The journey from small guy to teenager...

[millemille]

@weeksy I may well be returning the Focus to stock so the Hope brakes (tec4 v4), boxer ultimates for 29" and a Hope wheelset will be up for sale.

[weeksy]

@weeksy I may well be returning the Focus to stock so the Hope brakes (tec4 v4), boxer ultimates for 29" and a Hope wheelset will be up for sale.

Interesting stuff sir.

Keep me posted on pricing, but I'm not yet sure how much budget there is. Things have been expensive this weekend as the bike itself was more than the older one we sold, not to mention the headset and a new spring for the Bomber CR

[Horse]

Losing tools in the van, leaving kit behind ... the young chap will be having stern words with you

[weeksy]

By eck it's a bit bloody cold for working on MTBs in the garage today. It's deffo below 0, but only just at a guess, but the fingers really do feel it.

Went to fit the DMR bars, the boy wanted his bars narrower on this bike as they're at 810mm with grips, his race bike is 770mm with grips. However the DMR bars are 35mm and the stem is a standard stem not a DH stem, so couldn't fit the bar combo.

So in the end i trimmed down the Renthal bars to 770mm for him so he's got pretty much the same on both now give or take a mm or 2.

Got to wait now for the headset parts to arrive and the new shock spring though before i can do anything else particularly constructive to the bike. I also need to learn a bit about Hope brakes and bleeding, whilst they feel lovely at the moment, i'm guessing one day i'll need to do stuff to them.

[weeksy]

There is this set of lowers.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266082903567 ... 1465.m3507

the Germany ones are £320+ duties to import i’d expect.

Me and the boy spent another couple of hours in the woods last night and he’s 100% sold on the Mullet setup. I think it just feels better to him, it’ll also help as we’ll be running a 29er front on the Privateer of course.

What that does mean is that we need another wheel to start with, so a quick call to Rotec Cycles and a Pro4evo with Fortus30 has been ordered and on it’s way over.. That’ll then mean he can run both Pro4s on the race bike and have the 2nd wheel for bike 2 (purple currently) so we’ve got complete compatibility between both bikes.

He’s looking forward to the weekend now and apart from a gym session, he’ll likely chill mostly and then we’ll be spending the day in FoD on Sat to play on the race-track and then racing on Sunday

[weeksy]

They've been bought and are being fitted this afternoon LOL.

The new wheel is ordered and will be here tomorrow.

We've now got 2 headsets arriving instead of 1 headset. So by the weekend, both the purple bike and the blue bike will be mullet. The new spring has arrived for the Bomber, so that's good too... both done... Long-term project complete

[MingtheMerciless]

ohh look "squarings"

[weeksy]

More Boxxer 29s

2023-01-24_03-45-55 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

So as per the carbon frame issues discussion thread. We've now got 2 similar/same bikes. Both running mullet setup and both running in 'Lo' mode on the flip chip with the correct -2deg headset. This gives a head angle of 62.5 deg using an android angle measuring/bubble app.

I need to get some headset spacers and a front wheel that's on order to complete the purple bike, but it's back together with the new Works Components headset fitted at the same angles too. This also means with the shock in the Lo position that the BB and of course ride height sits slightly lower, which should in turn improve stability.

It's been a bit of a day the last 24 hours, but i think we're in a place where both bikes will be ready to roll for the weekend. The boy has been putting in plenty of bike time. Just a question of getting there, getting in some practice and seeing how the weekend goes.

[weeksy]

2023-01-26_08-11-27 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

New wheels now in the purple bike, both bike are happy with headset angles, ready to roll for race 1 of 2023.

2023-01-26_08-11-15 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/introducing ... -team.html

[Taff]

We're loving these updates, can't wait for the race reports

[Numnut]

Looking good - hope it's a fun/successful race weekend!

[weeksy]

Wow, the last 24 hours have been a bit nuts from Privateer Bikes. With media frenzy and announcements on offroad.cc Pinkbike, wideopen and their own Instagram feed... I'm not sure the boy quite knows what to do or say right now.

I've been prepping the race bikes in the evenings, with the lunch-break today just completing the blue one for the weekend now and fitting some new grips, saddle and pedals.

Up and out the door at a reasonable time tomorrow for testing/play/coaching and practice.

Just in case you're not bored of it all yet

https://www.privateerbikes.com/blogs/jo ... pment-team

[weeksy]

So today was practice day at FoD, but also a riding day for me and Crust. We dropped the boy off and headed to Parkend to play on trails, leaving the boy being coached and then playing.

It all went wrong when I was bleeding a CodeR set of brakes for one of his mates as the boy came back and gave me the "oh I've broken my bike" story


Arses.
I grabbed the spare rear mech from the box and went to fit it. Hold on, it's a SRAM rear mech and he's on Shimano. So we discussed the 2nd bike, which was also on Shimano. Why the flook do I have a spare SRAM 10 speed short cage mech!!!

So the next 2 hours the boy spend mechless and chainless. But still getting plenty of track time.

'why wasn't he on the spare bike' you ask, well as we'd taken my mate in the van too, we left the spare bike at home, after all, what's the odds of needing it lol.

I then had to fix another bike, as well as a pair of shoes/cleats and buy a kid some lunch as he couldn't find his dad lol.

So after practice we head home and I start stripping the Zwift bike, it has 10sp mech and shifter, but it's a long cage mech, which isn't ideal, especially on Mr Rooty, which is what claimed mech1 today, big root, right line, clunk. But he'll run the purple bike as race bike for tomorrow and the blue bike with ling cage mech will be the backup.

But he's ready to play and see where he ends up.

I had a superb ride on the Slayer in full Slack setting on the flip chip, bike felt ace! Happily, after sorting the mech hanger bolt, it was also silent.

[weeksy]

Today was a slightly tricky one for me, maybe more so than it was for him.

I'm quite hard on myself at times and this weekend was no exception. With a lack of sleep from being irritated by not having the correct mech we headed to fod early doors.

The boy came in ok after practice runs 1&2 but by run 3 it was getting slippery and 1/3 of riders we're crashing every run. Rider after rider. Mr Rooty was living up to its name for sure.
I wasn't even convinced he'd do race 1 at one stage. He just wasn't there in the head. But he went down, took it steady for 20/57
However he was feeling pretty rubbish about it as he'd missed lines, gone wrong etc.but it's far from a disaster, there were a lot of the big names racing so was always going to be tough.
By the time race 2 came about the track looked less slippy but seemed to be running slower, but still crash after crash, all ages, all classes, slippy off camber root sections.
Sadly for the boy he also crashed but despite losing 10s, came in really happy. He'd targeted 5 lines he wanted to hit perfectly and hit 4 of them, so was actually pleased with how it went.
Strange lol.

We're home now and chilling out, planning next weekends riding. Me, I'm a bit "maybe I could have changed/done something to make it better. But I really am my harshest critic at times.

All in all, not the best one.

[Count Steer]

Sooo...what would you have done differently? He's happy. He crashed but he's OK. He worked on and sorted some lines. Conditions were

You can't ride the bike for him y'know. (I'm sure you do ).

[MingtheMerciless]

Can’t win them all, treat it as a learning experience.

[weeksy]

Don't get me wrong, the result didn't matter, it was just some of the circumstances of the weekend. Overall it was a good weekend out

[weeksy]

2023-01-29_08-31-34 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr