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

Course you can, you’re not the first to say it, even his coach and suspension expert have commented. We’ve run narrower and he’s not liked them. We’ve got bars in spares from 750/770/780 and the current 800s…. He likes the 800s.

His crashes are rather unspectacular 🙂

I suspect Weeksy and Weesy Jnr are happy they were no worse than that as his OTB/Collar bone incident was another level….as a Dad myself to a keen 16yo lad rider, I’d have been papping myself seeing that and wondering what the aftermath and injury was going to be.

Oh, of course! I wasn’t disapproving. Having escorted my boy down BPW after bumping his head and saying he was dizzy, would by far prefer unspectacular.

We’re good 🙂 i didn’t take it as him saying anything bad 🙂

Just looking at the depths of fields…sadly Gravity Events don’t show the entrants like most do, but they’re often fairly lowly subscribed compared to some. Last year in this event in the juvenile class there were only 8 riders.
But the good thing is, that means there’s plenty of points up for grabs. Even the guy who got 7th still picked up 25 British Ranking points. (this is one of our main goals for 2023, to get in the top 10 UK ranking in Youth at end of season), 25 points for 7th in an A race, is the same as winning a B race basically.
Obviously we don’t know how many are racing yet though in his Cat.

Last year we didn’t complete the race after a decent off in practice he ended up in the car holding his shoulder and unable to move it… We decided to bail as he couldn’t even get out of bed properly the next day. It’s a tough course and last year was slippery through the dust, this year will be slippery mud on Sat, but a drying track for Sunday.
We’re pretty much good to go though and just need to load up the van, the kit, the bikes and all the stuff..

It is as they say, Game Time.

You’ve mentioned british ranking points a few times. Who is giving these out? Ranking points on a national level for enduro outside of the BEMBA races isn’t something i’ve ever heard of before. Given British Cycling don’t recognise enduro as a discipline where are they coming from?

Or maybe your talking about this weekends DH race above rather than last weekends enduro?

The rankings are DH Rankings for British Cycling, not Enduro. As far as i’m aware, yes you’re correct, Enduro doesn’t do a ranking system outside of each series. In the boys mind, DH is still his priority for this season, the next, the next… He’ll race Enduros of course as he enjoys them and they’re part of the Privateer sponsorship, but his main focus is DH.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/ranking/national/?rank_type=national&choice=rider&discipline=2&gender=M&rider_cat=10&year=2023&resultsperpage=40

He’s currently showing as 11th (very early in season) but his last result at MIJ was worth 28 points which hasn’t gone on yet.

Good luck for the weekend.

You’ve mentioned british ranking points a few times. Who is giving these out? Ranking points on a national level for enduro outside of the BEMBA races isn’t something i’ve ever heard of before. Given British Cycling don’t recognise enduro as a discipline where are they coming from?

If it’s a BC sanctioned DH event then generally there are ranking points available. How many depends if it’s a Cat A race B, etc, etc.

The problem with it is the same as it has always been. It doesn’t actually reflect anything and for the most part is meaningless. The reason is you can pick and choose low attended A races as highlighted above and basically come last in your category yet pick up significantly more points than a stacked field of racers at a B race who would all smoke you.

Unless you are right at the sharp end podiuming nationals and feeding into a World Cup programme it is basically who is prepared to enter the most races and travel the most.

it was the same 15 years ago when I was coming out of juniors and going into seniors. There were riders going straight into Expert which is a non age specific category as a feeder into Elite who were there purely on the number of races they entered.

so do lots of easy races for easy ranking points then brag online about being ranked x in the country. gotcha

Well yes and no..

The kid who won his class last year only did 6 races… all National and won them all. LOL. You’d need to race 4 times a week and win them.

There’s no such thing as ‘easy’ these days… there’s easier… sure… but heck, they’re all fast, young, old, middle-aged… all fast. I guess some people could theoretcially race like that though, if they were stupid fast.

The bigger races get higher points, so whoever wins this weekend is likely to go straight to #1

There’s also not that many smaller races even if you were trying that logic. We are working on it to an extent though, but more through circumstance rahter than anything, we are racing big ones, small ones and medium ones, A race, B races and Nationals. I’ll be the first to admit though yes, if he stays fit and races well, it will likely be a higher rank we end up with than his actual place in the UK in terms of outright quickest racers.

manorath-j
Free Member
so do lots of easy races for easy ranking points then brag online about being ranked x in the country. gotcha

Points chasing us been a thing for as long as racing’s been about. In the old points structure 1 point allowed you to enter a World Cup – so you can imagine how that appealed to a certain group of riders even if they got an absolute shoeing and we’re miles off qualifying

it doesn’t really play a factor for him until another 2 years when he’s then racing in the Juniors (17-18) as that affects whether a rider can go to Elite etc and will allow them to attempt qualification for a World Cup. One of his mates (sort of ) from school took this route last year at Fort William and was offered a place to try and qualify.
He was 6s away from Qualification, which sounds a lot, but was a 5min track.. so only a very small amount away.

(all of this above makes the assumption we’re still racing then)

Wet wet wet wet wet practice

What’s the weather like this weekend @weeksy? Not sure you’ve mentioned it 🤔😉😂 good luck!!!

It’s like Corfu. Sort of

Well that’s my job done for the weekend. Practice over and packed away. He got 7 runs in and finished up. It’s yukky and messy. But the bike has been cleaned and put away ready for tomorrow.
All his kit is trashed as you’d expect. But he’s got clean race kit for tomorrow.

Going to be way tougher than some of his other races, but if he can just ride his race and get down, that’ll do nicely for now

Today was a bit of a shit show. In more ways than one.

Practice went ok, but the track was horrific with crash after crash from riders. I think the boy had a small off, nothing major.
Runs started a little late, but we’re used to that by now.

But then it went from bad to worse.
First rider off crashed on turn 1 and needed medics, so held up for ages.
Riders 2-3 went down but the timing equipment didn’t register so needed to re-run.
Then out of 33 in youth, half (maybe more) didn’t get times at all to their names with more timing issues.
We think the boy got a time but even by 3.15 we’d not seen any results. Screens were not working and no sheets up for his class.
They got called for run 2, but most didn’t go up as conditions were worse and it was just too sketchy.
We were chatting to Scarlett his teammate and she crashed 6 times on run 1.
The boy got down his run without a crash, couple of days, but nothing major.

He was struggling though as felt he was slow and going to have a nightmare. With people like Hatton, Walker, Craik etc you can see why lol. But he got a run down and hopefully put a time in.

We’ll see.

I’d have liked to watch people ride that.

Getting down through that is a skill

FFS, there’s really no excuse for that these days. This is also why there should be a backup system running, so that even if the times aren’t being shown live they can at least pull them together shortly after.

Re. conditions – you’re racing other people, not the conditions. They’re not always what you’d like but c’est la vie.

Kudos for finishing and getting a time

☺️

It’s like Corfu.

Looks a bit muddy for Corfu? 😉

Top effort finishing in that quagmire.

https://instagram.com/stories/rsrbikeworks/3072279738303803548?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Lol don’t forget, it wasn’t me! It sounds like people are impressed by me 😂😂

I did wash his bike 7 times this weekend as I couldn’t see the colour. The back of the van needs a few hours cleaning, the front equally.

Lucky we’re not at FoD on Tues, a photo shoot on Wednesday, then Thurs at coaching. Oh, well, yeah.

Nice week Weeksy jr – looks proper gopping – and if he made it out when others didn’t and didn’t have any major crashes whilst others were then 👌

At least it’s drying a bit the next couple of days I think fingers crossed 🤞

This won’t be the most exciting, but it’ll give a bit of insight into things and what’s now needed after a weekend. It may be boring for most so feel free to ignore… but for some setting out it may help.

The clean up begins.
3 x trousers
3 x jackets
2 x jerseys
5 x gloves
2 x goggles
1 x gazebo
2 x chairs
1 x power washer
2 x pair shoes

Things like the Gazebo need cleaning/drying… the chairs too. We don’t want to put them all away wet and horrible.

The kit needs cleaning on the work-stand first to get the muddy mess off, then it’ll get hand washed and then it’ll go in the washing machine to finish it off.

The boy has cleaned his shoes, i’ve done most of the kit needed. The van will be this afternoon, hoover, wash floors and clean up seats etc… the seats are not too bad as we mostly had clean kit on for them, but the mud gets everyhwere as i’m sure most on here know. It’ll all take a while later though that’s for sure. But he’s off school this week and nothing else to do today 😀

Lessons from the weekend.
1. We need more gloves, 4 pairs isn’t enough
2. We need more trousers, 2 pairs isn’t enough
3. We need a table, just for putting helmets, gloves, coffee, food etc on.. We have one but i forgot it and it’ll be mostly too small.
4. We need a spare front 29er x 20 wheel.
5. We need a 29er full on mud tyre. We only had a Magic Mary in soft compound for the front that was remotely suited to the conditions, the other fronts were arguably not as good.. Maybe something grippier would be nice.
6. AirBNB may be more expensive but i’m pretty sure we got a better nights kip than most of the adults who camped down the road. (However, we’re likely to be camping on the 15th lol)
7. Keeping goggle clean can be impossible, even with multiple tear-offs fitted.

The lad struggled a bit over the weekend with “i’m too slow, everyone is fast” and i’ve still not quite worked out how to get into his head with this stuff and fix him on the day. I know he’s quick, but it’s all relative of course, he’s not as quick as the quick boys in his Cat… but he’s far from rubbish lol. I wasn’t convinced at one stage he was going to go out for run 1. He was feeling that grumpy with it. But he got down it and certainly didn’t look rubbish to me.

It’s worth getting some proper mud spike tyres, they’re useless in anything else but when it’s the right (horrible) conditions they’re priceless.

One of the things I don’t miss is the few days after a wet race weekend when everything needs sorting for the next one.

Royal Racing Storm trousers and jacket were what Abigale used and still does. A quick hose down and they were sorted, kept her dry in all conditions

Well i don’t know if he’s ecstatic or not…. but that’s where we ended.

33 started the weekend… clearly a fair few didn’t race due to whatever.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2oqSZMk]rheola[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Things like the Gazebo need cleaning/drying

And in case of inclement weather following clean-up, an indoors washing line!* I rigged one up in the garage for after camping trips when the weather wasn’t playing ball to dry tents etc, and its since been priceless for drying caravan awnings (and wet biking kit)!
(* you may already have one of these, in which case, please ignore and carry on about your day 😂)

Roll offs not tear offs surely!

Roll offs not tear offs surely!

Not something we’ve much thought about until this weekend 🙂🙂🙂

Was this his first properly minging race on a proper track? If so, it’s just great experience to be used next time. Especially when his Dad gets a 3rd set of wheels with full spikes on 😉

Was this his first properly minging race on a proper track?

It was his first race on a national level track really. Some have had tech bits but Rheola is said to be the hardest track he’ll ride (maybe fort William)
I think he’s ok with it all and we had a weekend of bonding. So I’m good too

proper grim weather… goggles without a lens.

keeps helmet in place, gives some protection from side flung mud, eyes get used to blinking out the filth 🙂

maybe fort William

Ft Bill isn’t technically hard, just long and rough. Are you still doing Glencoe? That’s a good chunk harder

v7fmp
Full Member
proper grim weather… goggles without a lens.

keeps helmet in place, gives some protection from side flung mud, eyes get used to blinking out the filth 🙂

The blister in my eye disagrees with this approach unless there really is no other option

Are you still doing Glencoe?

Yup. Unless something this weekend starts putting him off. But I think we’re good

I did use to scoff at those waterproof onesies but having been subject to Morzine rain and mud, I can now see the attraction in grim conditions. It not as though the sponsor details can be seen on the gunked up kit! Maybe also consider a fuller front mudguard and something for the rear when it’s really gopping.