Catching up, and saw the Rogate post. You weren’t there on the Friday before the race were you? I had a bimble round on the Friday and did the race on the Sunday, gutted if I missed the chance to see the boy do that gap, I was being a wuss and bottling the whale tail, he might have inspired me.

No John, but we are this Friday. More than happy to tow you in I’d imagine. Once you get your head around a child being good, it’s a great experience having them show you stuff lol

Gahhh I am up in Scotland fishing unfortunately this weekend. Probably be over there next week.

Sorry matey, it’s not a place we get to often and after this weekend we’re back on 2 weekends of racing, first at Bala with Pearce and then at FoD with MIJ. He’s also got 2 sessions with Katy this month.

I think he’s looking forward to getting back onto his GT too as all weekend he’s been on the Status. It was quite funny though as he was complaining about it all day at Parkend, nearly having me batter him to death actually. But then over the weekend did arguably his 2 largest jumps i’ve been. The one on Rubber Duck i posted about was honestly ridiculous.

Take off is the orangey bit by the tree on the left of shot, landing is where the lad is standing with the bike…. All of this on a bike he tells me he’s not fully confident with

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2noYDd6]2022-05-31_07-55-36[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

That is an epic send – something I’d never even contemplate. Fair shout.

He needs to get over himself complaining about the bike. It sounds like he’ll do it with anything other than the DH bike which just isn’t something to pedal round all day.

He needs to get over himself complaining about the bike.

You don’t need to tell me that 🙂

In his defence, i do ask the question before he offers the opinion. This weekends was that it feels too stiff and like riding a Rigid. That’s even with the DPX2 and the Fox36s… but obviously we’re comparing this to a 210mm DH bike that’s coil and setup to his weight, so it’s really more a case of getting on with it and getting used to it and it will simply be different to the GT. I’m wondering if i volume spacer setup may be useful on the Status as if i take air out to soften it, it’s too soft and he bottoms it… if i leave the air in it’s too firm… Or whether at 50kg he’s simply outside of the usual constraints of air shocks and what he’s asking them to do.

But as you say, it’s not holding him back and the stuff he’s hitting is quite frankly a bit daft… we were walking up Rubber Duck to do those trails me and you did over there and he looked at the jump and was met with “don’t be bloody daft son, have you seen that”… but massive massive respect to him, he walked up, checked the entry run-in, checked the take off and the line he needed, did 1 slow roll down to check it and then just pinned it. LOL. We’d built up a little crowd of people who were all “is he really going to hit that?” my answer was…”probably” lol.

With air it’s a tricky balance at extreme ends of it. What sag are you running on the status? I wouldn’t go more than 30% otherwise you sit too deep into the travel and it can actually feel firmer as you’re up against where the spring starts to ramp up. In that scenario you can actually get better small bump by putting more air in. I’ve been down the running it softer and softer and it making it worse – even with tokens – route. I’m a chunk heavier at 75kgs but ended up with 1 token in my Lyriks I think – and more air pressure – gives a better mid stroke for me. I think I’m about 25% sag ish.

I’d be tempted to set it at 30% sag and add tokens if he’s bottoming that out.

On the shock it’s got a Float X performance hasn’t it? If so that’s the same shock (bar a lsc adjustment) that’s was on my sentinel before going coil. I found it was quite decent but I found I blew through the midrange if I got the small bump compliance I would have liked. I ended up just bumping the pressure right up and losing some small bump to get a better overall feel. I bought that ludicrously expensive bag of plastic spacers and haven’t even opened it as I bought a Kitsuma coil instead 🤣

I reckon you should buy him an old hi tensile steel Apollo for him to ride a bit and then see if he thinks the status is too stiff……that’s what I had when I was 13. Complete with U-brakes 🙈

I reckon you should buy him an old hi tensile steel Apollo for him to ride a bit and then see if he thinks the status is too stiff……that’s what I had when I was 13. Complete with U-brakes

Tmepting man, tempting….

In a moment of comicalness this morning, he’s been testing his GT outside as he’s got coaching at FoD tomorrow “this feels way too bouncy ”

*thwack*

Haha, give him a whack for me too!

Just different kinds of bikes…..

Schweeeeeeeet

👍

Having seen Katy’s Insta post with your lad on (I think) Y2K, I’ve decided I hate him… 🤣

Fast and smooth. Little shit! 🤣

Lol thank you. I’ve got about 20 videos from that session, we did have a laugh about it as she said, “it’s great, I just tell him do this so that and it’s done instantly” my reply was along the lines of “you want to come to ours and show him how to unload the sodding dishwasher”

In seriousness though, it really was a case of “hit that line, don’t brake, jump to there, pop that, squash that” and he just does it next run.

Her comments were remarkable and obviously I’m exceptionally flattered by them.

I am making things clear to the lad that he’s not going to make a living here at this, we know several coaches, semi pros, etc and none of them are driving round in £50k sportscars and living in Buckingham Palace. But the lad can take things as far as he wants, from nationals to even worlds if his ability ever reaches that, we’ll back him.
We do also make it clear that fun is the priority and if he’s not having fun, then we can call it whenever he likes. No pressure.

But he wants to keep riding, keep learning and keep launching it. Who are we to say no.

Next weekend is Pearce at Rhyd y Felin taking on the big boys of 13-14 DH racers. Currently there’s 26 entered, I’ll be happy with him coming home in 1 piece, inside top 20 and all bloody wet myself. Him and Katy spent time learning to see lines, find speed, learn tracks. So it will be cool to see if he can do so there. Jump on a few wheels and see where it goes.

Bike is ready, apart from the spare rear wheel which is being rebuilt and should be ready for the weekend. We’re also taking the Status just in case.

He’s got new goggle lense arriving and he’s full of confidence.

I think this week will be really gentle in terms of riding, we’ve ridden 5/6 days so let the legs rest up.

I do worry about boring the crap out of you lot with the ongoing saga, but hopefully it’s bike racing, jumping and MTB so I get away with it.

I noticed on one of the other videos not on here that he sent that jump off a rock a lot further than we did last time we rode there (Y2K). Admittedly I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as big as it was, but even still, he sent that pretty big!

I’ll guess maybe this one?

I don’t have FB or insta so no idea what Katy will or won’t have posted.

I’m enjoying reading about his progression mate👍 You must be super proud.

This may sound ridiculous but it’s just ‘normal’ in my world now in honesty. I ride 90% of the days, not always the trails I admit, or if I do it’s a lot slower, but I see this day in day out.

I’m more proud of the fact he always says please, is always polite and to grown ups he acts like a proper human being.

But his riding makes me laugh each and every time we go out and he explores new avenues, tricks, techniques or jumps, I just shake my head and think how the heck do you do that boy!?!?

We have proper adventures and I’m massively privileged to have that. Some people tell me how lucky he is, I smile and think “nah, you’ve got it the wrong way round”

Yeah that video above – was on Instagram

Hi Weeksy, I’ve been background following the lads progression as well.
Made up for the pair of you. Good luck with it all, you’re doing an excellent job!

Hope he’s as proud of you as you are of him. Even if you’re not getting the vibe now I can guarantee in the near future he will remember everything you’ve done for him. (Yes yes I’ve had drink, but anyway, keep at it!! And keep us all posted as it’s awesome to watch/read!!)

Hope he’s as proud of you as you are of him. Even if you’re not getting the vibe now I can guarantee in the near future he will remember everything you’ve done for him.

I believe he is mate yes… It’s funny riding with him, you get to the bottom and he’s all “you looked great, you were doing really well” when the reality is, i was doing bloody rubbish !!! Hahhhaaha. I know my place in the world of MTBing and it’s nowhere near as high as his that’s for sure… but he does give me a smile with his feedback. “Just hit it, you’ll be fine, you’re good enough”…. yeah right… i wish boy, i wish.

Today will be an hour or two in the garage checking over the GT for the weekend coming, it won’t get ridden now until then as it’s wet and he’ll likely use the Specialized if he does go out. But he is under orders not to be foolish and spanner himself this week 😀

I reckon we should all get together to cheer him on at a race one day. He shouldn’t be told about it, and then we can blow his mind with a track lined with his fans.

Lol you’d all be more than welcome to do so anytime at all of course.

2 weeks tomorrow is mij race at FoD, likely on elephant Man and y2k, hence why we were training on it.

I will of course bring donuts if people come to cheer.

P S. Heckling is equally acceptable.

Defo up for that. Any races planned in July/August?
I’m out of the country until mid July.
Be great to watch him. And to ride with you Weeksy….as long as you don’t mind a sedate easy track with this here IT manager!!

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/events/details/256016/MIJ-Worcester-Lodge-2022-Round-4

Only 17th at FoD as we’re off to Morzine first week of August.

Sept/Oct we’ll be active. But July is a steady one.
We’re at Rogate 2nd of July for his 14th birthday, yes, he’s only 13 lol

Just planning the Sept stuff…

We’ve got a choice between

Cwmcarn with Gravity events, 3rd-4th Sept
Revolution bike part, Nationals, 17-18th
Bucknell, Pearce, 24th-25.

I think we’ll do 2 of them… but a minor debate on which to do.. I think confidence for him with play most of a factor for the lad, depending how he does in the next 2 weekends as that will either give him more desire for Nationals or less. I’m 100% sure he’s up to it and good enough, although i am slightly biased of course.
Neither of us have been to Revs, so not sure if we ought to go there before hand for a practice day to see how he does there. NOt sure on what course is it yet either.

Revs is flipping miles away to make an obvious point. Meant to be ace though – not been there yet but it’s supposed to be very jumpy.

I’ve ridden the Cwmcarn downhill track (2 of the 3 options – not ridden the bit entitled ‘root canal’ yet) and there’s nothing very technical on it really – for me I’d go faster down it if I was fit enough to go 100% all the way down without getting tired legs – and if I could clear the couple of gaps on it that are clearly much quicker then the chicken lines round them.

Yeah due to timings i think Cwmcarn is a cert for us to go to….
Sounds and seems like a fun place to hit.

Revs is 10 mins from this weekends race at Rhyd-Y-Felin…. we’ve been up that way a few times recently to Caersws and Berwyn, it’s great up there but it does mean an over-night hotel stop of course, possibly 2 of them.

It also partly depends on what the Qashqai costs me as it’s in for some work at the moment on the bouncy bits.

Nationals have all sold out this year, so don’t ponder too long

Revs is flipping miles away to make an obvious point. Meant to be ace though – not been there yet but it’s supposed to be very jumpy.

Revs isn’t too bad from M6/M54 and well worth the drive.
There’s a few jump lines varying from small tables up to 50:01 line madness which are what you see on social media, but there’s also (in my opinion) the best uplifted DH trails in the UK.

I would guess the national race will be Ffar Side or the new line next to it.

If you haven’t been to Revs then I would suggest going to have a look before racing. Depending on the conditions and the track they choose, it could be very steep and slippy. I don’t think it’s really a turn up and race venue. It’s very much DH bike focussed, I was out of place on my enduro bike. Great fun venue though!

IT’s a fair shout @dc1988. He does have a full on DH bike and has done 10+ DH races of varying difficulty… I’m pretty sure that’ll end up being the place we go with though for race 2 in Sept.

I put this here as it echos parts of where I am and the boy is. It’s such a brilliant video

Race weekend is here then…Car is loaded, bikes are ready. We’re taking both the Status and the Fury, with the Status being the emergency spare bike. Along of course with 4,000 spares, tools etc.

We’ve packed all the food (mostly X-buns) for the weekend and we’re all good to go.

The boy is sporting a minor tweak on his hamstring as he’s pulled it a bit at school, but it’ll be fine, he’s got a tubigrip on it for now but shouldn’t affect him on the bike.

I’m going to spend most of Sat watching lines, racers and of course the boy, see if we can work out where he can gain speed. Sat evening we can do a track walk, before heading to the Premier Inn.

Sounds like a fantastic way to spend the weekend, truly inspiring. 👍

Sounds like a fantastic way to spend the weekend, truly inspiring.

I guess the only minor downside is that i don’t get to ride. So i was out yesterday and will be out today instead… only local stuff, so i am missing out a bit at times on the fun stuff. But the opposite side of the coin is that i probably can’t ride the stuff he’ll be on anyway…. not on the Trek and not at ‘pace’ anyway. I’ve done the race weekends when we both race together and it does make things a bit complex, especially with different start times, then him or me having an issue/problem and having to fix it while worrying about getting out to the start myself. So logistically it works better when it’s just him racing.

Next weekend at FoD will work a bit better i can do do stuff while being with him along we us both riding some stuff afterwards on the Sat.

Like standing on the side of the pitch watching your son/daughter play footy for the cubs rather than playing in your Sunday league side I suppose. It’s one of those sacrifices we all make as parents. It still sounds like great fun though weeksy.

Well there wasn’t really much to tell from today in honesty. We set off early and cruised up, bit of bacon from Greggs on the way and a couple of coffees.

The boy signed on while I set up the gazebo.

Bike was checked, lubed and out he went . That really was when the fun began as the rain came down and turned the course from damp into muddy..

The boy did 5 runs in practice, sliding out twice on the same corner but not even slightly hurt. He followed a few people down learning lines, getting tips and we then walked a decent chunk of the track too.
I think he was slightly disappointed not to be gapping some of the features, but I was trying to keep his feet on the ground and the pressure off him, just telling him to relax and enjoy the day.

We washed the bike 3 times during the day just to try and keep the drivetrain clean and running nicely. Also swapping the front wheel to a maxxis shorty after the rain came.

But other than that, there’s not much to say in honesty. We’re now chilling before heading out for a curry.

So today was race day and as always it brought a very very mixed day.

The day started dry but even overnight wetness brought a certain level of mud.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2nryegG]2022-06-12_08-31-44[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

The boy was soon ready to roll and in his race kit.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2nryeyL]2022-06-12_08-32-12[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

2 runs of practice went smoothly and happily… he then jumped on for race run 1…. He was down 3rd on the hill and i stood near the finish to watch the last bit.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2nrsUfj]2022-06-12_08-32-03[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

It’s a very fast ending on fields after a woods section, with a big drop then 3-4 woops/rollers.

As he came into the arena i was just getting my camera ready for a few shots as he come to the line and the boy launched woop 1 and then landed long, it spat him into the air and he then landed back wheel first with the bike at 45deg and as he then bounced he flipped and went about 10′ into the air, landing about 15′ away from the bike. It was of course game over and the medics were called.
After 5 mins or so he got up to lots of applause from the onlooking crowd.
Another 10 mins later and he’s allowed out of the medics tent and essentially he seemed to be fairly OK..

Well, until he got up and tried to walk… Which didn’t go well. He was in a fair bit of pain on the area just above the thigh and a bit of overall ‘ooooh’ and ‘arrrrrgh’

We had 3 hours until run 2 and the discussions commenced…. Well, after i’d sorted the bike that is…. He’d lost the chain and checks showed a bit of play on the headset end, which was sorted and he tried a bit of gentle riding around the paddock which went better than i expected.

It was then onto magic ‘recovery pizza’ which seemed to help lots.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2nryenP]2022-06-12_08-31-52[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

We cycled down to the uplift to make the final decision and he popped off a few grass verges etc and gave me the thumbs up

Off he went and i went to wait. Sadly this was FOREVER due to issues with the drop being blown out and repaired by the Pearce crew. Awesome 🙂 but also multiple red-flags which brought a load of re-runs.

Eventually the juvenile class was out… My lad was due down first…

Oh, not any more… they were now running reverse order for his Cat, so he was last down.

It was a very very long wait, watching the other riders come down. Eventually he was on track… You could see the split times on the screen but it wouldn’t change anything so i didn’t check them, however at the 2nd split i saw on the finish screen he was 24s down on the leader…. Considering who the leader is (national race winner multiple times), i’ll take that…

As he came towards the section of doom he took a different line, the left line and that’s slightly slower but a lot safer…

Coming over the line he’d hit a 19/27 placing…. Awesome !!!! He babbles away telling me how he’d basically had his worst run of the weekend and cruised it down. I don’t know what his finish time was but i’m guessing close to 4mins, with the leader at a 3min 20. But i was more concerned with trying to fight back some tears…. I was a little emotional ! Which really isn’t me… not at all.

But to jump back on the bike after that crash and do another race run on a National level track really hit home with me how brave the lad was.

After the run, we jumped in the Qashqai of despair and headed home.. Happy, content and a 19th out of 27… We’ll take that.