The journey from small guy to teenager...

[weeksy]

Due to being late they only got 3 runs of practice, course was hard apparently and he's not quite got to grips with it yet.




Practice 10-12 local time tomorrow and seeding then from 12.30 onwards.

[weeksy]

[weeksy]

Oh this is fun.
"Cased a rock gap and lost all air."

It appears a spike has come loose and pierced the tape. As well as a small dink in the rim.

IMG-20241005-WA0006 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

So he's now going to retape the rim and fit tyre tubeless.

Well, maybe lol

[weeksy]

Ah damn. It's only 2 above 0 there and tape won't stick as too cold. So he's going to run the Hope Pro5 wheel with a Kryptotal SSDH on for seeding run and then tape wheel tonight in hotel after leaving wheel and tape by radiator first. 

Seeding run 1pm UK. I'm hoping for live timing here 

https://www.ixsdownhillcup.com/ergebnisse/livetiming

[weeksy]

IMG_20241005_120514 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG_20241005_120846 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Took the ZX6 to the pub as it's not moved all year, thought i'd have the live timing on and watch the footy

[weeksy]

Down safe. That was awful not being there

[weeksy]

26/36. It's a bloody tough sport and bloody tough class that's for sure.

His run was seemingly OK and he's happy. They're now raiding my spares boxes for a Chainguide for a new friend lol. They're also raiding my toolbox for crank pullers.

The boys are up on track walk to see what they can learn/find for tomorrow. Answer, i dunno. I think his run was about right for where he is in the world of Youth racers. I'm pleased, he seems happy enough if slightly disappointed, but this isn't FoD, this is next level up, and next level and next again, this is European racing, not people who are novices.

[weeksy]

IMG-20241005-WA0024 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

[weeksy]

Did exactly the same thing in his race run, so will be somewhere near last. 

Showed a great attitude though after the race

"Stacked it in roots, same place, don't care though, went soooo fast after that to the bottom "

That's more important than the result sometimes 

[Nordboy]

Did exactly the same thing in his race run, so will be somewhere near last. 

Showed a great attitude though after the race

"Stacked it in roots, same place, don't care though, went soooo fast after that to the bottom "

That's more important than the result sometimes 

Yep, can't always have a best day, but sure as hell he'll learn from the experience and this will increase confidence. Good stuff.

[Noggin]

Did exactly the same thing in his race run, so will be somewhere near last. 

Showed a great attitude though after the race

"Stacked it in roots, same place, don't care though, went soooo fast after that to the bottom "

That's more important than the result sometimes 

100% - he knows he's still learning and is really happy with progress when he makes it. Bloody awesome to read that

[weeksy]

randr-photo-14700333-3000px-by-bikestuffphotos by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

[weeksy]

Excellent service by SRAM via blazing bikes, got a new set of X01 cranks in the post today. Of course you could argue they should never have failed. 

IMG_20241011_132055 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

They've gone straight into eBay to fund a new set of Saints.

The boy is racing Rogate world championships this weekend (hey, it's not my name lol)

Not sure yet if I'm taking him or mrs Weeksy as I'm down with man flu. 

[weeksy]

Well Sunday was a bit of a day as usual. Rogate events can be a bit weird as they're really short at times, but then again yesterday you had 3 World Cup riders racing, along with 3 out of the fastest 4 in National Enduro racers in Youth along with people like Lucas Craik (Ethans brother) and Luca Thurlow (WC Racer), it's a 'locals place' and the MB Cyclery kids are devstatingly quick. It's a weird sandy terrain which can be hard to get used to the grip levels etc.
Morning practice is timed and the boy came in with 5th in practice with the main contingent ahead of him being the MB Cyclery locals as we'd expect. Most of them are expecting to go to World Cups in Enduro next year and as i say, they're just fassssssssst. He's raced a few of them at various events before and both have been super quick..
The biggest problem we had though was with the Privateer 141 and it's sizing. I love this thing as a bike, he's had it 2 years now and we've done 1 headset change and 1 bearing, other than that, it's not been touched. But in the last 6 months it hasn't actually done much at all in the way of riding. Mostly because it's a P2 size (Medium) and that's quite simply just too small for him, so he's clambering all over the bike and perched in the wrong position.
Before his race run i had one of his mates Ed coming over to chat, their freehub was making VERY weird noises, so i stripped the hub in the back of the van but couldn't diagnose it so ended up throwing our spare wheel in his bike for race runs... Which would have been OK, if it wasn't for the fact he's running full 27.5 whoops. So he ended up racing on a reverse mullet with a 29er on the rear. But he got down both run and set times, so all good. Day saved

Both runs for the lad went mostly OK, i was watching from various places and was glad i'd not done what i'd thought about and entered it... I'm not sure i was getting down 1 section at all... let alone with me still attached to the bike !! He made a mistake gapping a root on run 2 which slowed his time, but ended up (we think) with P6 which isn't bad, isn't amazing, but the guys who were quicker were the guys we'd expect to be quicker and are far from slow lads.
In hindsight i wonder if he'd have been quicker on the more familiar and suited Session, but i offered him it the night before to put in the van and he said no. So he got what we took.

It was good to catch up with mates though, even though i really wasn't on form as i've been struggling with the man-flu currently and mostly just felt sorry for myself all day. It won me a few sympathy votes though

So we're now on the search for a new bike that fits him correctly and working through that debate in our heads, he's got a few ideas of what he thinks and i've got a few ideas of what i think, they don't necessarily completely gell together, but i think in the end he'll obviously get the deciding vote on which.

IMG-20241014-WA0001 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

Rampage line they've built at the local.

Nutter boy was the guinea pig

[MingtheMerciless]

Just seen that on Instagram, that’s all the No’s from Me! Much respect! And balls of steel!!!!

[crust]

The lads nuts, just nuts

[weeksy]

Well sadly the boy has finally killed his Bontrager DH rim, considering the impacts, crashes, cases and landings, it's done bloody well. But it's flat spotted in quite a big area and can't be tweaked out. So we're looking and debating a new rim.
https://www.swinnertoncycles.co.uk/bont ... CmEALw_wcB

In truth i think we're likely to buy the same one, this has lasted us 18 months now and 30+ races with weekend after weekend of abuse so makes sense to go with the same again. He has of course got a Hope Pro5 Fortus30 as a spare wheel along with a 27.5 Nukeproof for mullet stuff, so we're doing OK, it's mostly just this one that needs replacing.

We spent all day on Sat with a new media guy creating content for Insta/YT/Sponsors and seeing the quality we're really really happy with his work. I'll post up the video that was made later on today, but if i upload it to YT now i'll get strung up by the boy

As always, winter here is bringing a LOT of complexities, especially with moving up to Juniors next year and the potential for more EU/somewhere racing for him, but for now it's business as usual and after a few days off we're heading up to Dyfi next week for a few days so his mate can test his new Session out for 2025 and get used to it. It'll then be seeing what the weather does a couple of weeks later and possibly heading up to fort William, but that needs some research.

[Mr Moofo]

Well Sunday was a bit of a day as usual. Rogate events can be a bit weird as they're really short at times, but then again yesterday you had 3 World Cup riders racing, along with 3 out of the fastest 4 in National Enduro racers in Youth along with people like Lucas Craik (Ethans brother) and Luca Thurlow (WC Racer), it's a 'locals place' and the MB Cyclery kids are devstatingly quick. It's a weird sandy terrain which can be hard to get used to the grip levels etc.
Morning practice is timed and the boy came in with 5th in practice with the main contingent ahead of him being the MB Cyclery locals as we'd expect. Most of them are expecting to go to World Cups in Enduro next year and as i say, they're just fassssssssst. He's raced a few of them at various events before and both have been super quick..
The biggest problem we had though was with the Privateer 141 and it's sizing. I love this thing as a bike, he's had it 2 years now and we've done 1 headset change and 1 bearing, other than that, it's not been touched. But in the last 6 months it hasn't actually done much at all in the way of riding. Mostly because it's a P2 size (Medium) and that's quite simply just too small for him, so he's clambering all over the bike and perched in the wrong position.

https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/3922894/

And reverse mullet - there's a new trend ..