The journey from small guy to teenager...

[Taff]

Does she do RTTL OAP discount ?

....asking for a friend

Not as far as I know. But she'd do groups if more than one of us wanted to book. I'd certainly do another one.

I'd be up for that

[weeksy]

One of the most interesting aspects was the differences between our thoughts, wants, desires and Katy's version.

We were asking about various races, even races that we'd considered massively important 6 months ago have now moved to "well, if you've nothing better to do"

The reasoning behind this was quite deep and involved but the highlight version was that he'll get more out of a day riding and timing himself at BPW on 50 Shades of Black than he will out of a FoD race for example. Or a Pearce uplift day instead of a Stile Cop race. Even though it's not racing, it's time on longer techier tracks instead.
We also discussed a lot on races, results and performances and again, what we see/saw as priorities were not necessarily hers.
It was a really interesting insight into the difference between our mindset and the coach's. Something we've not really discussed in depth before.

It's certainly changed some of our focus for the coming months that's for sure.

[Crosshair]

Interesting for sure

Fitness based rather than skills based but it was like that with Crit racing. You’d actually take a step backwards in terms of fitness by going to a race.
Sometimes a three hour training ride would actually be the way better option. Especially if the race the following week was more “important”.

[weeksy]

Absolutely agree yes, it’s all a learning curve.
Of course things like racing bring many things to his development too, time between the tape, the pressure of getting the runs right, the pushing hard which you can only replicate in races.
But yeah, the thoughts now are slightly different in terms of priorities and we’ll work on that in the coming months.

A lot of the coming months are already laid out in stone anyway and focus on the bigger tracks and races just by default of where we are in the race season. But it’s shifted our thoughts away from some other races we’d planned.

14/15/16 Apr is Rheola national DH
23 Apr is Southern Enduro
30 Apr was due to be Stile Cop but that’s now canned and it’ll either be Pearce or BPW
We’re then into the first weekend of may which is straight up to Fort William for the big one.
I’m not really looking any further ahead than these at the moment as it’s a pretty big month already.

[Count Steer]

Q? Watching the videos there's frequently a very positive wiggle of the front wheel in the air on jumps. Is this technique ie getting the wheel/bike aligned for the direction needed on landing or is it sheer exuberance?

[weeksy]

Q? Watching the videos there's frequently a very positive wiggle of the front wheel in the air on jumps. Is this technique ie getting the wheel/bike aligned for the direction needed on landing or is it sheer exuberance?

I guess you call it flair 90% of the time.

Sometimes it's Scrubbing a jump, same as mx bikes. But mostly it's for the camera.

[weeksy]

Chill day today so we met some mates at 417 as they were trying a new DH bike they were potentially buying.
The boy was shifting!

About 6 months ago on Dubby Skipper he set a top 10 on Strava and was ecstatic, but 11s off the fastest person ever out on 3500.
Today he went top by 3s and his teammate went P2 lol. Crazy kids.

With Rheola coming up for Nationals this weekend we also tested the spare bike which then broke due to an issue with idler pulley. So that's now sorted and glad we tested it.
He punctured on Igneous though so we've fitted 2 brand new Shorty on both his DH race rears for the weekend.

2023-04-09_05-14-08 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

New headset bearings installed today as the bike is not being used until Rheola at the weekend now.
New cassette put on as well, well an old cassette. We were having compatibility issues with 7/10 speed hubs, cassettes etc, so I've standardised it at 10sp now instead of 7sp and spacer.

Both bikes now 100% ready to roll for the weekend racing.
Track walk with coach on Friday, practice on Saturday and the seeding and race run on Sunday.
I believe it's also going to be streamed live on YouTube but that remains to be seen.

[weeksy]

2023-04-10_03-02-26 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

He's happy now.... KOM on a proper DH track.... 3500 people have registered times....

[MingtheMerciless]

2023-04-10_03-02-26 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

He's happy now.... KOM on a proper DH track.... 3500 people have registered times....

It only counts if he keeps it for over a year.....

KOM's are like MOT's, only valid at the time of the ride (and sometimes not even then if your faster mates are chasing you down......grrrr)

[weeksy]

So I sat there this evening and thought "should check the purple bike over"

That turned out to be a terrible idea

I bounced it up and down and it had a shock bushing type bit of play in it.
So I checked all the bolts, all tight.
Checked rear wheel and fitted a spare wheel, still play.
Swapped the shock for the marzocchi bomber, still play.
So I noticed the crank had a bit of play and removed them. Still play.

Swapped the two trunnion mount bearings, still play.
Then checked all chainstay and linkage bearings, still play.

Eventually I narrowed it down to these, pivot bearings.
2023-04-11_08-23-35 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

To get to them you need to remove the idler pulley setup too. Then weird wedges to allow you to get the main weird pivot bolt out. I then wiggled the bearings and 1 was very wobbly on the inner race.
They were 6003 and I had 2 in spares. Phew.

2023-04-11_08-23-16 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr
Went in really easily and I even remembered the inner sleeve. Then was just a question of putting it all back together. With 8 bolts, 14 spacers and then the idler pulley to re set-up it was somewhat a troubling hour or two.

Happily, after it all went back together it's now lovely.

Well, it was until my suspension wizard asked which bearings I used and said "nah you want these.
https://www.wychbearings.co.uk/6003-llb ... aQQAvD_BwE

So early evening next week I'll be doing it all again. Probably. It's only the spare bike, so no real hurry to do that job.

[MingtheMerciless]

Do you open up the bearings and pack them with extra grease before fitting or install as they come ?

[weeksy]

Do you open up the bearings and pack them with extra grease before fitting or install as they come ?

That depends on the bearing in honesty. Some yes, some no. These ones i didn't when installing.

[weeksy]

Fri schedule states track walk Fri 5pm-7pm.

Sat sees practice from 09.00-14.00 and then seeding runs from then onwards

Sunday is 08.45-13.15 practice for all our Cats with racing from 14.00 onwards.

Slightly different setup-schedule than we're used to i guess in terms of a 'seeding' run on the Sat.. but we'll work it all out. It's going to be an interesting one

[weeksy]

Well the weatherman is getting more on our side as the days pass and we started this week seeing rain on both Fri and Sat and drizzle on Sun. Now it's showing as rain on Fri and then completely dry for Sat and Sun... Which would be absolutely EPIC. The lad struggled with the wet last weekend, i'm not sure he'll exactly set the world on fire in the drier conditions, but i'm hoping he'd be a lot happier in the dry at least.
The blue Fury is set-up with tyres he likes in the dry and goes well on.

Just sent Mrs Weeksy out to collect a new camping/picnic table as ours is too small for food, drink, helmets, gloves, so gone a bit bigger.
Other than that, we're good to go and ready to play.

[weeksy]

Even though our goals have changed somewhat at the moment, it's still nice to see him picking up points.

2023-04-13_12-47-56 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

It'll be tough to stay anywhere near the top now as the big races are coming thick and fast.... but i'm still hoping we keep collecting points throughout the year.

[weeksy]

New team kit 2023 TLD
New D4 helmet, gloves etc.

Track is just insane. I can't even begin to work out how they get down it. Bonkers

[weeksy]

Well that was as always, an adventure.



Wet, muddy messy, yup all of those.

Dry sunny skies though.

Practice went well enough, but lots of stoppages so didn't get a single clean run. But then again, no one did. Nightmare.

It's grim in the trenches.


Seeding/qualifying he felt his tyre going soft about half way down, completely flat by the bottom 1/3 and pulled off.
I'm standing there anxiouly watching the clock tick by and I get tapped on the shoulder, it was him

Inspection revealed


So it's new wheel fitted for practice and runs tomorrow.

Beer and Indian now.

[MingtheMerciless]

I'm no expert but I'd say you've fitted the tyre inside out

[weeksy]