I wonder if the preference for the boxers is a “fear” of the xfusion after they were the ones he crashed on and broke ?

Nah, deffo not that (he says…. )… I honestly don’t know if he prefers the Boxxers… We fitted them while the XFusion were getting repaired. The plan was in theory to give them a test then swap back and decide… but we never swapped back.

But the boy is struggling in his head with ‘feeling stiff on the bike’ however from what i see it’s not affecting his speed, although he thinks it is. He’s running with his mates/teammate OK and gapping him in the bits you’d expect and losing in the bits he struggles usually with. So it seems to me the ‘stiffness’ is in his head more than his speed.

So really i’m just trying to see if i can get back that little bit of confidence and self-belief for him the easiest way possible. He always loved the XFusion setup, but we felt the Boxxers have more adjustability and settings, so with his feel and the Shockwiz we thought we could be OK on them… but maybe not.

Worst case scenario, he tries the XFusion and says “Can we fit the Boxxers” and he simply has to find his confidence in his brain again. As with all of this, i don’t always know the answer, i just try little things to make it better. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We’re still trying to keep things fun and happy without too much in the way of pressure, but it gets tough at times as we’re heading to some pretty techy places this year and i’d really like his brain in the happy place. Sometimes it’s just time on the bike for that, but the sodding weather and drenched trails don’t help there !

We’ll that was interesting. He felt at home quickly on the Coil XFusions and said “feels more poppy”.
He did say on one it was all over the place but that’s part of playing on muddy winter trails I guess

Tomorrow has now changed to a coaching day for him at FoD which has changed my plans a bit too and I’m taking my injured mate on a very gentle ride over for cake and coffee while the lad gets coached. But that’ll be nice as we’ve not ridden together for months.

Hopefully the lads will grab some footage tomorrow

Are the Boxxers air?
Spring type can make a huge difference, and damping does too. I’m a rockshox guy, never really been a fan of Fox, I know they’re good forks and World Cup winning equipment but I feel at home with RS. Even from the very first pair of Van 125’s I had in 2003 or whenever they came out.

Maybe he’s the same with X Fusion, his confidence and skills grew with those forks and that’s the “feel” he needs to be comfortable.

I’m sure (not sure, sure, no money back guarantee) that Boxxers are “better” in most ways, but if they feel different that won’t actually matter. Racers are a weird bunch 🙂

Yes sir, the Boxxers are air and the XFusion coil.
Tbh I don’t much care which ones he uses, the only difference it makes is which front wheel he has in there as the XFusion are non boost 110*20 and the Boxxers are actual boost. But it’s just a wheel, we’ve got Hopes in both styles.

I think the better terminology comes from the Boxxers having LSC and HSC etc. But of course that’s only useful if you can take advantage of them.
The XFusion were setup using full on data logger equipment, the Boxxers done with a Shockwiz and the boys feel.
We’ll see what FoD brings today in terms of smiles for him, if we have time I may even take the other forks for a final back to back run.

I’ve read this through as time goes by and whilst your son is doing great and clearly has a passion for riding, I believe you are in danger of swamping his young head with too many options and too much detail.

As a young teenager, no matter what you think and he tells you, he can’t yet comprehend, deconstruct and make educated decisions on what to do and change to make best use of the information (and kit) he is being fed.

This isn’t a criticism, and I hope you don’t take it as such but, to have so many options and changes kit wise, for him to be asked ‘What is best’ is probably some of the reason he feels stiff as he isn’t able to relax properly with ‘his’ bike in the same way a similar aged child would do whilst playing out with his/her mates.

Maybe just ask him what he likes to ride, without then saying ‘Ah but this XXXX should be better because of XXX’ (in doing that, he will tend to agree with dad, again whether you think he is or not)

He likes the X-Fusion forks, let him ride them without you trying to justify why the Boxxers may be better in the scenarios where he perhaps didn’t get the result he wanted or they felt ‘odd’ etc’.

It’s human nature to try get perfect all the time and with so many options of kit at your disposal, it is very easy to fall into the trap of instant change upon a slightly negative result or experience. For adult professionals who can cope with this and digest the reasoning etc much better than a young teenager that is fine but, for the most I suspect it is confusing and not letting your lad relax into his riding.

By all means justify why certain rides may feel rubbish or he didn’t feel the flow, just do it in a way that points to conditions on the day or something other than – that’s the forks , tyres, wheels, etc and we can change it.

Give him time on what he loves riding and see what happens.

This isn’t a criticism, and I hope you don’t take it as such

I try not to, especially if it’s constructive comments made with good intentions.

I’m not offended with your above post ☺️

To offer something in reply, this is pre season testing really in that context. We’ve got so so many things to try, test and play with. Both in him and in his kit.
He’s obviously got the new incoming Privateer 141, but also things like bars, grips, saddle, then there’s an additional one of shoes and pedal (unannounced sponsor lol)
Add that to trying different coaching, different tracks and different riding then yes I’ll 100% agree he gets a lot of things thrown at him.

But honestly, we do a lot of days of just ‘messing’ on the bike, Dyfi was one, so was yesterday in local woods, just messing, no timing, no pressure etc.
But there are times when he has to give a bit of thought to different aspects of himself and kit.

The one constant I keep though is “it has to be fun” and whilst there’s complexity, we try and keep it as fun as we can, with where, what, how he rides and indeed when.

In a bike context, he’s been on the purple GT for 6 months and very little has changed apart from trying the other forks, ok so 6 months isn’t a huge figure, but he’s grown a lot and outgrown other bikes quite quickly previously. But he’ll be riding this one all year in DH that’s for sure.

I don’t always show it I know, but I do appreciate input and advice in all ways.

Given that he’s being coached now, what does his coach say, suggest?

Don’t forget a boost wheel can also(suppoed to be) stiffer than a non boost wheel so that may also contribute a bit to the feel of the fork.

or may just be a stiffer less flexy wheel

Given that he’s being coached now, what does his coach say, suggest?

His coach today was Sam Copp and the first time my boy has worked with him.
Sam was working on body position in terms of legs, arms and torso. He noticed that my lad was a bit arms straight at the start, which promotes a certain stiffness in riding. If you’d seen his pics you’ll know that’s not usually him, so was good to have the feedback of someone who can see things I can’t.
They were playing with that in terms of traction and how body position changes where and when and how you lose traction, e.g front end or rear depending on where the rider is in corner entry/exit.
As with all coaching, it’s an ongoing thing.
We’ll be out tomorrow to put some bits into practice.

He was happy with the bike but still wants to try the Boxxers again.
We’ve also got the flats/clips debate due to the new supplier offering a choice of both. I know this falls into ‘too much information’ again, but this wasn’t brought upon him by me, but himself.

Little video clips from yesterday. Bloody bike has taken forever to get cleaned, prepped and ready for todays riding lol. It’ll be filthy again within minutes.

Don’t think this forum can embed Instagram properly can it?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnbfPDdpQPB/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Bloody bike has taken forever to get cleaned, prepped and ready for todays riding lol. It’ll be filthy again within minutes.

A bit of dirt is fine, nothing wrong with a quick hose and lube. Save yourself the hassle then tackle it properly at the end of the second day?

A bit of dirt is fine, nothing wrong with a quick hose and lube. Save yourself the hassle then tackle it properly at the end of the second day?

Chain was barely moving with all the crap on it. I enjoy a bit of bike playing in the garage on a Sunday morning while the family are sleeping

@weeksy do you also upload your clips to YouTube? I don’t have Instagram, but be good to see his progression.

@woodster I do if he extracts them and sends to me.

For example last weekend at Dyfi.

But he tells me that extracting it and sending to me isn’t easy lol.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnbotV8p3Wx/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Another insta, sorry.

Just for @w00dster

Chain was barely moving with all the crap on it.

that should’ve been sorted yesterday. You’ll get fired if you keep slacking like that 😉

that should’ve been sorted yesterday.

Lol **** off. We never got back till 6, then I had to go get Chinese. I’d had enough.

I was more thinking along the lines if he was getting some longer term coaching along with several 1000 quids worth of free stuff… who could honestly say what’s good, what’s bad, where to improve and how those improvements are doing, rather than one off days of skills training.

was more thinking along the lines if he was getting some longer term coaching along with several 1000 quids worth of free stuff… who could honestly say what’s good, what’s bad, where to improve and how those improvements are doing, rather than one off days of skills training

He’s getting coached twice a month. Yesterday’s coach was part of Katy’s team

WRT Twonks post. I kind of get what he means. Anecdote from my experience; I used to be a decent club level cricketer, but I didn’t achieve anything like as much as I had potential to, because I was one of those that was always tinkering, to my detriment.

When I was in form, I didn’t know what I was doing, I just did it. All I did was concentrate on batting and watching the ball, and the runs came.

When I was out of form – there had to be a reason. OK, it’s not as equipment focused as DH racing, but – in cricket, is my grip too strong? Too bottom handed? Maybe the pick up wasn’t straight? Perhaps my feet weren’t moving properly so maybe I need a more definitive trigger movement….. and before you know where you are you’re thinking about everything else apart from “see ball, hit ball”. You make a mistake, you’re out…… but why? Obviously that back and across isn’t right, but maybe the foot needs to go straight back – and you start all over again.

Is there a case to be made to say that the kit he has is perfectly good for what he needs. Fix on a set up and agree not to change it for a period of time and take all that ‘this fork or that fork?’, ‘which wheel is stiffer?’ etc. off the table. Just ride the bike and focus on riding it, don’t let the mind think about anything else.

Of course, may not be entirely possible with stuff like tyres to suit conditions, but there’s a time for testing and a time for practise, and coming back from an injury and rebuilding confidence, trying lots of new things with the way he rides under new coaches, settle all that down and then change other things bit by bit.

there’s a time for testing

And surely pre-season is that time. You play with setup, play with rider, play with riding and then settle from there.
Once we bought the purple bike last year we didn’t touch it. The only reason we swapped the forks was because he snapped them and we didn’t know how quickly or if at all they could be fixed. We’re not looking at his kit for answers to a problem, we’ve got spare/other forks so we’re trying them out back to back to see what feels best.
Whilst he’s got a lot of stuff going on, the purple bike has barely changed. It also won’t change. Whichever forks he runs will be the forks full time all year.
His coach hasn’t changed either, next weekend he’s back out all day with Katy, but it was worth trying her colleague to see if the lad got something out of it.
Today we spent 5 hours (well I spent 2.5) in the local woods hitting trails with mates, playing, jumping and messing, it wasn’t serious but it was quality bike time. Sure in a background way he was also trying shoes and pedals, but the priority was just to enjoy.

I think at times this journey comes over as all consuming but it’s really not, we both just enjoy bikes and riding, whether this is a 12 month deal or not won’t change where, when and how we race, we race because we both enjoy it, all aspects.

OK, you seem to know what’s best for him.

OK, you seem to know best

That so wasn’t what I said.
But.
1 change. Forks. That’s all that’s changed in the last 6 months on the bike.

The rest of the ‘stuff’ like bars, pedals, shoes, grips, saddles etc won’t even go on the DH bike. So the DH won’t get changed at all.(unless he asks)
They’ll all go on the Privateer which will never see a DH race.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2obMRZx]2023-01-16_07-56-26[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Just been stripping down and sorting the older model Fury, the boy was riding it at Dyfi for 2 runs last week and felt it every now and again wasn’t quite ‘right’
For all the time we’ve owned it, i’ve never quite tracked down the cause/noise on the back end… it felt like a loose bushing but i was pretty sure it wasn’t that. So i took the rear end apart, checking everything and fitted a new eyelet bushing, but still wasn’t 100%.
I then noticed that the spacer that goes between the mount points on the shock has about 0.3mm of play, so you can move it very slightly when you put in just the spacer into the frame on the back mount point. A quick check of the spares box of suspension mounts and i had one that ended up being 0.5mm bigger…. so a quick 5 mins with a file and it now fits snugly…. Tried it all out with the shock in there and there’s absolutely nothing…perfect.

I don’t see this one lasting the year though in honesty as it’s getting a litle small for the lad now i’d say. We did have a bite on it at the weekend at less money than i wanted, but i thought back to how @tracey helped us out, along with the kit/bike/hardware he’s been given lately and I said yes to the deal as it was so his kid could go racing. But it looks like that may have gone sideways after all as a deal, so we’re now sitting and waiting to see. It’s no biggy though either way. Plus it forced me into making it a bit nicer lol.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2obNKAA]2023-01-16_10-53-22[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Dunno if applicable now, or maybe to someone you know from racing, but just saw this:

Unite Collective

Thank you for the thought/link. In all truth mate, with the current (and unannounced) sponsors/help we have, i don’t think we could really fit in any more. He’s got riding kit covered, parts/components and bikes, as well as obviously coaching. So there’s nothing we could really justify now without risking a conflict of interest between sponsors. It’s obviously an insanely enviable position to be in and both me and the lad appreciate it massively the position we find ourselves in.

We’re now trying to get to grips with the ‘social media’ aspect of things and working out content, context, timings and what sort of pics/videos the sponsors want. But that’ll come more once the fabled Privateer eventually arrives lol.

👍

@weeksy #factorydad ;o)

Lol I wish mate. I’d love to retire and become all Seagrave but that’s not a reality I forsee.

For now we have quality dad and boy time hitting different places, woods, trails and premier Inn restaurants.

He’s having a blast, so am I. Mrs Weeksy forgets what we look like

Well that was slightly interesting the other morning. I was chatting with a mate about forks and stuff. We were discussing the forks i bought and he said “well the Boxxer Selects are not that brilliant, they really need HSC etc”… I thought to myself “But they do have HSC.” and sent him the pic.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2obZqSF]2023-01-17_01-05-21[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

It turns out they have a Charger damper installed. ROCKSHOX BOXXER CHARGER 2.1 RC2 DAMPER UPGRADE KIT (2019+)
https://www.tftuned.com/rockshox-boxxer-charger-21-rc2-damper-upgrade-kit-2019/p3593

Which it seems from the link above, is bloody expensive !!!! I don’t feel as bad about the marks on the lowers now.

We do need to keep on playing with the setup though to get them ‘right’ and we’ll have a bit more of a play this weekend at Bringewood and BPW, with a bit of luck we’ll get them closer to where we want.

the lad is getting excited now as things are ramping up a little in terms of days out, racing etc.. Although currently only for a few weekends as Feb is looking fairly sparse currently for events/days. So we’ll need to think of some plans. Happily though the fabled Privateer 141 should be here by then and we’ll get the time at some less expensive days out and throwing in a little more in terms of pedal power rather than uplift power 😀

His video came up in my YouTube shorts. I’ve got Mountain Biking selected as one of my interests so probably linked to that. Was very good to see. (It was the manual out of the exit video)

Quanto Costa old Fury?

To you. Without Hopes £1500

With Hopes £1650

We’re in Shropshire on Sat, it’s a DH track and could take bike to test out.

Boxxer Forks, Code brakes, 7 speed SRAM gears, Renthal bars, deathgrips, it’s a lovely thing. I just don’t need it as I’ve got the Slayer

Well barring any issues, it looks like the blue Fury is sold at the weekend.

It’s a bit sad in some ways as it was his first DH bike and his first race win as well as first podium. So it’s actually got a bit of an attachment to both me and the lad. But arguably it’s a fraction small for him and he’s only going to get bigger so selling it makes a lot of sense.

The replacement plan… well, lets see how much sense that makes hahahaa.

The blue Fury is now sold and we can move onto plan B.

In the list are 3 bikes.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125718055199
Above one is £1600

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/385263345687
above is £2000

https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/3489979/
above is roughly £2100 (i’m trying to talk him into £2000)

So they’re all as you see, GT Furys, later model than the blue one that’s sold. They’re all in a size Large as i think that’ll potentially suit him by say the end of the year as he’s growing.
The logic/plan is that we end up with a completely swappable bike for his blue one should anything break/happen on a given race weekend.
The Pinkbike Fury comes with air forks and shock, which is fairly interesting, but adds in some complexity of setting up, although we could always use the forks/shock that are currently on his purple bike.
Both of the other 2 run the Xfusion front and rear, which isn’t an issue at all and he quite likes… but again, if we need to use the bike we’d have the option of swapping bouncy bits from the purple bike which is set up for him.

The discussion of ‘do you really need a 2nd DH bike’ doesn’t really come into play, it’s within the budget and there’s no real reason to not have a 2nd bike to take. So it’s more a question of “do we go for a Large” and “which one of the 3”

Out of the 3 If I had to chose it would be the one that can be run as a 29 option just in case it’s needed at a later date