The journey from small guy to teenager...

[weeksy]

Couple of bits from today, his phone is dead and has all the others on.

IMG_20240218_164044 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[SSS]

I was at Glencoe at the tail end of last week snowboarding. I thinking of you guys looking at the downhill track as i was going up and down the chairlift!

[weeksy]

We finally seem to have hit on a happy place with the Session in terms of upkeep. It's been a bit of a road this one but not a complicated one as such and not individual to us from speaking to many other session owners. They just seem a bit 'fiddly' at times ith various little niggles. But we're now at the stage where when i get it back in the garage after a weekend it doesn't wobble, wiggle or clunk any differently.
The boy was commenting on the weekend after race run that he was having issues with 4th gear on changing down. I checked the mech hanger alignment and that was spot on, checked and slightly adjusted the B screw and still wasn't perfect so whipped the gear inner out and fitted a new one, he's got X01 gearing so should be pretty smooth. I do blame Trek slightly though as they've got a bit of a tight spot at the start of the chainstay where it's a fairly tight angle. But anyway i've got it pretty happy for him now.

This weekend is the 3rd race in short order and the last of races before we hit the Gravity/Nationals. There's a couple of big hitters in this weekend, Osh Morris from GT Viris who's just come up into youth and has beaten my lads times every time they've met, Finley from Commencal is present again who was 2nd behind my boy at last FoD race, Will Mosely (nephew of Tracey) is there and the Maplesden boys who are always handy.. Then adding in the usual fast FoD lads we've raced more than a few times of course. So he'll need to be on fine form this weekend to find his way onto the box. But we're as ready as we can be at the moment, so lets see what the weekend brings.

[weeksy]

Race weekend again... then a couple of weekends off racing before Nationals on the first weekend of April. So last chance to scroe some points for a little while in the overall.
The boy has uplift booked for tomorrow for race practice and will likely spend most of the day on the race-track. Weather looking a little better than it has lately but it's still going to be slippery roots mostly. But we'll see how he goes.

Looking forward to it

[weeksy]

So it was the 100% race at FoD today and a day filled with ups and downs, but arguably more downs (lying on the floor) than ups.

They'd cut a new trail within Corkscrew and the lad couldn't get on with the bottom bit they'd cut in. Flat and off camber corners meant he spent more of practice lying on the deck than on his bike. As more bikes came and cut away the loam it exposed more and more roots.

After 6 crashes he went off for a walk alone, so I caught up with him, gave him a hug and left him for 5 minutes to compose himself. At that stage I thought the bike was going in van and we'd be home for lunch.
He sucked it up and went for race run1. He came down in 22nd place and a chuck off, I thought he'd had a crap run but apparently he'd stacked it massively too on roots. Damn.

He'd snapped the bolt that holds in his SRAM Code RSC lever so the lever was all over the place. I threw on a new front brake and checked the bike over, all ok to ride. Adjusted and set up his bite and throw on it, ready.

After lunch rest it started raining and got wetter and wetter by the time he was racing, I had to Eeb it down and get his roll off goggles quickly.
I checked the times people were hitting and times were far off run 1 times.
He looked pretty sketchy on his roots section and almost binned it and came in with an 11th place.
Using just run 2 times he was 2nd fastest in class, but could only obviously make up a certain number of places.

I guess it shows where we are that we felt 11th wasn't awesome but it was far from terrible, after all he beat 53 other racers.
But he took it well and we went home pretty happy considering. He spent the rest of the time with mates laughing and joking and watching many people crash, it was a crash fest and comical.

I even watched my Status being stacked as a mate snapped his chainstay yesterday in practice so I brought him my bike to use.

Pics to follow

https://www.rootsandrain.com/event12337 ... n/results/

[weeksy]

Some slightly interesting things from weekend.

We've as some may have seen, been having some 'wiggle' in the Trek Session. No matter what, i seem to get 2-3 days out of it before you can feel some play, somewhere.
Last time it seemed to be the lower shock mount point, so i fitted a different bushing and sent it out again.

Yesterday "my bike is making a goofy noise again".. GRRRRR

This time i was SURE it was the same lower bolt mount. So i did some digging. What i noticed was that the spacer that sits in the frame is really loose. I measured it at 23.99mm (so 24mm then). According to the Tech Docs on the Session it's 25mm for the frame mounts. So i chatted with my LBS and we thought a 25mm spacer would help with it... Funnily enough with the accumulation of spares in the various little boxes i happened to ahve a 25mm spacer of the M8 hole. Awesome. It was incredibly tight, so i filed about 0.1mm off it just to enable it to go in easier.
Once i'd then tightened it to 10Nm we didn't have any play at all.
So i'm hoping we can put this one to bed again.

The Session has been somewhat work to keep it running, but part of that you can see as soon as you start stripping spacers, bearings etc, it's just mud, wet, slop... Even though we dry it with a pet blower after every ride, the water still gets in everywhere !!!! As we've all noticed, there's very very few days and rides currently where it's been dry and 2 days most weekends of wet mud deffo takes a toll on the bike.

That just needs a quick clean now and it'll be all good.

Then i've got the clean the Orbea and the Status

[weeksy]

The boy got his own first real sponsor as well. We're currently signed up with https://oxfordmint.co.uk/

Who will provide all our cleaning products/ lubes etc for the season for him, which lets be honest, at the moment is pretty damn important LOL.

We've been using their stuff recently anyway and by pure chance we were chatting to their Sales Manager who was looking for someone and was aware of us, so asked us to sign for them.

So expect a little product placement on some of his Instagram and pics in the future. It's hopefully a relationship that will grow in the coming months and years as they don't just do cleaning/lube stuff but a whole plethora of kit, clothing, bits, helmets etc through Oxford Products so we'll try our best to make it work for everyone.

[weeksy]

I wouldn't normally steal a pic, but this is only until he gets home from school and we buy a set.

Tbog by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Those in the know call this a T-bog. You take your hand off the bar and grab your seat in the air...

cocky bugger.

[weeksy]

[weeksy]

IMG-20240226-WA0060 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG-20240226-WA0056 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG-20240226-WA0029 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG-20240226-WA0020 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[MingtheMerciless]

That second one looks like he's dropped something (his talent?) and is looking for it.

IGMC

[weeksy]

Having a bit of a dilemma, not really sure anyone can offer much here but i like writing things out so they're clear in my head too

So the Session comes with https://fifecycles.co.uk/products/bontr ... 1399323822 Bontrager DH Line 30 wheels. On the Rear, Shimano 7-speed implies to me/Rotec that the cassette is optimised for 7 speed which is what the bike comes with.
We also have a Hope Pro5 in orange which comes with a 9/10/11 speed hub and you run a cassette spacer to offset from 7-10


This is quite common on many DH bikes running 7 speed. However, here's the minor issue.

If we run just the cassette/spacer on the Hope Pro5 the cassette comes loose after 1-2 runs. This is because you need an extra 1.6mm spacer fitted which allows a smaller cassette stack height onto the larger free-hub. Now that's all kinda fine.... apart from one minor issue that when you do that the cassette is then out of sync in terms of positioning for indexing on the gears... So swapping a wheel means you then need to re-index the gears, which can be a 2 mins job or a 10 mins job if it's feeling fussy as you sometimes find the gearing is OK on the stand but when rider sag takes into account, it can then be out.

So i'm thinking of binning/selling the Pro5 (or keep as very very emergency spare) and buying a Bontrager as that's got the same offset, same layout etc, so theoretically will be a simpler swap.

[Noggin]

I've liked that cos, although I have no idea what you are talking about it, I love the technicality and passion

[weeksy]

I've liked that cos, although I have no idea what you are talking about it, I love the technicality and passion

I'm a bit nuts in truth and i think some of it rubs off on him in the fact that there's 2 ways of things

1. 100% Correct
2. Anything else

That's it for me, his bike HAS to be 100% perfect every weekend without fail. I'm obsessive with it and spend more hours sorting, tweaking, checking, lubing, greasing his bike than most pro mechanics But the one thing i simply cannot accept is a weekend where his bike lets him down through something i've done or not done, that for me would be gutting. If conditions don't play into our hands or his head doesn't work that weekend, that's on him... But if something on the bike isn't right, that's 100% me.

So i strive for perfection on it...

Don't get me wrong here, none of the above actually matters apart from the fact that it could take 10 mins to swap the wheel whereas if it was all as i'd like it, that may be 5 minutes... but one day, the 5 minutes difference could be the difference between him making the start line, or not.

[Noggin]

I've liked that cos, although I have no idea what you are talking about it, I love the technicality and passion

I'm a bit nuts in truth and i think some of it rubs off on him in the fact that there's 2 ways of things

1. 100% Correct
2. Anything else

That's it for me, his bike HAS to be 100% perfect every weekend without fail. I'm obsessive with it and spend more hours sorting, tweaking, checking, lubing, greasing his bike than most pro mechanics But the one thing i simply cannot accept is a weekend where his bike lets him down through something i've done or not done, that for me would be gutting. If conditions don't play into our hands or his head doesn't work that weekend, that's on him... But if something on the bike isn't right, that's 100% me.

So i strive for perfection on it...

Don't get me wrong here, none of the above actually matters apart from the fact that it could take 10 mins to swap the wheel whereas if it was all as i'd like it, that may be 5 minutes... but one day, the 5 minutes difference could be the difference between him making the start line, or not.

That's why I liked the post. I didn't understand the words as such but took away exactly what you've just written there ^^

And for me that's pretty bloody awesome. Even if I don't understand the technical stuff. The passion and striving for perfection is fantastic. Must be stressful but I also think you like it (and wouldn't want anything not to be just right).

I do love reading the posts on here even tho I rarely get the techie stuff, it's fabulous to read the passion and commitment. He's a very lucky lad x

[weeksy]

Not stressful in the slightest (mostly). I'm pretty good at this and if it wasn't for the fact it pays buttons, i'd happily do it for a living.

He's a good lad though which is why he gets nice things and has nice toys, i see and read on forums of kids who are proper little nightmares, i know i was one for my parents to be honest. So the fact he doesn't give us a moments trouble means i'm far happier to give him time and energy more so than if he was a tear-away

[weeksy]

Bit lacking in clips this weekend sorry, but it was horrible.

[weeksy]

May only really be of interest to me. But yesterday i was at RSR Bikeworks picking up some race rubber for the boy and we got chatting about frames and suspension as always and i was telling him about the spacers in the Session.

Funnily enough, he had a new shock for a Session in that he was doing last night for a customer and sent me this below.

A bit of information for you……..
I fitted that Ohlins shock on to a Trek Session last night. Struggled to assemble it with the 25mm shock hardware. Measured the RS Super Deluxe and it had 24mm hardware and had bent in the frame mounts.
Had to open the frame up a little to get the 25mm hardware in.
So it’s not just your shock with the wrong hardware.

All in all we both find it a bit weird that Trek built it to 25mm mounts and fitted a 24mm spacer.

[Yorick]

A bit of information for you……..
I fitted that Ohlins shock on to a Trek Session last night. Struggled to assemble it with the 25mm shock hardware. Measured the RS Super Deluxe and it had 24mm hardware and had bent in the frame mounts.
Had to open the frame up a little to get the 25mm hardware in.
So it’s not just your shock with the wrong hardware.

I feel like @Noggin. Didn't understand a bloody word

[weeksy]

A bit of information for you……..
I fitted that Ohlins shock on to a Trek Session last night. Struggled to assemble it with the 25mm shock hardware. Measured the RS Super Deluxe and it had 24mm hardware and had bent in the frame mounts.
Had to open the frame up a little to get the 25mm hardware in.
So it’s not just your shock with the wrong hardware.

I feel like @Noggin. Didn't understand a bloody word

So, the pic shows the lower mount on the shock. The inner circle bit is an aluminium spacer which is M8 and 24mm wide.


The frame mounts are 25mm spaced... therefore if you tighten it to 10Nm you don't actually take up any slack (and don't really want to as you're then bending the frame mounts closer together), you need to whack it to 30+Nm to get it 'tight'

Hence me fitting the 25mm spacer to sort.