The journey from small guy to teenager...

[Crosshair]

Wow that’s a great pic

[weeksy]

Wow that’s a great pic

I'm envious that when he rides it's not a question of 'can we find a good pic' it's more a question of 'are any of them not cool'

[weeksy]

2022-03-22_08-29-56 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

Well we're off playing again. Bike checked. Car loaded and we're hitting Rheola tomorrow. Well, i say WE, this again is just a HIM thing.. I could get down most of the course, but there's 1 massive drop and a few jumps out of my league. So they're a no from me. So pit crew duties only here.

Sadly the lovely warm 17deg weather has moved on and into 7-8deg when it's warmest ! Brrrrr. I've chucked the gazebo in the car to give us shelter if the wind is up. it'll at least stop us dying of cold.

[weeksy]

Today didn't go quite according to plan. The boy was at Rheloa on a National course, so tricky and techie.

After run 1 he came back with a thumbs down. "it's really hard, you'd be lying in an ambulance by now" LOL was his comment to me. Fair enough, i accept that. I'd walked up and looked and yes, indeed it looked techie. There were only 11 in the class of 13-14 which is very unusual and i think the difficulty of the course may have been a factor in their decisions.

He went out for run 2 with the same idea as run 1, lots of stopping, checking, watching, so i wasn't expecting him down quickly. He came back happier and did the double step-down into the finish line as he was feeling good. He did have a spill on run 2, but hey, looking round the paddock, most people had !

Run 3 was the most exciting for him as he had the Continental Atherton rider Charlie Hatton on the uplift with him.... He even had Charlie following him down at 1 stage until he stopped to let the PRo through, who gave him a wave and a "thank you", which made the boys day.

Run 4 was where it went pear shaped and 2 crashes this run, 1 on the shoulder/collar bone really hurt him, he was trying to be brave but you could see he was struggling. I ended up having to load the bike onto the trailer and was troubled for run 5..... Happily in a way, run 5 didn't happen. The boy came down on the uplift and said he'd tried to set off but it was too painful, so we pulled the plug. He got checked out by the medics who were happy he'd not broken it.... but it wasn't moving easily and giving him a lot of issues. We loaded the bike in the car and headed for the B&B early. When we got there i saw him struggling to even lift his arm and made the decision to bail on the B&B and the Sundays racing. I let the guy know at the B&B and we headed home, lots of tears in the car and lots of unhappy boy but after an hour and several tissues i think he understood my decision and accepts it. Rather get 1 day missed than him spannering himself further and messing up the next 2 months due to riding when he can't hang onto the bars.

So we're back home and lets just say, he's feeling sorry for himself.

It showed my the reality and the down-side of racing DH, but it could have been worse, there were more than a couple of people in slings and heading to A&E in the paddock..

As always, the photos don't do any justice to the terrain lol
2022-04-02_06-13-13 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

2022-04-02_06-13-02 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

The FF helmet visor was gorilla taped back together to get him out... although we did have spare helmets with us anyway.

[Dodgy69]

Home in one piece is always a winner.

[MingtheMerciless]

He who runs away, lives to fight another day.

Crashing or riding on an injury can result in a lengthy spell off the bike. I carried on racing after hitting a tree at the 2nd Big Dog(in my defence the St. Johns ambo bloke said its probably only a sprain so I foolishly went with Rule 5) which went onto result in 6 months off the bike and a Ti Herbert screw and bone graft.

[weeksy]

The 5am fitness test was failed and after me lying in bed with him for a while I think he’s sleeping again.

Sadly, I’m not as I’ve now got 10,000 things running round my brain lol.

Hey ho. We move on

[Crosshair]

Yeah it’s the right decision
Great that he’s hungry for more too.

[weeksy]

Clearly this was a tough one foe the small lads... his had 11 in for practice, but only 8 started Sunday.... out of them 2 DNF'd. The lad in last is my lads mate (sorta) and obviously found it tough and must have crashed on race 1 as well.

rheloa by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

Well we're pretty confident he'll be racing this weekend. Due to the course being a Blue, i'll be racing it too, however we'll both be battling for the opposite end of the pack that's for sure.

If the weather holds and the shoulder does OK, i may even send him down for a run on my Trek. I'd be really curious as to how he'd go on it with the light weight and big wheels, as opposed to the big burly destroyer of trails.

[weeksy]

Yesterdays racing for the lad was good... Started off hairily as i followed (or tried to) him down on practice 1 and about 1/4 of the way down he was lying on the floor in front of me. lol. Ooops.

The track was very loose on the bottom of the berms and he went in too hard i guess. We'd changed the pressures in the front and added 2psi in both that and the rear before the practice compared to his usual pressures... but he then decided it was either the Assegai (again) or the pressures, so went back to the usual 18F 20R.
It was interesting to see how he'd go on the DH bike on the Blue at 417 and after 3-4 more practice runs we sat round and waited for run 1.

He came down and looked good, wasn't covered in dirt so i know it'd gone well enough. He managed a 1.46.4 which is pretty much his fastest time down the track in races, but only by 2/10ths. He was happy though and it gave him an 11th place. The leaders was a smidgen under 1.40 which is damn fast, but up to 3rd was only a 1.43 so he was right in the mix as usual.
Race 2 he felt he had more to give and ended up with a 1.45.2 but that still only kept him in 11th place out of 33 finishers...

He came home happy and smiling, tired and snorey

[weeksy]

Oh.... it seems he did that with the new Assegai fitted backwards !!!

How many faceplants !!!!!

[lostboy]

Sack the spanner wanker!

[weeksy]

After today's coaching, chatting with Katy was very interesting. She's changed a few things on body position again, mostly legs.
Boy was apparently flying.

Although Ethan Craik was there who was really really flying!

The lad was abusing me lots all day 'bike feels great now the front tyre is the right way round' and 'i didn't lose the front once today, funny that isn't it'

He'll be getting the belt tonight before bed

[weeksy]

[weeksy]

2 crazy days for the lad, first with Afan and then BPW, he spent the afternoon chasing the KOM top 10 on a couple of segments at BPW on his GT but couldn't quite get there... but happy with that considering the level of riders that will have ridden at BPW that he's pretty damn close to the Top10 overall times

Anyway the bike is cleaned, bolt checked, lubed and sorted and we're off to Bodmin/St Austell for a race tomorrow. It's only a fairly small level event, but it's a night away (again !!!!) and always good fun.
Hopefully we're taking one of his mates who'll race too and give the lad someone to talk to who's not a grown up

[weeksy]

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/race-repo ... es-uk.html

Some of the pictures here highlight why the boy found Rheloa hard maybe

Well that and the front tyre on the wrong way round

[weeksy]

Random pub just down the camel trail about 1 mile from the race.



It's in the woods jus opposite Grogley Woods.

We're not allowed to check it out tonight, so track walk 9am.

[weeksy]