The journey from small guy to teenager...

[weeksy]

IMG-20240622-WA0003 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[Count Steer]

Ooh...tense. Find a couple of seconds and that's a chunk of places up the leader board.

[weeksy]

Seeding/qualifying in 10 min

[weeksy]

P22 in seeding, had a minor off track but not huge.

Needs/wants to find a bit more tomorrow 

2s gets him 7-8 places

[Count Steer]

Good luck today chaps.

[weeksy]

It's looking somewhat less bright today

IMG-20240623-WA0000 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

https://my.raceresult.com/296105/#0_D57243

[Count Steer]

Nailed it on run 3 then?

Well done Team Weeksy.

[Nordboy]

https://my.raceresult.com/296105/#0_D57243

Looks to be going well.

If I'm reading the times correctly, the lad that's leading the youth is faster than almost all the elite men? Is that right?

[weeksy]

Conditions are changing lots today so times will be up and down. The boy is chilling before doing quite a late practice run and 12.15, race run scheduled for 2.45.

[weeksy]

16th

Target for year was top 20 at national.

8s away from winner. Bloody awesome job!

[MingtheMerciless]

Chapeau!

[weeksy]

Well that's the weekend over. Just arrived home after leaving the house at 5am on Friday morning.

Screenshot_2024-06-23-22-00-35-498_com.android.chrome by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Race results there
https://www.rootsandrain.com/event12570 ... g/results/

I was super happy with the whole weekend. Firstly from me riding Black Powder and trying out a DH bike, but then with the boy and his riding.
Over the weekend he went from not massively liking the track to getting on ok with it, but his attitude was still tip top. No sulking etc, apart from a little wobble after Seeding and being disappointed.
Today though was wet as an otters pocket in the morning but he didn't complain, just got up, went out and stuck runs in.
The race run went really well with him putting in both a solid time and very few mistakes. The best bit being that once again he's closing the gap to the fast lads.
Josh Woods will likely be in world cups next year or year after for sure, but several of the others will be too, so closing right up on them is awesome by him.

The busy times continue now with FoD Thurs this week, Ponty at the weekend and the straight off racing the next 3 weeks back to back.

[weeksy]

A little montage of pics from the weekend. Things are still not getting any less crazy with 3 race weekends in the next 4 weeks, only this weekend survives, but he's still riding Ponty at the weekend for practice. (As well as other stuff throughout the week of course).

IMG-20240625-WA0020 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG-20240625-WA0027 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG-20240625-WA0033 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG-20240625-WA0018 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

FoD Thursday mates races last night for both me and him. The course was LONNNNNG and techy !!!

IMG_20240627_201619 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

He managed to win his Cat by 9s. I propped up near the back of the adults. It's astounding just how fast the bugger goes. Was a slightly weird night as we had a minor mechanical on the 141 so he mostly rode my bike. Once i'd fixed the 141 i ended up doing lap on a Specialized Kenevo which was MASSIVE being an S5 in size (XL) and with incredibly wide bars. Felt really uncomfortable, but i managed to go 8s quicker than my first run. But ran out of time then so didn't get any more runs in to see if i could improve on my own bike.. Bit of a shame there. But beer and banter won the rest of the evening.
Long chat with the coach about his race plans etc... still plenty to think about

[weeksy]

[2xtwins]

Feck..........Sam sounded like he was about to expire at any moment .

Top video and thx for sharing. Well done James

Kev

[weeksy]

Ha ha. It was a tough track for sure, although let's just say I was lapping like I do on track days when @Tricky is out there compared to these boys

[weeksy]

[weeksy]

So this weekend brought Pearce Cycles round 2, Bringewood in Shropshire. It's a place we've been before and tested but not raced it. They have a number of tracks there and this was a variation on one he's ridden but not much.

Sat we arrived nice and handy after the usual 3 hour drive and kitted up, sent him out and it was dry with some greasy, but not raining. There were some showers on and off but nothing much on the Sat. I stood and watched Les Gets world cup DH while he rode and rode... Things were going OK but he was struggling to match his mate George, however George is a bloody good rider (as you'll see) and it's no shame, it's not like he was being gapped, just nicked a bit.
Sunday was clear, dry and nice in the morning but plenty of threats of rain. This arrived just as 50% of the Youth had started, George his mate had set the fastest time and as the rain got more and more his time wasn't being threatened by anyone, not even close actually.

The boy came down with a scrappy wet run and P19 on it, the rain and mud just getting harder as the riders came one after another.

Eventually around lunch it got drier, then drier and drier. the fast guys were now putting in fastest time of the day at 2.00 instead of the 2.20+ that most were hitting before that. The Juvenilies got a few dry riders but then, yup, the rain came again. And then more and more.... it looked like stopping but it was too late in truth, the track once again was proper wet.
We'd fitted an Argotal on the front but left the Kryptotal on the back which should have suited if it hadn't rained again. But the rear let him down a little compared to the Argotal front.
He came down 2s quicker than run 1 and with a P10 on run2 (counts for Pearce points), but only improved 1 place as a few of the guys went quicker so ended 18th.

In reality we couldn't have done a lot more on the weekend, he went up with the right rubber for each run when he left, but wasn't right by the time he got there at the track bottom. Just one of those things really.
George ended up getting the WIN !!! His first victory of note and it was ace to see. We'd spent the night before pitting with them at beers and banter flowing and the boys off in the wood/river etc doing kid things, so we were really happy for him.




Next week we move onto Dyfi on Sat and then the MIJ race at the Forest of Dean. Pick ourselves up and go again
IMG-20240707-WA0010 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr