd have been staying another day I may have ended up with a yellow framed ohlins shod Clash. But we still have nearly 6 hours driving to go, which I'll freely admit I've had enough of at the moment lol.
We saw Ventoux from a distance earlier
Plan is to head to Morzine tomorrow for 10-11 days of fun. But his much ill ride, I'm not yet sure. I'm a bit fried and peaked at the moment.
Weather in Morzine has been superb, 28 most days with I think 32 yesterday. That was somewhat on the warm side though I admit for riding. But with a cold beer at lunch for me, we survived.
The boy has been riding every day, some Plenty steeps, some Les Gets but not the WC track as it's mostly closed. Spending time hitting loads over the Swiss side too.
The bikes as always are taking a battering. Mine less so than his of course as I go slower and lower. Both are creaky and in need of TLC.
They get fully checked before each days riding, mostly on his it's rear wheel spoke tension that takes a battering, but I'm on top of that. The rest is generally just a bolt and pad check. He'll need some pads after today/tomorrow probably on both ends. We've got plenty with us so we'll be fine there
Another day begins, bike is ready and he's off out shortly. I'm at home and probably the pool with Mrs Weeksy, may even shoot out and watch the football later in the bar.
Late night lift opening on the Pleny tonight. So a quick afternoon change of SRAM Maven, Galfer pads for him along with a set of pads thrown into the DB8 on my Trek Fuel. Quick bleed and piston setup, piston massage and he's off out. 🍻 Time for me
I do hate that we have to pay £20 a set for the Galfer green, lol but damn they work.
That said, he's got a set of black in today now
Full strip down and rebuild today, forks, shock, linkages etc all apart, headset out and cleaned.
Rear tyre dead so that's been replaced as well
Set up and chilling at Llangollen now. Sunny, dry, warm.
Beer chilling in cold box. The world is ok
Well the weekend went, sort of OK i guess. Although as always it's relative.
We didn't have much in terms of maint/work on the bike after the rebuild on the Friday, so that was good, although an impromptu moment with some suspension oil and the lid falling off on Sunday did mean a change of pads, bleed and clean of the brakes just before his race run which added a little pressure as i then had to bed in his pads in the blazing sun before his race run.
Weird format for the weekend meant he seeded on Sunday just before lunch. He was feeling OK with the world but in truth he's having a few issues at the moment holding/getting cornering speed, so he wasn't exactly flowing with confidence. He went 8s quicker than his best practice but that gave him P17 in seeding.
It's easy to be disappointed in P17 but the reality is, there's incredibly fast full on pro racers in there he's playing with, World Cup racers, the best of the National paddock, if you think back to Jan, then inside the Top20 was the year goal.
Race run the track was more and more blown out as his Cat goes out almost last, so the holes grew and grew. He made a mistake on one long right hander which ran him off the track and cost him 2-3s but he put in a time basically the same as his seeding and that put him in P16 for the weekends race.
I can't see he was happy with that, i'd be lying if i did.... but it's not a complete disaster that's for sure. We had a few deep and meaningfuls on the way home and he's deffo feeling the pressure at the moment, little things like the National Jersey possibilities, the overall ranking points and just the day to day pressure to perform.
I think there's potentially a bit of burn-out after 2 weeks of full on competition at the Euros and then day in day out in Morzine, maybe we should have chilled a little more... Throw in the 22 hours of driving over a 45 hour period and it's all stacking up on him (and me if truth be told)
So we have a little bit of a chill time this week i think, along with the weekend at the Malverns with DMR.
https://malvernsclassic.com/
DMR have entered him in some races, but nothing that's 'serious' in the usual way, so i'm hoping the weekend with give him some unwind time and relaxing time. Before we then head off to the next race the weekend after.
As always, i'm pretty fried from another load of driving (3000 miles in 3 weeks, but mostly compressed in 5 days of that lol) and then sleeping in a field and sorting bikes/racer... So i've got a bit of a chilled one this week. Although i do need to strip his bike and get new bearings all round in there to get it 100% as well as hopefully getting his forks and shock off to TF Tuned to get them serviced. Then i need to sort my bike after the Morzine dust/dirt/work.
We'll get there though, a few evenings spent we'll be golden 😀
Date with a bearing press kit. It's amazing how grubby they all get and whilst i don't think they NEEDED replacing, after chatting this weekend to a Mondraker mechanic from WC team and the fact they change the bearings EVERY week, i thought these should get swapped and cleaned. Just keeps it running nicely i think
Next up was to whip the forks and shock out and they're off to TFTuned later today.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54730771185_200cdc76e0_4k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54730771185_200cdc76e0_4k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2ronvtX ]IMG_20250818_165637[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]steveweeks59[/url], on Flickr
Hopefully after that we're back to being good to roll.
The weekend though i don't think we'll need it, it's Malverns Classic with DMR as our hosts, the boy is doing everything from the lake ride to 4X and Dual Slalom, as well as the DH of course. We've never been to Malverns before but DMR asked us to go, so heck, why not, it's a weekend out 😀
It's not like we're not used to sleeping in a field or two.
I'm looking forward to and using it as a bit of a weekend to relax and chill, maybe a beer/pizza.
I was planning on doing the Enduro race, but while we were away i missed the entry so i'm not sure what i'll do about that now.
It beats sleeping in a car park hands down 😉
Taking a little detour on our summer schedule after the Les Menuires race. We're at Dyfi next Thursday and BPW on Friday!
Looking for any reasonably priced places to stay in the direction of Merthyr Tydfil. Got any preferences?
TBH mate we just use the Premier Inn at Merthyr generally. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Sometimes we've stayed a little further out due to expense/cost but Merthyr just works well.
Don't think we can do that as we're heading to Bringewood that weekend (or the unlikely trip away lol)
Cheers mate, that narrows down the shortlist.
Have a good one at Bringewood (or Les Gets)
Awesome job by the lovely people at TFTuned who snuck his shock/fork in at super short notice and got it serviced and back to me.
So we're all good with new frame bearings, freshly serviced bouncers and a new rear Reserve rim going on today.
This weekend is only Malverns, so we 100% don't NEED the DH bike for it, but he loves riding the DH way way more than anything else, so it wouldn't shock me if he's riding it even on the easiest DH course on the planet lol.
I'm hoping he can get some time to work on a few bits in his riding that he's struggling with at the moment, it's a pretty important time in his riding right now and i'd love it to all come together as it did a few months back, but for some reason he's not quite 100% with a few bits of it.
Weekend at Malverns.
Race day yesterday in the Dual Slalom and for some reason it was the National Champs, the boy ended up coming away with the jersey
Applause !
well done!
Great result. Give him congratulations from all of us
Superb result, well done
Fantastic result!
Awesome result! Also annoying as I was there and didn't watch the slalom. Was too busy seeing if Katy would fall in the lake, was disappointed there as well 🙂
Well that was insane!
It was the Lake Ride, which is run by Malverns for all the pros. You ride across a floaty narrow thing over a lake. There were pros like Preston Williams, Jono Jones, Ben Deakin, Katy Curd of course.
The commentator was "here's James Weeks the DMR 4X superstar" lol we were laughing as he's never ridden a 4X bike or track. But the daft lad was one of only 6 to make it out of 20.
So he made it to finals which was a train, one after another.
Sadly he binned it on that one but it was a brilliant brilliant effort. Awesome.
He's made massive strides this weekend as a person and his whole presence, mixing with loads of people
Aside from the great results, this might have just been the tonic he needed, just to enjoy riding and no pressure, after a couple of perhaps results that might have been a little hard to stomach for him, or reaching the bar he has set himself.
Riding bikes is great fun.
100% not going to argue with that fella. It's been an incredibly intense year/years and this year for sure.
So yeah this has been just a fun playful weekend. It's been great as he's forged friendships this weekend that will keep him happy for years and give him new riding mates
He's racing Enduro tomorrow and the coaching with the boss on Monday.
This was the return leg after making it over once
https://youtube.com/shorts/SM-efCv2Xs8?si=oliL7F8l55AVykXE
Finals train
https://youtube.com/shorts/QNQfnFo5zHA?si=BrCfE5B4-7bgeAdj
Ghetto shower.
https://youtube.com/shorts/G8nLpDYIS60?si=uaqM-xACkl7KFh6b
Even funnier was Preston Williams as his GF Kerenza seemed to be enjoying it WAY too much
Last video. Finals run to win the jersey
https://youtube.com/shorts/IQ3vUfW84vs?si=22bS5xzKMPHfYqTe
We spent the day at FoD with the coach yesterday, it was massively interesting to hear/see the input, thoughts, ideas put about by her. The boy has just seemed to have lost a little edge and within the 4 hours they spent out there his riding was picked apart in really really minor levels of detail and put back together. Nothing was massively wrong it was a question of a few inches of movement here, a few inches higher/lower/ of certain things in a few places, a dip of a shoulder, a movement of a head, etc etc..
Hopefully it all put him back in a better place again and will let him move forward with his riding and get back his edge again... Time will tell but there's plenty to work on for him.
THe weekend brings racing again, it's the Pearce Cycles series at Bringewood this weekend. There's not a lot between the top 3 in the overall and it's tight as heck going into this round. They'll all need to be on form and on their A game to keep in the running. It's a track all of the main contenders know pretty well, so all things should be pretty equal out there.
The weather isn't exactly looking super friendly though so may need a few tyre thoughts from us throughout the weekend.
It's Les Gets World Cup weekend and as you'll have guessed we never got the call to go...
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Part of me isn't as gutted at that as i should be 😀
The bike will certainly be happy that you didn’t go! Can’t imagine what trying to deal with all that mud and kit washing as a van based privateer is like.
The bike will certainly be happy that you didn’t go! Can’t imagine what trying to deal with all that mud and kit washing as a van based privateer is like.
It's comical at times honstly, we've had days like that above and it's horrific and comical at the same time. We've had days where you're making a river behind your gazebo as you've got to drown the bike time and time again, then you're down in the stream or filling buckets at the waterfall/river to clean it... It's just sould destroying.
But we wouldn't have it any other way 😀
First, congratulations on the win, that is cool.
This is probably better on a different thread, but as most have no traction I will ask here. Are the Nationals always held at Malvern? I thought it was a fun event, seems a really odd place to have such a high accolade event. And the numbers are reflective? 5 in senior mens, 4 in womens, 2s and 3s in some categories? Is there even a national series anymore?
I really thought dual slalom was going to be in 1997 🤣 although seeing Scott Beaumont won the mens was not a surprise!
It's always there but it's a long way from it's heyday in terms of 'event'
Scott is trying to bring back both DS and 4X to the proper heights he thinks it should be at.
There's no national series, I'm not honestly sure if there's any other races in DS, but there's a 4X series. Funnily DMR have asked if we'll go race them which we may well do but currently it's a very few number of entrants which would mean we arguably won't unless it changes.
So he may never actually get to wear the jersey in anger 😂
Was out with the boy yesterday riding and i commented something i've thought about a bit lately as i often jump on his bike to test various little things, but he runs his seat really low, for a tall skinny lad he runs it about 3" lower than me.
"oh it gets in the way when riding down so i run it lower"
"ummmm so you need a longer dropper then?"
"yes please"
LOL why this never came up before i have no clue.. It's a 34.9 so i need to look into that for him.
We've got 2 sets of SRAM DB8s arriving as well, one for his Fuel and one for his spares for the Session. Although we may run them with Maven levers for the RSC adjustment. The Code RSC are getting old now and a bit flakey, i snapped off a bleeding edge port in one of the calipers on a set the other day which necessitated the first set, but then he tried mine and liked them, so i've got another set on the way. However this is next week, lets get this weekends racing out of the way first and then we'll sort everything else
LOL why this never came up before i have no clue
Quite possibly, kids don't really care that much. They have mountains of energy and is enjoying himself
There's a 200mm (or shorter) drop 34.9 post for £50 here - sportandleisure.com
Mine turned up yesterday, not had a chance to fit, but looks as decent as any others. Lever looks fine.
(oh yeah, it hasn't got the layback clamp like the on in the photo)
There's a 200mm (or shorter) drop 34.9 post for £50 here - sportandleisure.com
Mine turned up yesterday, not had a chance to fit, but looks as decent as any others. Lever looks fine.
(oh yeah, it hasn't got the layback clamp like the on in the photo)
Seen a few of those on Ebay/Google, but never heard of them so assumed they'd be a pile of crap. I'd be very interested to know though as finding anything appropriate seems quite tough. There's a few One-Up but they're 240mm and i don't think he needs a 240 or even that it wouldn't be too tall even fully inserted, so maybe about 200 like that above.
Hopefully fitting tomorrow, but its for my ebike and gotta take the motor out (again!) so might be delayed. Not sure how a dropper can be crap, they're all much of a muchness from my experience! The OneUp currently on the bike is probably the quickest responding one I've used, by a millisecond or 2 🙂
Hopefully fitting tomorrow, but its for my ebike and gotta take the motor out (again!) so might be delayed. Not sure how a dropper can be crap, they're all much of a muchness from my experience! The OneUp currently on the bike is probably the quickest responding one I've used, by a millisecond or 2 🙂
Well if it doesn't move up/down well, if it sticks, if it wobbles LOTS, if it falls apart after 2 rides.... all make it crap. I don't expect droppers to last forever, but i'd rather pay more for a decent one...
However, paying LESS for a decent one would be even better of course.
Best dropper I have had so far has been PNW. Adjustable travel and seemigly reliable although mine don't get the hammer that young James would give it on a weekend 🙂
😪 so I could pull my motor out, piss about with cables for 4 hours and then have a nonfunctioning dropper. Thats quite upsetting
so assumed they'd be a pile of crap
... And you'd be right.
My son bought one. Out of the box, it wouldn't stay in the up position (not even fitted to the bike). Sent it back for a replacement, which was exactly the same. Avoid.
I've just had this as well, had about 2-3cm of sag and when when compressing it, sounded like gravel was in it. I stripped it, zero grease, and looked pretty flimsy so sending it back. Avoid.
Weeksy, I just saw an instagram post from James with a British Champion’s jersey. Congratulations to you both. You guys must be made up.
Bit of a tough and complicated day here really. This is likely to be a bit of a brain splurge of words and thoughts, so only continue if you like the random insanity.
Day started ok, bike was prepped before Malverns with new frame bearings etc, so it was good to go as it never got out of the van that weekend.
The boy came back a little disappointed after his first few runs at Bringewood as he's been working on corners with the coach.
The consensus he seems to be leaning towards is that this frame is too big for him. It's a 495 reach and his R2 is 465. His Fuel he was working on corners with Katy is 465 as well.
So we dropped his flip chip into Low which drops the reach to about 490 I think which made things very slightly better. When he was thinking back, his Fort William podium was on the R2 white bike, then since then he's not really been on his best form. Which coincides with moving to the bigger frame. He did win a fod race on the bigger frame, but that's a fod race not a national.
Sadly it seems he's been feeling this for a while, but never mentioned it, so the R2 frame isn't here with us, otherwise I'd have already had it built up and ready for riding. So he's going to have to ride this one and then Sunday night when back I'll build the white one again out of spares and the forks out of this one. It's only really forks we're missing or I could have built it as a bike before coming. I've been trying to get some forks but that's been challenging.
So we're not really expecting much from tomorrow but we're here so we'll put down a run or two and see where we end up.
Always slightly complicated
Bit of a practice crash yesterday meant we didn't make today's race. Nothing major but risk Vs reward made us decide not to race. Well, him decide, I left it to him and despite the fact it'll wipe out his overall Pearce hopes I completely agree it was better to pull the plug.
So instead I came home and built this.
