You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Well that's the family weekend away booked LOL a nice little cottage in Fort Willam for summer
This is all brilliant fun - it's good to follow it all on here!
Fun for you, Mrs Weeksy is frowning at the £300+ for Fort William, the £300+ for Glencoe and the soon to be discussed van that she's getting slightly less frowny about, or maybe more "just buy the %$%£$%£ van"
Rhyd-Y-Felin 22-23 July NATIONAL CHAMPS
Well the boy has approval from the health and safety committee to get back out racing this weekend.
It's Forest of Dean. Likely on a course we know well.. So a decent little entry back for him. I'm properly curious as to how he goes out there back on the bike, especially as we'll be flying with the new air Boxxers instead of the coil XFusions. But with the Shockwiz installed and a decent bit of feel he's now seemingly developing, we should be golden. Debating where we do Saturdays testing but i fully expect it'll be at Forest of Dean knowing him. He loves it over there, obviously i'm a fan too so it'll be a good little weekend of it. If a little on the chilly side !!!
Well the race was cancelled due to crazy amounts of snow at FoD meaning you couldn't see the track.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52556070641_c400deac40_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52556070641_c400deac40_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2o5cALZ ]2022-12-11_11-19-10[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
So on way home we jumped onto the local woods and went practicing and setting up his forks.
https://youtube.com/shorts/k-WCKPBU29g?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/tbWqNHuyEUY?feature=share
Getting the forks dialed in. Obviously we're using the Shockwiz, but it's as much the boy and me getting the feel for things too. I can get it pretty close, he gets it closer, then the Shockwiz fine tunes it.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52556366569_24b0f07428_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52556366569_24b0f07428_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2o5e7Kc ]2022-12-11_11-18-51[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52556541625_2f199d662c_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52556541625_2f199d662c_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2o5f1Mp ]2022-12-11_11-19-01[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
@weeksy, Just catching up on all the news on here from the last couple of weeks. Great to hear everything that has gone on of late, and look forward to seeing him at a few races next year. You mentioned that you might be concerned about racing the SE events a couple of pages back, do you mean from a technical perspective? If so, then don't worry, if I can ride them anyone else will be fine 🙂 Just ask Katy. I will be doing the South East series and maybe the Minehead one if Scott can talk me into it. That is the only one I have avoided in the past due to the apparent toughness of the course but Scott says it's OK. Are you doing the new Western series Enduro?
What local trails are those? Slanting Hill? Look like fun!
I just find them technically hard mate. But sort of manage.
I've done Minehead and several others.
Western, we're still waiting on Pearce dates before booking anything at all. As much as Privateer want him riding their bike, there's no restriction that he has to race it. So Pearce are still our B races for season and Enduro is C.
I certainly see us doing Enduro though to help with conditioning and fitness for him. But will all depend on date clashes.
Thank you for the post. As much as I write this thread for myself and a bit of "look at my boy" I guess, I also hope it's entertainment for you lot. I'm still massively enjoying our journey, even if at times it can be somewhat complicated. It's always a laugh for us.
Yesterday we were chatting with his team mates Scarlett and laughing about a gap jump from drop line into jump line "don't be daft, no one would do that"
"Hold my 🍺"
When you consider this was the first ride since the massive crash at Rogate it was amazing to see how quickly his confidence and balls came back
Great! Now I am going to have to look at that next time I am there 😂
Now I am going to have to look at that next time I am there
I was quite surprised by how big/long it looks considering it's not a big take-off ramp, plus if you got 12" too far right you're then hitting a bloody big tree 😀 😀
He hit it, looked very relieved... He wasn't impressed with my reply though
"oh, sorry, you'll have to do it again, i missed it and took a photo of you by that tree up there"
So had to go back and do it again 😀 😀
Loving following this thread, but hating what TikTok has done to everyone's videoing habits!
Loving following this thread, but hating what TikTok has done to everyone’s videoing habits!
That's Instagram sorry mate and Youtube. Has to be in portrait... i dislike it as much as you.
Well it seems the boy has settled on the Boxxers being the forks of choice for this season coming, which is good for us as it gives more compatibility with the world in general being a 110x20 standard boost. Add that to the 148x12 rear on this one and it makes the world pretty simple really.
As always, on practice day i was chatting to a few people about various aspects of racing, i like to try and get as much knowledge and perspective as possible.
One of the guys was a parent of Preston Williams, who i must admit, i'd not heard of... but is clearly incredibly quick on a bike.
https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider140144/preston-williams/results/
He was saying the first thing they really really noticed was a massive number of wheels being trashed at bigger races. Which made me think "well, how many wheels do we actually need then". We've currently arguably got 4 sets ready to roll, with 2 bikes and 2 spares for each... but they're not compatible with eachother so it's 2 pairs of 2. But that should really be enough i'd think.
It's a shame that he runs 27.5s in a way as we could've stolen then wheels from the Slayer for 3rd choice hahhaha.
Now we've bought the van though i do need to give some consideration to how we get everything in it and stored for a weekend of racing, i've got all winter of course, but i'm sure that'll fly on by.
It's the little things like tools, footwear, wheels etc i'm thinking about, more so than the bikes themselves as i've got the bikes sorted on stands and they seem to work really well. But things like the wheels i'm thinking a cargo net onto the side panels and sticking them on the side, i think they'd be a bit too big for the doors, but on the sides, maybe above the wheel arch will work pretty well i reckon.
Was also looking at one of these. But not sure it's actually big enough to hold anything of real consequence. e.g a Full face helmet, trainers etc.
Could you just make one that’s a bit deeper and just accept you lose a bit of floor space that side?
Or you could build something against the back of the bulkhead behind all the seats - some kid of cupboard with doors to hold everything in so helmets don’t fall out? Shouldn’t be too hard to knock up out of mdf or osb.
Best thing eldest has in his van 'boot' are good solid hooks, some bungees on the wall and a variety of IKEA or mesh bags. He can hang all sorts - mesh bag if it needs to dry - and even bungee in place to stop it all swinging while driving. He also found a couple of cheap Decathlon drybags worked really well - they are easy to take out/in, easy to shove in a corner and not move.
He also said having 20lt of fresh water was a total win - his is on shelf as he has converted the van.
Yeah sounds about the same sort of lines matey. Just need to work out what style of hooks to go for and whether to bolt into framework of van with a nut on the back-side, or just smaller screw in types into the Ply lining. I'm sure it's the sort of thing that when i start the process will become a lot more apparent.
Or you could build something against the back of the bulkhead behind all the seats – some kid of cupboard with doors to hold everything in so helmets don’t fall out? Shouldn’t be too hard to knock up out of mdf or osb.
I'm sure someone could 😀 😀 But it's deffo not me. I'm a complete incompetent at this sort of stuff. Give me a MTB, a motorbike, even £100,000 of HPe servers and i'm all good... but give me a saw and a piece of wood, it's a car-crash 😀
Give me a MTB, a motorbike, even £100,000 of HPe servers and i’m all good
ahem <cough>backwards tyres</cough> 😉
LOL you do something wrong just once.... they keep beating you with it... mannnnnn 😛
Just need to work out what style of hooks to go for and whether to bolt into framework of van with a nut on the back-side, or just smaller screw in types into the Ply lining
Halfway house - roofing batten direct into van structure on a couple of self tappers. Then just woodscrew into that and the underlying ply.
Not sure which van you brought in the end weeksy but thsi might help so you know where you can and can’t drill. Check chapter 5
Awesome, thanks Robbo.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52562638836_63b29169f0_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52562638836_63b29169f0_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2o5MggJ ]S44860V1278057[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
Bought that... 42,000 on the clocks and really nice. It's the nice spec one with heated seats, air-con, DAB, heated screen etc... No Nav sadly, but that's OK.
Nice van, a few tips if any helps
After quite a few years with Abigale on the race circuit our spare wheels are in Planet X double wheel bags, when they aren't with us on the road they are hung high in the garage.
Spare tyre are rolled and then held with clear parcel tape, found out they take up less room that way
The rear door has a five hook coat rail mounted on a plinth, cheap as chips from eBay, at the top which holds the helmets. Hung from that is a Thule storage bag which takes shoes, gloves and anything else we want to put it the slots. Its as robust as anything else out there.
Tools are in an open tote tool bag. It lifts of the shelf in the garage in into the van. That way we know we haven't forgotten anything. Bleed kits, pedals, lubes, cleaners and chargers are the same but in plastic drawers so can be lifted from the garage and into the van.
All the bikes have bike shrouds over them to protect in transit and pedals removed for ease.
If your van has the inverter fitted, ours is on the left under the handbrake then the Aldi compressor will be a godsend and takes up little room.
The Camper, Custom and Connect all have Cross Climates fitted.
Sounds like we have most aspects covered then. We have all the race tools which are duplicates of the workbench/pegboard tools in a black and yellow toolbox, with bleed kits, fluids, all tools, bearings, headsets, hangers and various spares
Things like pedals, grips, brakes, chains etc are in a red box, another one holds armour. They're the ones i'd ideally like 'shelved' as they're a set size, 2 of them and should fit nicely in/on 'something'.
Wheels are currently not in bags, but hung on hooks in the garage on the wall out of the way. Spare tyres are one of those slightly irritating ones as they can't be folded as they're DH22s which i'm not sure would actually fold even if i sat on them 😀 The sidewalls are more like motorbike tyres lol.
All booked and paid.
Add that to spending nearly £17,000 on a van this week... it's been an expensive one !!!
British National DH Series.
Rheola 15-16 April
Fort William 6-7 May
Llangollen 8-9 July
Rhyd-Y-Felin 22-23 July NATIONAL CHAMPS
Glencoe 19-20 August
Antur Stiniog 23-24 Sept
Jeepers !
Massive thanks to Charlie and Hannah at STW towers. The boy has a load of new kit to wear, probably in spring when it warms a little, but tonight he's been living in the Camo hoodie
Coaching was canned this weekend due to being closed.... We were supposed to be at Cwmcarn with Katy and the team getting coached and having uplift. But along with the rest of parts of UK, this was canned.
The day before we were also booked to race a little one at FoD, but that too was canned as the Ambulance couldn't get up the road if needed to mid-point.
So the boy has been off the bike, which probably isn't a bad thing with his shoulder, whilst he can ride, he's still far from 100% with it and some of his exercises are troubling and difficult. So we're taking it easy, hitting the Zwift bike and doing the best we can not to make things worse.
We need to make some plans for the coming week, but with the new Privateer 141 potentially arriving and a new request in from Katy to jump on a race at Western Bike Events in an Enduro in March, we're hanging off plans of where and when to ride over the festive time as we'd like to dial in the Privateer if it arrives in time, so would be more like a day at Afan and Surrey Hills, rather than a Rogate and a BPW. But we'll see how things play out in the coming next few days and what the Postie does or doesn't bring.
I was also considering a bit of a crazy one and an IXS Downhill Cup race, but both date conflicts and also the "WTF" from Mrs Weeksy seems to have taken that idea firmly away from us/him lol.
He's still not worn anything other than his new Singletrack clothing since it arrived... 😀 😀
If Glecoe is on the Black DH, which I suspect it will be, it's ferocious. I reckon it's got to be one of the hardest track open to the public, if not the hardest. I mean, you can get down after some practice, but race down it? Beyond me
We're thinking of extending the Glencoe trip to longer than the 4 days we've booked up there currently. But don't know if we should add in a few days before (for practice) or a few days after (to holiday).
After all, none of his benefits are race result orientated, but of course we'd like to do as well as we can. Watching the video, there's nothing that scares me in a 'oh, can he ride that' context.... but heck some bits look ROUGH !!!!
Bit i'm not sure we want to knacker him out too much by going crazy for days before... so maybe just head up and do say a little morning there or 2... Dunno...
Thoughts appreciated on that one.
Extra practice at Glencoe would go a long way. Either a relaxed full day or just a morning as you suggest. Day of practice, day off then the event itself maybe?
Extra practice at Glencoe would go a long way. Either a relaxed full day or just a morning as you suggest. Day of practice, day off then the event itself maybe?
Yeah it's making a lot of sense doing it that way isn't it..
Thanks guys... i'll swap things about a bit.
I know, landscape mode! But, well, Instagram lol
https://youtube.com/shorts/vQYTZS4gJjM?feature=share
I was also considering a bit of a crazy one and an IXS Downhill Cup race,
You could always have a dabble on a French DH cup race. Looking at the results and knowing some of the lads in his age group, they're no less competitive.
11-13th August is Chatel, the weekend after it's at Les Menuires.
IT's something to consider for sure. Out of interest @ocrider where would we find out this information?
it all depends on what else we have planned with the team really... But it's not impossible to think if we could get something in Aug summer holidays that we could attend. The results are not important, it's all about the experiences
You can use Roots and Rain and filter out what you want by region. the 2023 isn't fully up but 2002 will give you some idea. We used it for Abigale for Enduro.
https://www.rootsandrain.com/event-list/filters/2022,dh,eu/
@Weeksy the dates have been published. Here's the full list:
13/14 may cdf DH la Grande-Combe (Alès)
23/25 June cdf DH Les Carroz
11/13 August cdf DH Chatel
18/20 August cdf DH Les Menuires
8/10 September cdf DH Valberg
There's also a French enduro cup 26/27 August at Peisey Vallandry that may be to your interest.
For foreign rider registration here's the link to follow, once registration is open. For the time being it's still got the 2022 dates up on the page.
I'll give you a heads up when it comes around to opening rider registration.
Thank you kindly
Thought i'd post this in here rather than the main section, mostly because i don't want to drag someone out who isn't really 'into' this little game we're playing, but hopefully someone reading fancies a day out on say the 27th.
We're thinking Barrys, Risca, Tirp, somewhere like that... something with a bit of tech/complexity.
The lad will likely be on the Ebike so he can session more trails and get more tech in without killing himself in the legs. But it is only a 130mm bike.. so be slightly aware of that... However he can probably ride more than most even on the 130mm. lol.
If anyone fancies guiding we'll provide lunch etc 🙂
Well that was slightly interesting. The boy has been saying "they still feel too soft" in reference to the Boxxers
.
Maybe I'd been too used to standard generic air forks being roughly 1psi per kg. So we started at 55psi, which was silly soft. Eventually moving to 81 and the Shockwiz pretty much agreeing on air pressure. However the lad still felt the front felt softer than he wanted on his last ride.
I was thinking about it earlier and asked myself "I wonder what Rockshox say"
https://trailhead.rockshox.com/en/tuning/FS-BXR-SEL-C2/200/DEBONAIR
For his weight, 96psi as the start point. Hmmm
So we'll be out tomorrow if his legs work after a 'leg' day today, but would be nice to see.
If not, we're at FoD on 27th and Hopton on 30th to play.
Just been catching up on this thread & I'm sorry if I missed it but I think this needs some appreciation,
"Massive thanks to Charlie and Hannah at STW towers. The boy has a load of new kit to wear......"
Well done STW for getting behind the fledgling Team Weeksy, it's this sort of thing that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling & keeps me coming back year on year & paying my subs.
It's been amazing the support we've had from many places and it seems according to Katy, more places to come.
The first of the Privateers is ready and the boy decided last night on his colour scheme as Black is out of stock in P2.
So he's gone for the pale green version.
Once that arrives we've got multiple non-riding videos for the first installments with the Privateer, all will become more apparent when we get the bikes delivered.. but it'll be cool and fun 🙂
There's 10,000 other things Katy is working on with the boy and in the background, everything from nutrition, to training to riding and many many other aspects. I doubt the lad quite grasps how lucky he is in all of this and the chance he's getting, but i do hope so.
One of the minor curveballs in there is some of the Enduro racing, but whilst the lad hasn't quite got the Enduro bug, he'll be putting the time in to get there. One of the surprising things in there relating to that is Katys acceptance of Ebikes for this. The logic being 20 runs of practice is better than 5... Which of course does make sense. So we've got a couple of Xmas break days out planned where he'll be on the Bike and running multiple sessions to my slow manual bike sessions. But with the recent massive outlay to get a Transit Custom for next year, there's simply not budget to get an Eeb for myself... Not happening. But the lad even when he's not that keen on a bike (as with the Liv Eeb) he just rides it hard anyway and seems to have fun.
I'm borrowing a camera from a mate today, just to see if we can get better media pics, he's got a new super GoPro arriving at the weekend for videos too, so we'll be boring the beejaysus out of everyone by the 27th with videos and pics lol, apologies in advance.
Don't forget to add him on Instagram 🙂
there’s simply not budget to get an Eeb for myself…
There's always enough budget for bikes; bike bits; bike stuff; more bikes...
Well, that's what I keep telling Mrs Fazzini...so FTLOG don't anyone tell her the truth 😬😂
Looks like some really exciting times coming up for the lad - great stuff. (oh dad too 😉)
But with the recent massive outlay to get a Transit Custom for next year, there’s simply not budget to get an Eeb for myself… Not happening. But the lad even when he’s not that keen on a bike (as with the Liv Eeb) he just rides it hard anyway and seems to have fun.
Sell the mega heavy liv ,and get a lighter weight ebike, orbea rise type thing.
You both might actually enjoy riding it then
Sell the mega heavy liv ,and get a lighter weight ebike, orbea rise type thing.
Not mine fella... it's the wifes and TBH it's not really worth much. We only paid £2500 for it, so i'd guess it's worth less than £1500 now being 2-3 years old.. But the reality anyway is that we'd really need 2 bikes so we could both benefit from it in that sense. However, i'm OK with manual biking my bits and him Eeebing his bits... it's not the best solution of course, but i'm not seeing any other currently.
It's only about 10% of the time anyway as many of his days at the moment are uplifted, we've got 4 uplift days in Jan for example.
For some reason, my recent videos don't even grace Instagram
"nah, they're rubbish, no-one would watch them" seems to be the answer..
https://youtube.com/shorts/BCeiviRUjr0?si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE
I like this one though myself.
Not the most exciting video for today, it was wet and horrible out there. But he stayed for nearly 5 hours so must've been fun.
Next up is Hopton for testing/practice. He wants more grip so the Assegai has come off and a DH22 thrown on the front of the purple GT Fury.
https://youtube.com/shorts/mW2sxHRPsiY?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/AKZXlS60uWA?feature=share
Yesterday the boy met up with one of his team-mates and they continued with building their friendship and getting to know how eachother ride. Drew is 15 months older than my boy, but shorter and indeed lighter. But also interesting faster... However there's really not much in it so they can both push eachother and on various terrain both out-ride eachother. It was epic to see as they also had another mate of ours there to push them too.
We also noticed Drew had a load of new parts fitted which then means we're able to discuss their final sponsor for 2022 and into 2023 which is DMR. After some discussions with Upgrade Bikes a month or so ago they have a new Marketing Manager who was massively interested at first in getting weeksy08 onboard with DMR, but then moved on to sponsor the whole team with box upon box of components 🙂 lets just say, we've not fitted ours yet, but there's a lot of STW mega-sack bits that are remarkably similar 😀 😀 but it really is brilliant to have DMR as part of their team.
Riding in earnest starts on the 8th, we're currently booked at Bucknell with Pearce Cycles, which funnily is 2 miles from where we spent yesterday lol. But we're having some little debates on that as both his team-mates are at Dyyfi as it's one of their birthday trips. We were all supposed to book Bucknell, but mails got missed and Dyyfi ended up getting some instead. So we're in the discussion of "team-mates or track we'll be racing on"... Mmmmm tricky one.
The boy has been testing the GoPro Hero11 mini he got, so i'll see if i can pull some footage from it and get it up onto YouTube later on today.
More exciting and excellent news for the lad. Grand stuff. Now I know folks were wisely not for stickering the van, but I reckon a 'Dad's Taxi' needs putting in place 😂
And I really was Taxi yesterday! I was also booked on for Hopton, but seeing his mates enthusiasm for riding when we were out the other day, I gave him my place at Hopton. So I was just the logistics yesterday. I was ok with it though as the boy gets more out of riding with his mate than me due to being closer matched in terms of speed and ability.
This morning, I'm on spanners/cleaning lol
For what it’s worth, if it’s at all viable I’d go and meet his teammates. He’s 13 and has all the time in the world to improve race results by learning the tracks he’ll ride on - relationships are much more important in my opinion.
14 now. He has met and ridden with both multiple times now, but I'm inclined to agree.
2022 mega edit
Final frame made me wince... 😳🤢
I've not actually watched it 😃😂
I'll watch in a bit, but I've a reasonable idea what it must be. I was on the other side of the camera 🎥
Edit. Ha ha. That was funny actually. He was complaining about it for hours
For what it’s worth, if it’s at all viable I’d go and meet his teammates. He’s 13 and has all the time in the world to improve race results by learning the tracks he’ll ride on – relationships are much more important in my opinion.
otoh I’d say go where the team boss is asking you to go, it’s what they’ve signed up for
He was complaining about it for hours
Bloody kids these days and their invulnerability. I'm still complaining about it 37 years after I stotted my clems off the stem of my 5 speed racer.
Another vote for going with the team
We've booked Dyfi.
😃
So we're off to Dyfi this weekend. I'm still not convinced he's massively in love with the air Boxxer forks. So i'm probably going to take the XFusions and swap them over at lunch to see if he prefers the coil over the air.
Of course, some of this could be simply from accidents, crashes and an overall lack of grip at the moment due to wet/mud. Sometimes he goes out and i think "Yup, he's back on the pace" and it seems not. Not a lot I can do to support him other than more bike time and more fun.
The Privateer 141 is due in about a weeks time, all the DMR parts for both the DH bike and the Privateer are already here and ready to be installed.
I've just put up the blue DH 'spare' bike for sale as it's getting a bit too small as the boy continues to grow, whilst it's a lovely thing, it doesn't have a lot of point in the world if it can't be used. So it's up for sale now and we'll see what happens from there.
Happily even if we're inbetween bikes and it's sold, the Slayer is compatible with dual crown forks so we could run the Slayer with his spare forks in it if needed for a race weekend.
We've got a fair few little adventures coming up with Bringewood with Pearce, then BPW and finally a race at FoD all before the end of Jan. We'll potentially hit either Afan or Surrey Hills when the 141 arrives to get some bike time in, he's due to race it in early March and obviously we've not even seen it yet. As much as 'he' wants to concentrate on DH Racing, we do have a requirement with Katy and Privateer to do things for them, so he'll have to split his time between both.
Following his mate down 'sharkfin' in our local woods. I say local, it's 3.5 miles away
This is my most common trail to ride over there
Does Tidworth still have the crossover jump on the lower section, or did that get removed?
I've been the "under" guy on that, you do need to duck.
Wet as heck at Dyfi! But he enjoyed it
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnKSXFhuMAg/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=
ooh nice, what cup holder will he be using 🤪
After yesterday that cup may become the 'little bits holder' we had a bit of a bloody farce in the morning actually.
Arrived and it was wet...wet and yukky... Got everything ready, kitted up, bikes sorted and set off to the uplift "ping"... he'd snapped his chain. Which really really irritated me as we only fitted it new on Friday lol. We used a Shimano pin type, which i've used plenty before in the past, but usually we go for a quick link, but as it came with a pin, i fitted it and yup, it snapped on the pin.
Still raining, i took his bike back to the van and sent him out on the Slayer.
I then found the chain splitter/tool, the quick link and started splitting the chain correctly to fit the quick-link.... In the meantime i'd once again lost the quick-link...
So i grabbed the spare KMC chain instead and fitted that, it was brand new... I then realised it was about 4 links too long so wouldn't work... So went to split it again to shorted, but i'd thrown the chain tool at the tool box in frustration earlier and i'd now not only lost the quick-link, but lost the sodding chain tool too ! All in a SWB Transit !!! really !!
So i grabbed the spare race bike and went up to meet him, sent him out on that... (which has now brought a whole new world of potential complexity as it's not terribly keen on the Blue bike any more lol).... That worked fine and once the rain stopped (for a bit anyway) it gave me a chance to find the chain quick-link and the chain tool and repair his purple bike. Both bikes were then thrashed by him and his mate who fancied trying the DH bike, for the rest of the day. But i do REALLY need to work on a better plan when working on the bike...
It also dawned on me as to why my usual plan wasn't in place and it was because we'd not taken the gazebo. Normally i'm under the gazebo, working on a fold up table, with the bits in the right place etc.. I didn't even think about the gazebo for yesterday... but i reallly should have done.
It didn't spoil the day for him, but it did for me as i missed a couple of runs.
DMR parts to fit
Ooh!! New stickers 😉
Yeah but they can't go on the DH bike, however we'll find a space on the Privateer for them.
He got some clothing too, but it's actually a struggle to get him out of his STW camo hoodie these days.
Next weekend we've got off from plans, so not sure if we'll head out anywhere as at times the driving gets a bit much.
21/22 is Pearce and bpw, then 100% race on the 29th with teammates.
https://youtube.com/shorts/StYTrBblpLc?si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE
https://youtube.com/shorts/C7iKJbWIyj0?si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE
But i do REALLY need to work on a better plan when working on the bike…
Proper sorted toolbox and spares box. Everything should have its place!
https://www.instagram.com/toolboxwars/?hl=en
My effort:
Underneath the top pallet tends to change depending on where I'm going and what bike I'm taking. Spare mech lives in my kit bag. This was when I was spring faffing with the KSL.
Very nice mate 🙂 Lovely bit of work.
The tool stuff has taken a bit of a side-swipe by the van getting sorted, which as you may have seen in the other thread, i'm still working on 🙂
I have started a very vague process on the tools though of getting a 2nd tool box which has an organiser shelf and a compartment. It's the same as the one i have already, but that one is getting a bit full, so i'll get things better with a 2nd box for now.
I have to admit i do love this GT Fury. Everything is just built 'right' , nice easy bearing covers, big meaty bearings, everything just nicely put together.
I'm even tempted if i can't sell his blue DH bike that i'll buy a used later frame like the purple one and swap most of the bits over from the blue frame onto it
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52621127300_305c8c8c95_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52621127300_305c8c8c95_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2oaX2Rw ]2023-01-11_11-17-18[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
As always i got a little carried away yesterday and have thrown a minor curve ball at the lad 😀
I've re-fitted the XFusion front end. As i've said he's still not fully on his game at the moment and there's only 2 things that have changed.
1. Crash
2. Forks
So i've taken it upon myself to swap back and remove the forks from the discussion for this weekend, all we have planned for this weekend is messing about riding, so a good chance to just get out and do some testing out there. Bit of fun, messing about and seeing how things feel. We could even take the Boxxers along too and swap between sessions to see how it feels from one to the other.
I wonder if the preference for the boxers is a "fear" of the xfusion after they were the ones he crashed on and broke ?
Nah, deffo not that (he says.... )... I honestly don't know if he prefers the Boxxers... We fitted them while the XFusion were getting repaired. The plan was in theory to give them a test then swap back and decide... but we never swapped back.
But the boy is struggling in his head with 'feeling stiff on the bike' however from what i see it's not affecting his speed, although he thinks it is. He's running with his mates/teammate OK and gapping him in the bits you'd expect and losing in the bits he struggles usually with. So it seems to me the 'stiffness' is in his head more than his speed.
So really i'm just trying to see if i can get back that little bit of confidence and self-belief for him the easiest way possible. He always loved the XFusion setup, but we felt the Boxxers have more adjustability and settings, so with his feel and the Shockwiz we thought we could be OK on them... but maybe not.
Worst case scenario, he tries the XFusion and says "Can we fit the Boxxers" and he simply has to find his confidence in his brain again. As with all of this, i don't always know the answer, i just try little things to make it better. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We're still trying to keep things fun and happy without too much in the way of pressure, but it gets tough at times as we're heading to some pretty techy places this year and i'd really like his brain in the happy place. Sometimes it's just time on the bike for that, but the sodding weather and drenched trails don't help there !
We'll that was interesting. He felt at home quickly on the Coil XFusions and said "feels more poppy".
He did say on one it was all over the place but that's part of playing on muddy winter trails I guess
Tomorrow has now changed to a coaching day for him at FoD which has changed my plans a bit too and I'm taking my injured mate on a very gentle ride over for cake and coffee while the lad gets coached. But that'll be nice as we've not ridden together for months.
Hopefully the lads will grab some footage tomorrow