Weeksy08 the ongoing racing trials and tribulations of a crazy teen

Another long weekend of riding racing and stuff, started with a wedding on Fri and then straight to FoD for practice/riding. I was out with mates playing as the boy was doing some riding and testing of the race track. Admittedly he knows it well so should have gone well enough anyway. But they had taped a few lines slightly differently, but not necessarily lines he’d take as they were taped a bit easier than the faster lines.

We decided to come home on Sat night instead of staying over, which looking back was the correct move as it walloped down with rain lots so would have been a crappy nights sleep.
Rocking up on Sunday we parked next to some mates, but these days half the paddock are mates anyway. The boy was offered some uplifts from a mate who’s bike i fixed a couple of races ago as a thank you for that 🙂 So of course he took him up on it.
The track top section suited an enduro bike as a bit pedally, but the bottom was maybe more DH bike… but as always, he was on the Trek Session, no debate no discussion there. I’d fitted the older shock with the bushing/spacer to test that for the weekend and it seemed to hold up OK, but in truth he wasn’t bothered either way which shock he was running.

Waiting at the finish on run1, his mate Trowb was coming down a couple of riders before him and stuck it into P1 by a massive gap, as the boy came down i saw a rider directly in front of him and realised he’d caught the rider on his run (just after half way down) which held him up.. He stuck it in P3, but was 6s off Trowb due to the hold up… Eeeeek !
Sometimes in racing you can get a re-run if held up by a rider but chatting to Len the commisaire the answer was “no mate sorry”, ah well.

What impressed me was that the boy took it really well and wasn’t angry or disappointed, just shrugged and moved on 🙂

Run2 is then seeeded, so despite him being held up he was 3rd last down and we knew the kid in 4th place and whilst he’s quicker than him, it’s not 30s 😀 so should have been OK.

Run 2 seemed to go pretty OK according to him but slightly lacking in comittment in some way (don’t really know why). Sadly for Trowb he was pushed into P2 by an enduro fast racer and weeksy08 finished in P3. Not exactly what he/we had hoped i guess but a podium, a weekend of getting some fun, some laughs and riding, no injuries and the bike that still worked. So far from a disaster.

So the weekend brings us back to what appears to be a somewhat chilly National DH race at Rhyd-Y-Felin.

It’s the final race of the Nationals for 2024 and a track the lad knows well. There’s multiple layouts possible up there, but either way, he’s ridden both a fair few times now. The weather looks like it’s changed as it was showing wet all day Sunday and now has moved onto being dry until 5pm Sunday… but it does look a bit on the chilly side, certainly at night.

There will be of course all of the fast lads there, but we’re used to that now and he’ll just get on it and ride as fast as he can 🙂

Looking forward to it now as always… it’s been a LONNNNNNNG season but in truth i’m struggling to think of anything apart from Rheola that we’d have done differently this year, it’s surpassed all expectations and goals.

Ooooooft what a long weekend again !

Rhyd-Y-Felin (known as Bala) round of the National DH series.

We rocked up Friday afternoon after a bit of a detour via a Supermarket as i’d forgotten to bring the big bag of food i’d bought the day before LOL. However i had beer, so all wasn’t terrible 🙂

He did a track walk and i got on with the fajitas 🙂 We then spent the evening talking crap, laughing and playing with fire 😀 The paddock atmosphere was brilliant (as it was all weekend). He spent his evening with Trowb his recent riding and racing mate and a load of others, messing about on mini-bikes and being daft, happily no-one was seriously hurt 😀

Saturday was dry but the morning was chilly, not as chilly as sleeping in the back of the Transit overnight though.. Brrrrr. Luckily i had the right layering on and i was OK. The track was slick in places and the boy had decided to run Argotal Argotal rather than going for something Kryptotal related. He went out for 3-4 practices and was happy with his riding, his pace and overall pretty up-beat. I’d lent our brand new Hydrotal to a riding mate but with the proviso that if it rains i wanted it back.
However we didn’t quite get to that easily as on his next run the boy came down out of the field with something in his hand… How shocked was i to find it was his X01 crank !!! The non-drive side had completely killed itself and exploded (pics tomorrow), it was in bits, but even though he’d stacked it on the massive drop as they exploded he got lucky and wasn’t hurt at all.

Panic stations for me as we don’t have a spare set of cranks. I ran round the various pro-pits trying to beg, borrow, steal or buy some cranks. No-one had any at all. Well, until the last chance which was Madison Saracen and he had a set of 83mm Shimano Saint cranks with chain-ring and a new BB. After a brief discussion on price i was over at our van ripping his X01 off and the BB, then handing it to the Madison mechanic who fitted the Shimano Saint set for me. (i could have but he seemed excited to do them so i let him). We also found the ChainGuide (MRP) was damaged, but it was decent enough to last the weekend, so with the cranks fitted the boy was ready to go out.

Until that is, he span his front wheel, which the 220mm SRAM HS2 rotor had pringled in the crash and was useless. I wasn’t going to fanny about straightening it there and then so whipped the other one off the spare wheel and within a few minutes it was all done and he was back out. He got one more run before his seeding/Qualifying run. The bike worked perfectly so he was good to go.
Seeding he had a decent and clean run and stuck it in 14th, considering his best National result is 13th, that was obviously pretty decent i felt. However, him, not so much “placing is OK but the gap to the front is terrible”, i could kinda see his point but i was still happy with 14th.

It was then another track walk in the evening for him and the beers, banter and chat was in full flow.I had to take a break in the banter as someone needed a headset changing on their Session, i have(had) several sets in the van and it’s an easy fix. Matey who borrowed our Hydrotal came over and he’d smashed his Chain Guide to bits, so after another chat with the Madison bloke, I spent the next 45 mins fitting that along with a new chain for him as he’d lost it just off the start gate. We know quite a lot of people in the paddock know who we can call friends, so even though a lot of the talk is bike related, it’s a lot of fun. Eventually (i say eventually, it was only 10.20pm) everyone went to bed and it was back in the Transit for me.

Sunday brought dry conditions in the sky but still a moist track so the Argotals stayed on for the start. His runs seemed OK and whilst the bike was coming back fairly messy, well, we’ve seen worse. Then about 12 the rain started, only that light misty stuff but it was soon destroying the track making the field in particular exceptionally treacherous. Lots of riders lobbing it in the floor on the wet field. So we sat it out for 45 mins and waited as we wanted to leave it as close to race run time as possible to try and see how the conditions were.
As it rained more he asked for the Hydrotal so it was chucked on as well as fitting ANOTHER headset onto another Session for a mate (who ended up beating in race, whoops)
He got a last run in on the Hydrotal and declared it was better and staying on for the race. A bit of food and sent him up the hill.

It’s hard to put into words the tension when you’re waiting for them to come down the hill, you keep looking at the riders despite knowing yours isn’t next somehow just in case it is.
Rhyd-Y-Felin doesn’t have Voda signal so you can’t watch the live timing to see the splits etc..
Eventually i see his jersey and he’s looking smooth and fast and drops into P2 with 13 riders left.

Final position was 9th place, which is again his best Nation finish and a bloody incredible way to finish off 2024 National Series, there’s still races (more on that later) but that’s it for the BNDS. We were all absolutely chuffed with 9th

As always, there’s a hell of a long way to go in this game but when you consider that last year he was regularly putting it in the mid 30s in Nationals, the improvement is there for all to see.

There’s been an incredible amount of things going on in the background lately which really could have affected his mindset all weekend but he put everything aside and stuck in a top top performance.

We’re now back home and sorting the bike and getting the list for tomorrow

2 x full set headset bearings to order
1 x Trek/MRP chainguide to order
2 x front wheel bearings on Bontrager to swap
1 x HS2 220mm rotor to order
1 x gazebo leg to order and replace

Great result. Congratulations

Not the best weekend weather wise but at this time of year it’s going to be changeable

So it looks like we’ve got a little more crazy on the cards.

Next weekend is Hopton / Pearce uplift day
weekend after is Hopton Pearce race, final round of the series
It then seems that the weekend after is Bellwald in Switzerland for the IXS DH series. A mate of his invited him over for the trip, they’ll be in an appartment for a few days close to track and giving it a go. I REALLY wasn’t expecting this one but it’ll sure be a welcome weekend away for him and his mate. It’ll be proper weird not to be there, but to head over too would be costing me £500-700 and there’s just not budget for that at the moment this year.
https://www.ixsdownhillcup.com/en/race/ixs-dhc-6-2

Nice write-up Weeksy. 9tth place is damn good. Those cranks look a little bit fecked though 😀

How will weeksy08 cope in Switzerland without Dad’s emergency fixes and replacements?! Will be good to find out!

@desperatebicycle

There’s a question mate, i don’t really know. The mates dad is clued up enough for emergencies but he’s not quite the same level of experience as me. But i’ll send the boy with basically everything brand new, from grips to pedals, bearings, headset, pads etc… So in theory… well… maybe 🙂

Thank you… 9th massively beat his season goal for Top20 in Nationals, so i think we can safely put that to bed now as completed as he’s done that in the last 3 Nationals. The gap to 5th wasn’t massive, so lots of scope there to pick up the vital seconds over winter and then next season is into Juniors which is good and bad as he’s taking on some proper fast lads and WC racers again then… eeeek.

The cranks, i’d seen a few reports of them breaking, even recently Alfie Hemming snapped a set as well as a few others on Insta, but it’s one of those thing you think “nah, it’s fine they came on the bike they must be OK”… However yeah they were not. We’re happy with Saints though as they’re honestly just something that holds the pedals on.. the extra weight or rigidity isn’t a factor.

2 x full set headset bearings to order. Ordered.

1 x Trek/MRP chainguide to order. Ordered.

2 x front wheel bearings on Bontrager to swap. Replaced.

1 x HS2 220mm rotor to order. Ordered.

1 x gazebo leg to order and replace. Ordered

Bike fully stripped and cleaned, new front wheel refitted. Rear wheel is squeaking on rotation so needs a strip, clean and check what item is causing that but shouldn’t be too hard.

Cleaned and sorted chain guide which needed some adjustment due to being a smidgen too close between tensioner and chainring.

Jobs then.

Rear wheel squeak

New bars

New grips

Check front pads

Fit new HS2 220 on front

That should be it for both Hopton weekends, it’ll then get a full strip before Bellwald IXS

https://www.ixsdownhillcup.com/en/race/ixs-dhc-6-2

So he’s entered into the IXS Downhill Cup race in a few weeks time now. There’s still some discussions with his mate on logistics, but i don’t think i’ll be booking my Tunnel just yet… However, you never know.

It’ll be awesome for him to go racing in Europe again this year which is kinda funny as at the start of the year we didn’t even think we’d race in Europe once, let alone twice. But if this is the way the sport is heading and it sure looks that way, then he better get used to the travel and driving as we’ll potentially be doing it a bit more in the coming years.

He’s already got some excellent racers from the UK entered, the 2 main ones being the guys in 3rd and 4th at weekend just gone, but i’m hoping he can use a quieter paddock and the fact they know eachother anyway to use their speed to jump on wheels and pick up some more speed from them. Especially as none of them have raced there before.

Unusual to have a day at home but today was it as no races on this weekend.

So did a few little jobs that I’ve just not seemed to get around to.

First up was replacing the gear outer. On the Session this is such a faff of a job. But last weekend when fitting the new cranks the Madison Saracen tech commented that the gear changes were crap. It wasn’t that long since I did the inner so suspect was the outer.

I used a reverb double barb to join the old line to the new one but then found it’s too big for the frame opening port by the headset/head tube.

So the works came out which means I can reverse feed it from just by the saddle opening on the top tube, that was ok.

It also meant I could check and grease/clean the headset at same time.

You then get to feeding it through into the chainstay, it’s got a really goofy routing there with crazy bends in it, but this time I trimmed the old outer and used a long inner to join both parts together and then I could pull it through using the inner, worked a treat and took only a minute instead of 45 mins of swearing last time i did the outer.

New gear cable then fitted and indexed and it shifts lovely.

Last little job was a crappy rounded bolt that holds on the top idler guide.

The standard cover leaves a lot of space so I fitted this one but I’ve noticed last time I took it off that one of the bolts was crap. I wasn’t sure I’d get it off easily but it went better than expected and is now replaced with a new m4x10.

I’m trying to get hold of the guy who makes them as a mate keeps dropping chains and wants one. We’ve not dropped ours. (Well kinda, when our idler teeth were knackered we did but that wasn’t the fault of the cover).

Pads were checked and rotors cleaned and all headset parts put back and torqued.

Ready for racing next weekend ☺️

Bit of a Bellwald track/preview.

Obviously we’ve got Hopton this weekend before that.

Breakfast cider and a bit of spannering, what can go wrong?

Lol that was last night.

The morning pic is today though.

Good luck for the weekend

P6 in run 1, not awesome, not terribly bad.

Let’s see what happens for run 2 but he ideally needs a better run for 3rd in the overall Pearce standings.

Well the craziest of crazy weekends was once again upon us. Hopton for Pearce.. The boy wasn’t in the best mindset as the weekend before there he wasn’t in love with the track. But after an evening of banter and a REALLLLLLLLY cold night in the tent on Friday we woke on Sat for practice day and he was happy all day, the bike was sweet, the track was sweet and everyone of him and his mates were having an ace time.

Until it went a little wrong. Isaac who he’s going to Switzerland next weekend came in looking sorry for himself. He’d lost a chainstay/pivot bolt from the bike… Not only that but it had completely stripped the frame thread. That was game over completely..
So me and his dad discussed some plans, we had an option from a mate of borrowing their 2020 Session, great option but they have it for sale on PB and they were not feeling the love for taking it to Switzerland. In the meantime we found 2 cracks in the chainstay on the Fury… so it really was game over for the frame.
We moved onto “you can borrow my Status 160 for both Pearce and Switzerland” but it was a 3 hour drive and he wasn’t feeling it for a 160 in Switzerland, so we thought “wonder if we could fit his Fox 40s”… So that was then the new plan A and B.
The boys then went nuts on Instagram/media and found a mate who would sell him a Fury frame !!! £300 but it was in Dyfi !!

So a plan was hatched, they’d pick up the frame on Sunday at 9am, i’d strip their broken Fury while they were collecting it and have all the bits ready.
IMG-20240929-WA0000 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

They got back at 11.52 and i started work… It needed the shock, BB, headset, gears, brakes, chain, shifting etc… Then of course forks, wheels, seat.
His race run 2 was at 1.15 he had to leave to go up…. at 1.14 i’d finished the bike and sent him up for his race run. It was honestly bonkers getting it built in time, the headset wasn’t quite 100% as the frame had offset cups fitted which took taller bearings i didn’t have, i kinda made it work with some improvising.

While i was doing all the stripping i of course also had to concentrate on my boy and getting his bike race ready and out for it, as well as re-taping a tubeless setup for another mate who’s wheel wasn’t holding air. My boy came down in Run1 with a P6. He was a little unhappy as he really wants top 5s in Pearce now, so 6th wasn’t quite there. His run was scrappy but sort of OK.

So our mate came down in P36 on his newly built bike, it’s lower than you’d expect by 5-6 places for him, but it was completely new with a dodgy headset and he hadn’t practiced at all today, so him and his dad were actually really pleased.

The boy was coming for his 2nd run and another mate had gone quicker on run 2 after stacking it on run 1, even though James went 2s quicker on run 2 he ended the race in P8…. again, a little disappointing but shows how far he’s come to be disappointed with nicely inside the top 10 at a Pearce.
We suspected the results between him and some competitors went well, but in the end he finished P5 in the overall series results.
IMG-20240929-WA0005 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

It’ll be interesting when they put it online to see how far from P3 he was.

Back at the bikes and van i stripped the headset on the Fury and knocked out the headset cups and replaced them with standard offset cups that run the stock Fury bearings, which i had 4 of in spares 😀
His bike is perfect and ready to go.

I’ve got to investigate the Session headset as it still troubles me just a bit as it’s never quite 100% for week after week, sometimes feeling a bit sluggish… weird.
His bearings have been GREAT for months on the Session now, but the bottom pivot ones have given up the ghost and developed a bit of play, but that’s 30 mins work tomorrow evening to get that done. The Session will then be cleaned and he’ll be sent off for IXS in Switzerland.

He’s very excited that he picked up £35 in cash for P5 overall… his first prize money…

I need a lie down in a dark room.

Great result and team work. Well done

Well done – sounds like a crazy weekend!

I need a lie down in a dark room.

Great work… but you know you love it 🙂

Can the mods change the thread title to “Ongoing trials and tribulations of a DH mechanic Dad?”

Great work… but you know you love it 🙂

Can the mods change the thread title to “Ongoing trials and tribulations of a DH mechanic Dad?”

I do love it… of course i do 🙂   Sometimes it gets a little insane though for sure, this weekend was particularly nuts though. But it’s deffo a thread about the boy rather than me

Just seen the final series standings

3rd. 520points

4th. 514 points

5th. 512 points.

Now that was tight for him !!!! But he gave his all 🙂

I’m not sure why the oppo whip is a big thing, but he does like an oppo whip

So we’re onto Switzerland !!!!
https://www.ixsdownhillcup.com/en/race/ixs-dhc-6-2

Assuming it works, there’ll be live timing on there… With the boy being a teenage boy, he’ll probably message his mates instead of me mostly lol. So no idea how much i’ll get from him while he’s away.

the Session has been stripped, cleaned, rebuilt. Little jobs for this week were
Replacing headset components to give slightly more clearance as he was getting a bit of drag from the dirt/dust cap.
Replacing main pivot bearings.
New 220mm HS2 Front rotor on the Pro5 wheel
Full bolt check on everything (loose cassette tool rear pivot spacer sorted)
Brake bleed on the spare Code RSCs for the spares box
Full check of spares, kit, etc

All in all, not too much in truth, the bike has been running sweetly lately and everything is golden. He’s got just about every spare possible apart from cranks and shifter (waiting for both to arrive). He’s got spare every item of riding kit, so really he’s all good.

It’s going to be an adventure that’s for sure.

Well the day never quite worked out correctly, they were supposed to get there for 12 but ended up being closer to 2. So they’ve missed the track-walk and the first 2 hours of practice, but have 4 hours left for today to work out where the track goes.

Due to being late they only got 3 runs of practice, course was hard apparently and he’s not quite got to grips with it yet.

Practice 10-12 local time tomorrow and seeding then from 12.30 onwards.

Oh this is fun.

“Cased a rock gap and lost all air.”

It appears a spike has come loose and pierced the tape. As well as a small dink in the rim.

So he’s now going to retape the rim and fit tyre tubeless.

Well, maybe lol

Ah damn. It’s only 2 above 0 there and tape won’t stick as too cold. So he’s going to run the Hope Pro5 wheel with a Kryptotal SSDH on for seeding run and then tape wheel tonight in hotel after leaving wheel and tape by radiator first.

Seeding run 1pm UK. I’m hoping for live timing here

https://www.ixsdownhillcup.com/ergebnisse/livetiming

Took the Zx6 for a blast to the pub, live timing and football, with a sneaky beer too

Down safe. That was honestly horrendous tobe here and not there. My hands were shaking as I was watching live timing

26/36. It’s a bloody tough sport and bloody tough class that’s for sure.

His run was seemingly OK and he’s happy. They’re now raiding my spares boxes for a Chainguide for a new friend lol. They’re also raiding my toolbox for crank pullers.

The boys are up on track walk to see what they can learn/find for tomorrow. Answer, i dunno. I think his run was about right for where he is in the world of Youth racers. I’m pleased, he seems happy enough if slightly disappointed, but this isn’t FoD, this is next level up, and next level and next again, this is European racing, not people who are novices.

Welcome to the club. I was always nervous track side but when you are so far away you can just keep everything crossed. It’s good experience for them to sort stuff out them selves

Oops, hope he’s ok!

Yeah that was yesterday practice, all good thanks buddy.