The journey from small guy to teenager...

[Tricky]

Some properly cool action pics there - fabulous!

[weeksy]

Race run POV from today 

[weeksy]

[weeksy]

Stupid bloody Instagram

[weeksy]

Short and sweet

[weeksy]

[MingtheMerciless]

Redbull Hardline next year?

[weeksy]

LOL he'd be tempted and something he'd love to do... but there's many many riders who'd be on that list before him sadly.

[weeksy]

FoD race today with MIJ and familiar territory for the boy. We wouldn't arguably race these at the moment, but it was a free weekend and we had no other plans, but also our mate wanted us there for moral support. So we jumped on and entered him.
We didn't go for practice yesterday as most did, but arguably he knows the track and the forest as well as the next person.

Setup and practice went smoothly and he was feeling fine.
Run 1 he ended up in 1st place with a 1.07.60 and about 1.8s clear of the next placing. Onto run 2 after a lunchtime game of battering eachother with a mini-basketball with his mates and he set off. Watching the rest of the class/Cat come down some looked RAPID... As he passed me about 3/4 of the way down he'd forgotten to put his goggles on (muppet) but he looked OK.
Got to the bottom and he'd improved to a 1.06.30 and won by 2+ seconds. So an excellent result and the 4th fastest time of the day for him so again, pretty happy.
IMG-20240609-WA0011 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Onto Antur Stiniog for National DH in 2 weekends time (Foo Fighters gig next weekend)

[weeksy]

First weekend that the boy has beaten Ben Deakin too, if you follow MTB and Vlogs/Media you'll know him as a bit of a media mogul and a fast racer. He's got a massive following and rides with the Surrey Hills lads. He's also sponsored and supported by DMR amongst other companies... The boy will be really pleased to have finally beaten him

In a little bit of me bragging it's been quite funny with the boy on his Snapchat stuff as they've got a MTB group and it's been a "FFS JAmes don't turn up at the next MIJ race and give someone else a chance" "are you racing the next one, please say no"

LOL. I wouldn't post this stuff on other parts of the internet as i don't wanna come over dickish, but for you lot i'm happy to post some bits that's a little bit more private

[weeksy]

38 in his Cat.
MIJ by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

race clips for the non-Insta people.



See you with updates in a few weeks

[weeksy]

Fucking STUPID companies.

I wanted/needed to replace the lads SRAM DUB preload spacer on his cranks, the SRAM one is made of soft plastic and splits/breaks really easily. This is alu and a bit stronger. So i'm trying to fit it, looking at the pic on the back of the box

Preload Ring > Dub Spacer > 30mm spacer
That's how their pic goes, with pretty little boxes and arrows to point to each.

But it doesn't fit right... I'm then thinking are you SURE... So i google it and there's a video with a guy who picks up the 30mm spacer (as per box) and says, fit the DUB spacer... Errrrrrrrm.

So i ring Muc-Off.
"yeah, you need to ignore the box, it's completely wrong"

I laughed, he laughed, oh how we all laughed.

Jeeez.... really lol.

[Taff]

I'm probably a couple of weeks behind, riding home this evening it was great to hear your jibber jabber on the singletrack podcast

[weeksy]

Lol I'm not sure about that mate, but thank you anyway.

Eloquence is the reserve of Mrs Weeksy.

[Taff]

You came over really really well, explaining what you guys are all about.

I think a fair few people would be a little surprised to hear what you said about his future racing expectation, a nice dose of reality

[weeksy]

As per earlier, I took the forks and shock to TFTUNED for service today.

IMG_20240614_092558 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr




His shock has been fine and was a straight forward job, however the forks were a bit trickier.

They had developed a top out clunky, at max extension every time they clunked. It was irritating the boy on his rides.

After Jake had taken them apart he found a tiny hole in the damper bladder, which isn't uncommon but is pretty drastic as you can't buy it as a spare part. Usually it's a new damper at lots of money. But luckily he had a spare used one that's perfect and was relatively buttons from them, phew. 

Other than that it was all sweet and back in the bike now.

I was testing the DUB as he said "it feels really slow" when riding yesterday. I checked the preload tool and the threaded piece hadn't bonded to the shaft. So I've taken it apart after a massive battle with the 8mm crank bolt. Then some stronger glue and we'll see.

I've also bought a standard one as that's a resistance fit, so if needed that'll go on next week 

[weeksy]

I was testing the DUB as he said "it feels really slow" when riding yesterday. I checked the preload tool and the threaded piece hadn't bonded to the shaft. So I've taken it apart after a massive battle with the 8mm crank bolt. Then some stronger glue and we'll see.

I've also bought a standard one as that's a resistance fit, so if needed that'll go on next week 

Well that progressed. I tried the stronger Loktite and it was still shit and didn't bond/hold. So went back to the standard plastic setup from SRAM. But as i'm doing it i think "i'm sure that's still got play"
So for some reason i checked the BB bearings and the NDS was completley solid..... I then checked the drive-side and guess what, again the same !!! WTF... I'm honestly not sure what's happened here as i'm sure they were OK 2 weeks ago.
So i fitted a new BB and not only do the cranks spin nicely now but they also have no play. I still ideally need to fit a non-broken preload ring when that arrives this week, but it'll be fine anyway now.

The disappointing part is that we only fitted the BB in April. That's really not very long at all for a BB.

I'm now looking into a couple of possible options for a DUB that'll last a bit longer, maybe a Praxxis.

I've also lobbed DMR a message i noticed they make the Axe LE crankset which is a Raceface type wavey washer fittment and non-DUB.
https://www.dmrbikes.com/Catalogue/Comp ... e-Crank-LE
I didn't know they made an 83mm version but it seems they do and assuming i can get a BB that's compatible for it then we may go with these for a solution instead. I'm sure the boy would be upset at not having carbon X01's any more, but it'd be nice to get another component on for DMR.

Chatting with a mate who was up at Llangollen this weekend made me REALLY pleased that once again we skipped a Gravity Events round. For the 3rd event on the bounce they had 'timing issues' exactly the same as at Rheola earlier in the season and many riders didn't get any timings at all. Weirdly the Youth cat DID... but as to how reliable that was, is very much open to debate again. I just can't fathom how time and time again they're not getting it right... but also once again, a massive lack of communication to riders/anyone was there in force.
Their numbers were WAY down in terms of riders and i think people are voting with their feet.

[weeksy]

I was testing some video editing software,

[weeksy]

Antur Stiniog nationals this weekend.

Live timing here
https://my.raceresult.com/296105/#0_E78090

Rider 222 in youth
IMG_20240622_100821 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr