On a DH bike. Wash your mouth out with soap 🤣🤣🤣

At the sda this weekend probably a 1/3d of the field had a proper big front mudguard on, including half the elites (essentially the half that race in british april routinely…) It’s only daft til it saves a race run.

I think it is your son that needs to wash his mouth out looking at those photos!!

Put a proper RRP Proguard on the front of the bike, at least give him a fighting chance of being able to see. Those tiny little things are literally useless.

Looking back, the amount of sh*tty DH races I did when decent mudguards didn’t exist, they are proper game changers, in fact all my bikes run the bolt on ones all year round now, to the extent that bikes just look weird without them.

However, never put one on the back. Don’t be ‘that’ person 😆

Put a proper RRP Proguard

I’ll get a couple of new ones. One of his sponsors can sort. 🙂

A ba decent front mud guard/fender. There are a few good DH ones out there.

One of his sponsors make mudguards. That’s their main focus.

Has he got sponsors? Don’t think you’ve mentioned that 😂

🥺

*Gets coat and walks off

👏

quite tech he said 😀

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2or5Z5h]2023-04-04_07-58-22[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2or4LiQ]2023-04-04_07-58-16[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Lunchtime fun today of stripping the race GT Fury down and replacing any bearings that need doing. I usually go a little excessive and replace in pairs, even if the 2nd of a pair feels OK…
Happily on the rear linkage most were pretty good, but one of the shock mount bearings was a bit stiff so they’re replaced.

Then swapped the 10sp cassette to the Hope Pro4, but i may go 7sp on both so i have the spacer and a better chain line for the 25T and set the rear mech to allow only the 7 gears.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2or3wxB]2023-04-04_11-59-34[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Was spinning the bike up and checking the gears and the rear wheel was barely spinning, thought it was caliper alignment, but checked that and looked fine. Took it apart and the muddy slop seems to have killed the 6903 bearings at the weekend. One was a bit dodgy, the other is completely dead, moves about 0.1mm with fingers, just a wobble rather than the ability to rotate… so had to order a couple of those.

With those, the new pivot bearings, a new table for inside the gazebo and 2 new pair of TLD gloves, it’s been a busy day on Ebay.

Always a busy day on eBay in the Weeksy household I reckon – you can’t help yourself 🤣

Are they Hope hubs? If so it’s amazing how they keep going even when they’re a right state inside. I noticed last year mine didn’t sound as clicky – opened it up and 2 pawl springs were broken and it was all gummed up. Poorly inner freehub bearing and the hub bearings had seen better days too. Nice and easy to fix unless you have a microspline freehub – the bearing inside it is a right bugger to get at with a daft circlip thing with no holes for pliers.

Nah this one is a random wheel I had, not even sure what it is without checking. The Hope is smooth and nice, but was only recently rebuilt

2 new pair of TLD gloves

“sponsoring” your kid is an exceptional business move

“sponsoring” your kid is an exceptional business move

It’s swings and roundabouts. We’ve had tonnes of stuff, but sometimes you have to put your hand in your pocket

We don’t want to be seen as asking for too much or taking the pi55 in terms of requests, so at times we buy stuff ourselves and buy things that align with various sponsors.
Today we were given more products while at FoD for a photoshoot, so we put in a bit, take out a bit. It’s just how the real world works.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqqGXiqu0hr/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

We had an ace day though, him with Katy and me out with another of the teams parents. The whole setup has given so much more than just free things, for both me and the lad. I’ve made friends from it too who give me loads at race meetings, meetups etc. He’s got new riding mates as well as the coaching etc.

A couple of pairs of gloves don’t even touch the sides of what we’re getting from the setup

I had a day today booked with the coach. I have been finding that whilst I’m ok as a rider against ‘normal’ people, I’m not up to the pace of most of my Cat of racers. So wanting to improve, I got my big boys wallet out and booked the day. I had a blast, picked up lots of thoughts and techniques I now need to try to replicate in race in a few weeks time.

The boy jumped in on my session and was great to have him both showing me the correct way to do things, but also to have 1:1 time with the coach to run through ideas and skills. That’s his 2nd session with Katy this week and both were laughing lots out there.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cqs_9aLr5K0/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Clicked and expected seeing you in the air 😉

Lol the less people who see me ride the better.
Most of the ride I was under strict 60% or maybe a bit more. We were working on body position, techniques and drills, so to make it easier to get them into my head, I had to slow things down.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqsvoSHMGjh/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This was my stuff, but I don’t want to encroach on his thread, so was going to leave mine off.

Looks good to me 👍

Again, commenting from a distance, but your bike looks way too small for you. You look to be smothering it, rather than riding it.

One of the most interesting aspects was the differences between our thoughts, wants, desires and Katy’s version.

We were asking about various races, even races that we’d considered massively important 6 months ago have now moved to “well, if you’ve nothing better to do”

The reasoning behind this was quite deep and involved but the highlight version was that he’ll get more out of a day riding and timing himself at BPW on 50 Shades of Black than he will out of a FoD race for example. Or a Pearce uplift day instead of a Stile Cop race. Even though it’s not racing, it’s time on longer techier tracks instead.
We also discussed a lot on races, results and performances and again, what we see/saw as priorities were not necessarily hers.
It was a really interesting insight into the difference between our mindset and the coach’s. Something we’ve not really discussed in depth before.

It’s certainly changed some of our focus for the coming months that’s for sure.

It’s not just Katy. The “ditch the small races, ride longer tracks” approach has come up several times in this thread. TBF though, I’d more attention to her too

It’s not just Katy. The “ditch the small races, ride longer tracks” approach has come up several times in this thread. TBF though, I’d more attention to her too

Absolutely agree yes it did, however times were different 6 months ago and he wasn’t the rider then he is now. Add to that, we’re not the people now we were then.
It’s all a learning curve.
Of course things like racing bring many things to his development too, time between the tape, the pressure of getting the runs right, the pushing hard which you can only replicate in races.
But yeah, the thoughts now are slightly different in terms of priorities and we’ll work on that in the coming months.

A lot of the coming months are already laid out in stone anyway and focus on the bigger tracks and races just by default of where we are in the race season. But it’s shifted our thoughts away from some other races we’d planned.

14/15/16 Apr is Rheola national DH
23 Apr is Southern Enduro
30 Apr was due to be Stile Cop but that’s now canned and it’ll either be Pearce or BPW
We’re then into the first weekend of may which is straight up to Fort William for the big one.
I’m not really looking any further ahead than these at the moment as it’s a pretty big month already.

Just to show I don’t always ignore you lot.

New larger mudhugger evo fitted to the race bike.

Correct decision, I always used to wear glasses whilst riding but since putting a proper front mudguard on my bike I can go glasses/goggle free

I’m a heathen, I run a piss flap all year round!

Chill day today so we met some mates at 417 as they were trying a new DH bike they were potentially buying.
The boy was shifting!

About 6 months ago on Dubby Skipper he set a top 10 on Strava and was ecstatic, but 11s off the fastest person ever out on 3500.
Today he went top by 3s and his teammate went P2 lol. Crazy kids.

With Rheola coming up for Nationals this weekend we also tested the spare bike which then broke due to an issue with idler pulley. So that’s now sorted and glad we tested it.
He punctured on Igneous though so we’ve fitted 2 brand new Shorty on both his DH race rears for the weekend.

Re listening to the coach. That’s something I learnt to do with my son. The coach doesn’t get everything right but she gets a lot more right than we would. One example is when she pushed him up an age group at Scottish champs. Her reasoning was that he was going to be competing up an age group at the next British champs the following year. I was very sceptical as I thought he would be better doing well against people his own age rather than struggling against older kids. He won the competition, she was right and we decided we just had to trust her. Like Katy she was someone who has competed so had been through it all herself.

@weeksy I’m not sure how your summer plans have evolved,but the French DH cup at Les Menuires on August 18th has stepped up a level and is also acting as the European champs. Registration has opened for foreign riders on the FFC website

@ocrider that’s Glencoe weekend mate. But heck yes to good ideas like that 😉

I did wonder if it would interrupt any other race plans. Shame that it clashes with a BDS, but there are only so many weekends in June/July August.

New headset bearings installed today as the bike is not being used until Rheola at the weekend now.
New cassette put on as well, well an old cassette. We were having compatibility issues with 7/10 speed hubs, cassettes etc, so I’ve standardised it at 10sp now instead of 7sp and spacer.

Both bikes now 100% ready to roll for the weekend racing.
Track walk with coach on Friday, practice on Saturday and the seeding and race run on Sunday.
I believe it’s also going to be streamed live on YouTube but that remains to be seen.

the highlight version was that he’ll get more out of a day riding and timing himself at BPW on 50 Shades of Black than he will out of a FoD race for example. Or a Pearce uplift day instead of a Stile Cop race. Even though it’s not racing, it’s time on longer techier tracks instead.

So basically what we’ve been saying all along… Maybe it’s time to start considering the helpful advice you get here.

E.g.

if he wants to be racing the proper DH venues, he needs some time practising on similar terrain.

A day at Revs would be far more beneficial (and probably enjoyable) than more racing on straightforward tracks.

Could have got there a year quicker and enjoyed Revs before it closed

So basically what we’ve been saying all along… Maybe it’s time to start considering the helpful advice you get here.

Not sure why you think i always ignore it, i’ve taken much of the advice on here and run with it, however yes, some i’ve thought not appropriate.
However in this instance you/they wouldn’t have necessarily been correct when it was said. Things change, people change, his riding has changed massively and i’m pretty convinced that what is the way it should be now, isn’t necessarily how it should have been then.

You also have to factor in age, time, availability etc. For example BPW he’s not allowed to ride on his own (although not exactly often enforced) so just shooting to BPW adds an extra £50 onto the day straight away.
But there’s also the most important factor in this… he’s 14 years old.. What may or may not be best for his development doesn’t always mean it’s the correct thing in terms of enjoyment, fun, laughs, bonding, teams, friends. When it becomes too much of a chore, it stops being fun and then gets dropped.

But there’s been tonnes of advice i’ve taken, even when you/they think i’d not… “get him an Enduro bike”, for example. When people were throwing that at me, we’d already signed with Katys team and the Privateer was already ordered, but i couldn’t mention it at the time so i wasn’t ignoring it, i just couldn’t discuss it.
“go here, ride this, ride that” sure, we’ve done tonnes of that, admittedly not ALL of that as we’ve been doing other stuff like coaching with the team, video shoots, photoshoots, team bonding events etc, but even things like “ride Risca”, which we’ve not done yet, but we do have planned as a team ride/event in the near future.
We’ve been doing uplifts at Pearce race events which is also new terrain and a track he’ll be racing..

So, sure, keep it all coming, the ideas, thoughts, advice and wisdom. You may not think it goes in… but it does and whilst i may not always follow it to the letter, it rarely gets completely dismissed.

Not sure why you think i always ignore it

Because a repeated theme has been ‘stop wasting time/money on small easy races and start riding some proper terrain’. You’ve always stated that he wanted to race bigger events, so people who have ridden these venues rightly pointed out that he needs to gain exposure to similar tracks.

“get him an Enduro bike”, for example

This far pre dates the Privateer… this was being said when you had the status and had the old Fury

When it becomes too much of a chore, it stops being fun and then gets dropped.

I can guarantee a day at Revs would be far more fun than any small race. Coaching, photo and video shoots sound like the chore!

Oh I don’t know – I think coaching is fun – it’s great to get tips on things you can do better and watch videos of sections and then see how you improve in a short space of time.

@weeksy – how was your session with Katy – did you make some changes and feel like you’ve sped up a bit as a result?

@joebristol

how was your session with Katy – did you make some changes and feel like you’ve sped up a bit as a result?

It was great matey, if a little monsoony at times and that changed the terrain a bit as it went from nice to a mud fest lol
Katy has a way of explaining, showing, teaching that i’ve not seen in other coaches and you end up like a little puppy dog trying to impress it’s master for treats. She sort of brings that out of me more than anyone else. The things i was learning were not completely alien in terms of things i SHOULD know… but until it’s pointed out to you, you don’t realise fully you’ve been doing it wrong for a decade.
I don’t know if i’m ‘faster’ but i felt more comfortable and could see how and why it could make me faster using the drills we worked on. I rode again on Friday but i didn’t have a gauge to work on and see, it was more an XC type ride with a few trails in there, so i’m not sure. I’ve not ridden again since then as i wasn’t riding with the lad on Sunday..
I sure hope so though 😀

@mark88 i don’t see anything i’m going to write changing your mind on any of this, so i won’t quote/respond directly other than with, “ok, understand”