Mountain biking is sodding expensive.

We don’t run them but more for your info Abigale didn’t and touch wood once she went to BlckDmnds she never flatted in a race be it DH or Enduro and some of those EWS races were punishing tracks.

There’s a video around of the UK Enduro Team in Finale last year showing Matt who flatted early on in the race with an insert.

If you can give me a couple of days to check the garage loft there may be one or two new Vittoria inserts that Abigale won. I don’t know what she did with them and cant asker her as there’s a time difference and she will be in bed.

If I can find them and you want to experiment then I will send them down as we wont ever used them.

Let me know if you want me to look as I hate going up in that loft.

That would be very kind of you @tracey and it would be quite interesting to find out some answers. He’s running 27.5 rear 29 front.

Will get back to you. I can picture the bag so it should be easy to spot if its up there once I get up and fight my way in.

If you need to buy new we found Nukeproof to be the cheapest (from CRC)
My son’s had to start using one in the rear, not because he punctures, but mainly to protect the rim. Serial dinger 🙂
They do a pair for mullet, £45 – here

I wouldn’t worry too much either way about inserts whilst he’s relatively light.

I’ve got them in where I’m running a flimsy tyre on the back (Forekaster / reckon / slaughter) but so far I don’t think I’ve damages an insert at all so I’m probably not going hard enough to really need them.

I found Hunt wheels sell the standard Rimpact in singles – whereas everywhere else you have to buy a pair. Standard rimpacts are on the lighter end of things – they do a pro version that I think competes more with cushcore. Supposedly the heavier ones give more sidewall support for lower pressures but can’t say I’ve tried them 🤷‍♂️

Cheers for all the thoughts guys…

Anyway.. onto this weekend. It’s Southern Enduro at Newnham. Katy is racing with them too so will be good to see how she can push them on and give them tips and thoughts, as well as just being her cheery infectuous self. Will be great to see the team out in race kit, pushing eacheother, driving eachother and seeing if they can have a laugh.

It’s obviously both the boys first races on the Privateer 141s and it’s a tough field. Plenty of quick kids/guys in there and due to the age being ‘at Dec 31st’ my lad will then be 15, so he’s in the U18s… So plenty giving him a good couple of years.
We know a few of the racers who are playing and he’s not been as quick as those guys previously, so it’ll be a toughie for him and Drew.
In terms of targets, goals and aims… Well, a top 10 is the first step, which barring any issues/crashes, should be fairly possible. Plenty of laughs, plenty of fun, some testing of our camping/vanning setups and gazebo stuff etc. So it’s all a bit of trial and error stuff this weekend, along obviously with a fair bit of driving as it’s way down south west.

I’ve scaled the stack of tyres and boxes of spares and found it. There is only one in the bag. i think she only one the one. Its a Vittoria Airliner 2.25 to 2.5 in 29er but looking at the instructions its one size and you cut it down. if its any good you can have it. Let me know and if so I will get it pasted down

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/vittoria-air-liner-tubeless-mtb-tyre-insert/rp-prod177836?gs=1&sku=sku680024&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=base&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8e-gBhD0ARIsAJiDsaVAyPYCVnluoCQyrYoerwSp1J0NNW1C1W-uLUIKYHCqRplTzJGatdcaAhqbEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Superstar ! PM’d you…. but just wanted to say a public THANK YOU.

Yay!
Here, just found out my son’s Exeter Uni crowd are racing at Newnham this weekend too 😀 (Fun cat)
Say hi if you see a handsome dude on a black & red Remedy 🙂

I possibly should have entered fun 😀

If i’d been in fun yesterday at BPW i’d have been 4/7 instead of 11/12 😀

Looking outside at the moment, my boy will be racing without me as i’ll be sitting in the gazebo with a coffee and bacon roll 🙂

Van loading and getting ready for the drive

Oh wow. Talk about the most bonkers courses ever. It walloped with rain all night and the tracks were I felt over and above my skills, so I pulled the plug and didn’t practice/race.
Seeing the absolute carnage this morning hasn’t made me question the decision not to race.
The boy is finding it hard. But everyone is.

The boss is currently doing the transition between stage 4&5 and about to do her last stage of the day. Leading her Cat by 45s

https://my.raceresult.com/238087/

Live timing here

@weeksy,I am glad I checked, I almost sent her a congrats message! How did the boy do?

Saw Katy’s insta post and looks like you got the standard Newnham weather. I’ve raced 2412 there a few times and the weather is often hideous (worse than you had) which makes conditions difficult. One year I’m not joking when I say I had to stop every minute or two to clear mud from my glasses as they’d be totally covered in no time at all.

Not done the enduro course, not sure if any links to other races there, but hope your lad had plenty to take away. Not all about the results (no doubt they keep him keen though!)

It went well right up until I went really wrong. With the final stage left he was in 10th or 11th (out of 40ish)

Then the last stage was tech fest and 10s before the video started he crashed right in front of me.

Then this

Then crashed lower down.

Lost 32s compared to his mate who he’d been quicker than on all 4 previous stages. If he’d matched his mate he’d have ended 9th or 10th.
I think he ended 24th.

It was a cracking weekend but some parts of the track were ridiculous.

My lad said the trails had dried up a bit by the time they raced. Exeter boys got top 3 in Fun with my boy 3rd. Happy with his mug prize 🙂

Congratulations!!!!! Tell him well done!

Cheers! will do 😀

In what way ridiculous Weeksy? Conditions or general tech? I saw one preview of an A, B and C line with big drop, medium drop or “skirt around the lot”.

Both to me, 🙂🙂🙂

To him it was the conditions and grip.

Neither of us are blaming anyone at all, he had a blast and we all had a top weekend. But after walking the track Sat arvo I decided not to even take the bike out of the van. I wasn’t convinced I’d survive it. The rain cemented that.

About 2pm I had a few pangs of regret. But stage 5 removed any of these.

The ABC line you saw, yes the slower one was possible for mortals, but it was just a horrifically tech course imo.

On stage 4 finished 0.1s behind Katy, which really pleased him. Drew was 1s behind Katy on 2 stages, the boy was 3s behind her mostly until stage 5.

But mostly we, them and everyone seemed happy. We learned a lot. Mostly about how much I hate tents and rain.

They run that rock line on the xc series.. 😉

I saw the amount of fresh cut tracks they seemed to be digging and thought it was ambitious. It’s rained pretty solidly all week.

Well it’s the aftermath, the cleaning, the washing, sorting gazebo, tents, bags, kit, of course the Privateer, the shoes, jerseys, jackets etc etc…Along with being knackered from a lack of sleep and walking up and down the hills 300 times and standing round all day..

At least we don’t have to do it all again next weekend.. oh… yeah, next weekend is Rheola.. So another full on weekend.

That means prepping,checking and sorting the both DH bikes instead now of course… The blue one should be 100%, the purple one we’ve barely seen so will need a bit of a check over before it gets ridden over the weekend (potentially)

Whilst doing all this i need to start working on getting my fitness sorted, weight sorted and even some riding sorted now the evenings are lighter…

Sweet pic from Roots&Rain of my son going down a gnarly looking section. Might have to get this on my wall 🙂
(sorry for invading the Weeksy08 thread!)

Maybe its time for the boy to do more of his own mechanics?

Even if you do all the wrenching I’d at least expect him to do the cleaning so that you can focus on the mechanical side!

I get not putting too much on him to begin with as don’t want to make it a chore. But I think he’s hooked now so now worries about that side!

Yeah absolutely… but he’s at school, i’ve got time before work etc… So i generally get things done and dusted.. It’s arguably the wrong plan and would be better making him do it himself… But i also enjoy a bit of tweaking, checking. The DH bikes will be getting done this evening and he’ll be joining in with that for sure. It’s not that he’s lazy or not interested, i’ve just got a spare hour here or there.

(sorry for invading the Weeksy08 thread!)

Crack on matey… it’s an ace pic… You should be proud.

Onto the weekend.

Rheola. This is a national level DH track and a prequel to the National DH in 2 weeks time. Riders entered are Jordan Williams, Charlie Hatton, of course weeksy08.
We went here last year but he crashed in practice on run 5 or 6 and hurt his shoulder which kept him out of the race on the Sunday. So he knows the track a little bit at least. It’s classed as being one of the harder/hardest track in the UK series, so will be somewhat challenging that’s for sure.

We’ll have both of the GTs present and correct.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2odw5C3]2023-01-26_08-11-27[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Along with a selection of wheels and tyres and spares. Although i very much of course hope we don’t need any 😀

It’ll be a full weekend away potentially from pre-dawn on Sat until Sunday evening. But that partly depends on the weather and what it throws at us. Lets just say i didn’t get on well with the tent at the weekend in the rain and if it’s like that this weekend than i’ll be driving home and back up for Sun morning. There’s going to be a bucket load of dirty clothes, dirty bikes and muddy insanity.

Jobs left before the weekend… well, nothing really. Unless we come up with a solution for catering ourselves… which is certainly a possible option for me/us. But in truth i don’t know what we want or need for that really or whether we just do our usual and wing it. There’ll be a catering van on site and lets fact it, a bacon roll each and a coffee takes a while to be off-set in terms of costs from whatever a cooking machine of some description will take to purchase, (along with the bacon and breaded products each time hahaha)

Couldn’t you just pickup one of those cheap single hob gas grills from go outdoors? Quick and easy with a frying pan for bacon / sausages etc and could boil a kettle on it as well

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/16233482/campingaz-camp-bistro-elite-cooking-stove-16233482

Yeah that’s kinda where my head is going at the moment. Can get from Halfords with a 4x of canisters, each one should last 2 hours of cooking apparently. So easily last me a full weekend.

Abigale has managed to live weeks travelling around Europe cooking on one of those. She had a small deep frying pan and cooked everything in it.

We bought her one of these last year for her trips

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255762368338?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=bzT29gKnSiO&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=eMMoTPPlT7y&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

The gas canisters seem to last ages on those little cookers – bought a stack of them years ago and still not through them all.

I did have a bigger double job thing of a big gas bottle but I’d rather have 2 cheapie seperate hobs tbh. They come in a nice solid plastic case so it’s easy to chuck in the car.

If you wanted a portable bbq to compliment it the Webber go anywhere is quite compact. I’ve got the charcoal one but I think they do a gas one too. Quite pricey though.

Anyone giving odds on Weeksy starting a “What Motorhome for three plus many bikes” thread?

@rockhopper70

Anyone giving odds on Weeksy starting a “What Motorhome for three plus many bikes” thread?

Maybe in 3-4 years if he’s still at it. Currently, no chance. I’m skint

It’ll be a full weekend away potentially from pre-dawn on Sat until Sunday evening.

ouch. 06.30 arrival for course inspection?

ouch. 06.30 arrival for course inspection?

Unknown until we get a mail @mashr on times etc. But realistically we’ll be out the door before 6 that’s for sure

Happily he’s ridden this one before so we won’t need to do Friday evening for a walk. They’ll get 10-12 runs in a day which is more than enough and the track will change constantly throughout the weekend as it’s ridden.
So really I’m thinking 5-6 runs, a couple of watch sessions and then either home or to the camping a mile or so away.

It’s all part of the adventure but will prefer when the warmer sunny days are here

Doh, the BC website being the wonder that it is had the 2022 (in a 2018 url, very confusing) timings up, didnt realise it was old info.

Happily he’s ridden this one before so we won’t need to do Friday evening for a walk.

Thats it, you’ve done it now. That means they’re cutting a fresh trail as I type this 😉

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

One of those days

Might I be bold enough to observe from that crash reel that his handlebars look very wide for him. Are they 800mm?