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You'd be right. He gets lots of progress updates
Post school session up at Ponty last night, got 10 laps in and trying to get the boy flying again... He seemed happy apart from 1 root which took him out, but nothing hurt, apart from breaking the bike
Luckily i had 1 (or 2) in spares so was just a 5 minute job to swap the hardware over and get him straight back out for a few more laps.
Tonight will be a bit of gear indexing, a quick brake bleed, pad check etc, then fitting a new Krypto for his race/seeding wheel and then we'll be ready for the weekend i think.
Couple of awesome packages today and yesterday from the sponsors, but sadly i've been told off for posting sponsor stuff, so you'll have to be kept in the dark on that 😀 😀 😀
How did team Weeksy get on?
Apologies, as always the weekend is busy.... not always busy, but mostly busy.
We rocked up at 8am on Sat after Greggs on the way to get us going, it was straight out into practice pretty much. First time there for him/us and he was obviously a little cautious on the way down for run 1 but he came down happy which was to continue throughout the day. He seemed to be riding well and his practice times were decent, the bike was running nicely and the boy came down with "best track of the year, it's awesome"
This obviously is something we've not really seen for a fair while now but it was very much welcome to see and hear.
He's a funny creature at times and he was riding in his Freeride type jersey which apparently made him feel a bit more 'freeride' lol.. So he asked if it was OK to seed in that jersey, which of course it is so he did.
As always the level at Nationals is insanely high, there's 5 of the lads there who are current/recent World Cup racers, so there's no free passes. Anyone who's not at WCs aspires to be of course.
Seeding run was clean and nice, the time was a 2min 47 which put him in at P16 in the end. He's finished twice in P16 at Nationals so i guess that's about right. But in truth, 2-3 weeks ago on the bigger Session i don't think he'd have put it in 16th. But we ended the day happy with that, feeling he's got a little bit of speed and form back. It was then onto the Premier inn via a brewery/smokehouse and we were stuffed full of food. We very very rarely do the hotel thing but in truth after 20+ weekends in a tent, i kinda needed it... Especially with the monsoonal rain that came overnight.
Sunday brought bule skies, but with a big hill it took a little time for the sun to come over and start drying it, so the bikes were coming down muddy and some were changing to more mud-based rubber.
I'd fitted a brand new pair of Kryptotals before the race and he was loving it, so i left him on them.
Race was late in the afternoon and thanks to some muppets taking advantage of things on their Ebikes i wasn't allowed to Ebike up pre-race to give him a coat/handwarmers etc as some of us had on Sat. (i also do the jacket thing for other riders, not just mine).
Before he went out i was fixing my 3rd set of brakes for the weekend, but happily none were ours... but i like helping and had nothing to do for the time, so a bit of lunch and some brake bleeding done.
Race runs started, the track had dried plenty but as always you've then got to take advantage of that. Due to the Juniors going out late it's nearly 4 hours from your last practice until race runs so the tracks can change a lot with 250 riders and drying tracks.
A lad we know Billy had crashed in seeding and came down to set a blistering time about half way through the bunch, the Harry who's fast followed him a few riders later with a fast time.
The boy came down in P3 at the time but with 15 riders to go he could still be P18... but his time was 5s quicker than yesterdays seeding so we were more than happy... He'd put on a great time.
As riders came down he fell down the list into P10 which is where he finished. P10 is his 2nd best Nationals performance so in truth we're ecstatic with that result... Awesome job.
He ended up P8 in the 'overall' championship which was way above where he'd thought for 2025 but at times depending on who won today and top 10 riders, he could have ended up P5.... or actually P11 lol. So we'll take P8
But the great news for us is that he's enjoying riding, enjoying the bike and just really happy with everything at the moment. We'll take that all day 🙂
Great stuff.
nice end to the series!
Great result well done. I'll bet your proud of him and rightly so 🥳
Seeing some of the other riders makes me just a little more proud of him at times, we see their reactions to things not going well and them not performing well and i've just not seen that in mine, put it this way, if mine spoke to me like some of them do to their parents we'd never be going to another race.
He's had that mid-season slump and just dealt with it, moved on each time and put the time and effort in on the bike/gym/etc to make sure he'd find the answer. Now it looks like the answer was more the actual frame size than him, but he didn't know that and dealt with it really well.
So to put in a top10 at Nationals kinda topped it all off and made it all worthwhile. It's funny how much you can deal with when just a couple of results make all the difference and you just think "yeah, this is it.."
Obviously as always there's a tonne of work to do, we saw a mate Seb who's been away racing WCs this year and in seeding he put 6s into everyone... (had issues in race and was top6). So that's the level you have to reach/find... doing it is of course really really hard.
Awesome work Team Weeksy!
Now that nationals are done what's the plans for the rest of the year?
Regarding bike sizes how does the new Atherton size up against the current preferred size Session?
Awesome work Team Weeksy!
Now that nationals are done what's the plans for the rest of the year?
Regarding bike sizes how does the new Atherton size up against the current preferred size Session?
We've got Pearce this weekend and then it gets very quiet from a racing perspective, we may do a 100% at FoD but there's little else about. There's MIJ and Stile Cop but the tracks are not long enough for being much use for him. So it'll likely be Ponty/Dyfi and FoD most weekends.
The Atherton is 5mm longer reach than the Session, so right in the same ball park. We had cool chats this weekend with various people from one of the owners of Atherton, to the girl who sends us the pics of the continuing build going on... So was great.
I think we all need a few weeks/weekends off sleeping in tents/vans so there'll be the odd hotel over winter if cheap enough, but mostly it'll be a there/back in 1 day. He'll be doing some weekend coaching too with Katy/Sam now he's qualified so that'll keep him busy as he needs to clock up 100 hours of coaching to be able to get his next qualification.
We're not heading to Lake Placid for WCs and it seems pretty unlikely now that we're going to MSA, which makes all of us a little sad, but deffo makes my wallet happy which has taken a massive hammering this year. But WCs was a dream rather than a realistic goal, it just seemed within touching distance for a little while.
Well that's pretty good, i've sold the big frame for about a £20 loss on the deal... I'm more than happy with that. That can go back into the race funds for next year and we can sit patiently and wait for the Atherton to arrive now.
This weekends race is potentially going to be postponed due to high winds, as we know, high winds and trees don't really mix, so no arguments from me there.
We've got some new pedals arriving today for him so that's excellent, looking forward to trying them out 🙂
Gloves!
Gloves!
Not unless forced by the organiser. More and more and dropping the gloves to improve 'feel'
I don't necessarily agree.. but there's only so many things you can enforce. He NEVER rides without a helmet, even testing a bike for 20m and always wears armour and knees... but the gloves.. Mmmmm
More and more and dropping the gloves to improve 'feel' fashion.
FTFY 😉
Kids eh! 🙄
He's honestly convinced he rides slower in gloves than he does without them. Which i find weird as they gloves he has are honestly the most comfortable pair i've worn, i've bought several pairs myself as he gets them for free. He wears them in the cold, when he has to in races... but other than that, he does prefer without.
The no gloves thing comes in and out of fashion every so often. I think it was the likes of Blenki that started it. They’ll all be back in gloves in 12-18 months or so.
I think it was the likes of Blenki that started it.
A lot of kiwis don't wear gloves. A young NZ EDR racer in Canazei was telling me he'd just had to buy his first gloves in Italy because he was warned he might not be allowed to race without them. I think I heard Charles Murray saying he carries them just in case, but normally gets away without it.
Protection aside, it wouldn't work well for me - my hands are normally soaked with sweat and the ground is often wet so I can't dust them.
I think it was the likes of Blenki that started it.A lot of kiwis don't wear gloves. A young NZ EDR racer in Canazei was telling me he'd just had to buy his first gloves in Italy because he was warned he might not be allowed to race without them. I think I heard Charles Murray saying he carries them just in case, but normally gets away without it.
Protection aside, it wouldn't work well for me - my hands are normally soaked with sweat and the ground is often wet so I can't dust them.
The boy has his tucked in his front of his trousers every run. He was stopped at La Molina in the Euros so had to run them..
Well that escalated, maybe this should go in the BYP thread.
We drove 2.5 hours to Shropshire and got 15 mins away from the track.
*ring ring* "race cancelled...
FFS, 2.5 hours back home.... Not their fault... but i wish i'd known 2.5 hours earlier.
Awesome day at FoD today with the boy. Started with him and a racing mate chasing me round the extended Red. I think it was the fastest I’ve ever ridden it and some of his corner technique coaching is paying off, a bit. You can only teach an old dog so much
he was testing his new pedals and grips out. Pedals were superb, grips may be a bit too fat diameter for him, more testing needed
he then did some fast DH laps, again testing pedals. We’re trying a few different things over winter this year, I’ve got the DT Swiss def def hub getting built this week and a test on an e13 sidekick hub is due soon
he wants try try out things like different bar widths as well before getting the new Atherton frame
Have you tried the Ochain?
My feeling is the DT is going to be noisy and hammer itself to bits, as there is no damping/bump stop.
Ochain is incompatible with our cranks as we're running the older (22-23 ) Saints. They're not compatible with either the O-chain or Rimpact.
We have the option for a demo day at E13 with Pearce the week after next which we're likely to do.
From what i've been reading, the theory is that the wheel versions will be better at doing the job than the crank versions, but i have to admit this is way outside of my knowledge.
From chatting to my mechanic, he tells me that if the DT SWiss DEG/DF breaks it will break in a disengaged context, so if it breaks half way through a race run he'll just end up chainless essentially... Which is pretty OK for us. He also thinks the Ochain is pretty intensive in terms of upkeep and maint stuff, which the DT Swiss hub shouldn't be.
I'm pretty curious at to it all and whether he even notices anything on his Session and then on the Atherton as it may mean we end up with multiple hubs.
Final race (again) for 25 so a strip down in lunch today and check/clean/grease of all the pivot bearings, re-aligning the calipers, checking wheel bearings, cleaning chain and checking pads... I think we're all good to roll. 🙂
He also thinks the Ochain is pretty intensive in terms of upkeep and maint stuff, which the DT Swiss hub shouldn't be.
Week in the Alps, serviced before I went, 15,000ft a day for 6 days. Pulled it apart last week and its fine. Wasn't mega wet, but pressure washing bike everyday, couple of days it was a few times to keep the mud down.
Servicing is 30mins thereabouts, best done in a washing up bowl to contain any of the springs/balls. I keep spares in the eventuality of something running away. Never had any issues with the ochain.
Conversely, I don't think they will work as well as an Ochain, there doesn't appear to be anything to hold the ratchet back, so its using drag to fix it in the held back position. No one has stuck a set of power meter pedals or crankarms on to put numbers to anything
Meh, front wheel/bearing had a tiny bit of play. I was just dropping the front end off the stand and thought "meh, that's not right".
Threw in the spare wheel and there's no play, so it was obviously the front bearings. Luckily they're a 10 minute job on there and i've got a few in spares, 20307LLB. So that's done and while i was there i swapped the front tyre on the spare wheel from an Argotal to a Kryptotal.
Just need to do a spoke/tension check tomorrow and i think we're all good for weekend.
Well that's a minor one to ponder. Both the E-13 and the DT Swiss are coming in at £500 roughly built to a hub with new spokes and our own rim (brand new Reserve).
The Ochain and the Rimpact come in a chunk less than that, even with buying some SRAM cranks, especially as i can sell our Saints (new and used set)
So it all needs a little bit of winter thinking, especially as he already went fast on the Atherton without it. Not sure, not sure at all.
Pretty sure newer cranks would cost less?
Yeah that's what me and LBS are now looking into, both Truvativ Decendant and Hope options. You can get the SRAM X0 carbons for £150, but having snapped a set of those and a mate snapping his just last week, i'm wary of them.
Obviously you've got £250 on top of the crank prices to get the Ochain/Rimpact of course... but nothing in this game is cheap.
I'm getting more and more tempted to do the E-13 day next weekend, but not sure how much it'll tell us on the Session rather than the Atherton anyway.
The good news is, he already went fast as heck on the Atherton even without any of these options, so it's not exactly likely to be life changing.
For me, one of the biggest goals of the Ochain/Rimpact is to make the bike quiet, as quiet bike = fast bike. Having the drivetrain/hub clattering about is a distraction.
I'm not sure the lad cares in truth about that... but admittedly we've not tried a bike with one yet. We have the option over winter of stealing a mates Hope/O-chain setup for the weekend to do some testing.
I had an interesting chat with a paddock-dad-mate last night as his boy runs the Atherton as part of the Dev team. Interestingly his teammate Charlie was FTD at Revs and is in Youth, beating even the full Elites.... Wowsers... So i was asking about what damping system they're running and the answer is, nothing. They're just running the stock MRP chainguide but nothing else.
So maybe the answer is, don't worry about it and just ride more over winter 😀 😀 which is already the plan of course, getting as much time on the bikes as possible.
Your final comment is the most sensible
Ochain is just a placebo - at the end of the day it's weight in the right place and doesn't really cost anything but money and maintenance and, if you're a believer or have a mechanic for that stuff you might as well run one. It's just FOMO. There's no downsides unless you're on a Shimano programme and now can't . . .
You can get just a quiet a bike with a £25 bit of stick on rubber (VHS).
Your final comment is the most sensible
Yes but that's of course a given. There'll be a tonne of riding over winter as always with a smattering of coaching (both giving coaching and getting coaching) as well as days and weekends away. The only downside of all of this of course is that it'll all be on the Session rather than the new bike until it arrives. But he'll (and me and the van) be sticking in a bucket load of riding time and getting out on the tech to hit harder and faster 🙂
None of the 'thoughts' affect that massively in terms of what he can or can't do for winter training
Ochain is just a placebo - at the end of the day it's weight in the right place and doesn't really cost anything but money and maintenance and, if you're a believer or have a mechanic for that stuff you might as well run one. It's just FOMO. There's no downsides unless you're on a Shimano programme and now can't . . .
You can get just a quiet a bike with a £25 bit of stick on rubber (VHS).
Have you run one and back to back tested running with and without?
Have you run one and back to back tested running with and without?
No I haven't - even if I were a believer, my current bike doesn't have enough upper chain travel to warrant even trying. ie - Chain is virtually lying on the VHS on top of the chainstay when in upper gears so there's nowhere for it to "flap about".
Having said that I've not seen any proper blind tests done on it or seen any slowmo vids where anyone can show the effects suggested is real rather than imaginary. Add to that, that the thing was designed to eliminate pedal kickback which simply doesn't exist when freewheeling and having realised this they've pivoted to a "chain feedback" model and my scepticism is off the charts.
Even the SRAM infomercial on Youtube doesn't manage to show the damn thing doing anything.
They'll go the way of Neck braces eventually.
Anyway enough asides - this is about Weeksy Jr. When's the AM200 arriving?
Have you run one and back to back tested running with and without?
Anyway enough asides - this is about Weeksy Jr. When's the AM200 arriving?
Don't worry about that at all fella, it's bike talk and you/we/anyone can talk anything about bikes in any of my topics, no issues at all with that.
Sadly the answer to that is AGES lol. I think it's scheduled for the first week of Feb. But we're likely to hold off until the first week of March due to wanting to use a C2W but i can't do that until the other expires. Despite the fact i could pay the bike off tomorrow that's currently on C2W they don't allow that... So i have to wait.
But there's still a tonne of stuff going on to keep us busy. I'm trying to source a new set of Boxxer 35 Ultimates (with a 165mm+ steerer) which will go in either the Atherton or the Session as a spare/me bike.
He's got loads of background sponsor stuff going on (but sadly i get shouted at on here for discussing the sponsor stuff) with some bits being slightly exciting and some bits being REALLY exciting.
We've been discussing a week at Ride Southern Spain but due to his mate being injured that's being put-off until Feb and he's doing coaching sessions shadowing the boss.
Be a great commuter that Atherton 😂
Beautiful bikes - would love one but would never do it justice
Be a great commuter that Atherton 😂
Beautiful bikes - would love one but would never do it justice
Be a great commuter that Atherton 😂
Beautiful bikes - would love one but would never do it justice
I'd absolutely LOVE an S150 or S170 but i honestly would feel like a massive fraud on it. I'm just simply not good enough to do it any justice at all. Hence why i don't own one.
Pearce this weekend and as always a stacked field with some WC Juniors as well as 3-4 'wannabe' WC Juniors...so going to be a tough weekend to see anywhere near the pointy side of things. But he'll do his best. We're going to play about a little with wheels this weekend, partly because i think the track would suit a 27.5 rear and partly because the Atherton is mullet only so he may as well start getting used to the Mullet idea again. We've got Kryptos on both, so there's no tyre type changes in terms of compound/etc.
IT's going to be a chilly one !
He Tried one of the lads Atherton A200 today.
Loved the bike but hated the Rimpact damper. We all had a play in field and no one greatly liked it.
He said it was properly light and fast on track
The Pearce series as always was organised to perfection, they run so so well.
We set up in the paddock with our paddock mates, all are different and all are brilliant in their own way, everyone brings something to the paddock that completes the group in some way.
Beers, banter and XC Racing on the laptop was the order for Friday night.
Sat brought practice and loads of laps, by 11am he'd done 6 laps, but still had hours to play, a bit of lunch and then more riding and he was pretty happy. At times he wasn't feeling the track in a way, but he was getting down decently.
We watched the World Cup DH in the evening with a little bit of frustration at not being there, but it was epic banter with the crew and he was having a superb time with all his mates again.
The bike was awesome again, unlike some of his mates. I had 2 rear wheels over at the gazebo on Sat morning with "this doesn't seem right" and they were correct, using the park tool gauge on the spokes i had at least 15 spokes per where that regsitered <5. We usually run somewhere between 15-20 so they were honestly a joke. Many didn't even register a reading. Afterwards we were a lot closer and the boys both survived.
Sunday was SOOOO chilly, but we'd learned a lesson about hot-water-bottles overnight for sure, which made things a lot nicer 😀
Practice went smoothly with 5 runs and he was feeling decent. I sent him off for run 1 and he was coming down fairly late on in the Cat due to his overall Championship position, but we as always had insane competition. I know i often say this, but again it was stacked with 7 who've had National Podiums and 4 who've represented GB at World Cups.
One of the MB Cyclery from Surrey Hills who we know is silly quick and races EWS came in early with a stonking time, we thought Nathan Diwell-Wilson or Tom Hawkins who both are WC racers would beat him but they never.. I was watching the split times and the boy was 0.8s off on split 1 and 1.7s on split 2, right in the mix and happy..
As you're watching you learn that when people come into the field/finish and their times they'll need to be at... The boy needed to hit the last ramp at 1.49-1.50 to be in with a chance of a decent result..
He came into the section at 1.55 !!! ARRGGHHHHH. He'd had a small off in sector 3 and this put him into P16 at the end of the running... Not what we wanted as Top 5-6 was arguably where he thought he'd be, as did i.
He took it really well, dusted himself off and got sorted in his brain over food and laughs. I was whipping his forks out as they were slightly twisted in the yokes, but that's easily sorted and a quick wash and we're happy.
Run 2 he went up really early to compose himself and work on his warm up..One of the other competitors dads commented that he loves how the boy does a full warm up while some of the lads are looking at him thinking "WTF is he doing" but even though he knows it and sees it, he still does it, week in week out..
THe times were tumbling and rider after rider going quicker... but not many were going that high, but 1 did who crashed on run 1, he went P2. Nice job kid.
I didn't want to see the splits but i saw the boy drop into the field at a 1.49 which put him in the mix and he came in with a 1.57.3
That's more like it and put him into P5... but with a chunk of riders who could go faster that was liklely to change.
However it never and he kept it in P5 to the end.
https://www.rootsandrain.com/event14065/2025-oct-12-pearce-cycles-4-redwood-park/results/#h-17-18m
I was 1.3s off the WC boys which was awesome and beat a couple of other WC lads... So very happy with it. His main competition George and James both finished behind him so yeah he's a happy boy.
Sadly due to the injury at Bringewood he missed both races so couldn't get that back for the overall, but we're more than happy with his form and performance.
https://youtube.com/shorts/bI2VYGjI6dk?si=eU5QISQ_hun7qVCF
Awesome work - good end to the season.
We were gutted as there were spaces available but Daughter was off doing her Silver D of E practice so couldn't make it.
Awesome work - good end to the season.
We were gutted as there were spaces available but Daughter was off doing her Silver D of E practice so couldn't make it.
Ah man, that's a shame, it would arguably be the best introduction into Pearce really. We'll likely do the 100% and i'll be over this weekend watching a bit at the MIJ as we're at the forest anyway and i'm out pedalling.
I guess that brings an end to 2025 racing really and an end to the season. There were massive highs and a couple of lows, but overall the highs easily outweighed the lows.
His season long goal was top 15 in Nationals and he managed of course a P2 at Fort William along with other top 10s. Eventually finishing P8 in the National Series overall. It's hard to be unhappy with that in reality, it was an amazing feeling to get the P2 and i shed some tears at it.
The lows, missing out on the Pearce overall was a bit of a low, along with the reasons of why, in simple terms he lost form when we stuck him on the longer R3 size Session and we didn't quite get the why until too late. Since he went back to the R2 white bike he got a 7th, 10th (at National) and a 5th... But it has transformed how he's riding again as he's got pace, fun and laughs back. He's now playing with the bike again out there and joking about with his paddock mates.
We've fallen into a cracking group of lads this year, both for me and for him. We all work really well as a group and he's riding and chasing the lads (and girl) But he's also bonding in the paddock with them as well.
The Malverns was just an amazing adventure for us/him, not only bringing him a National Champions jersey but also a lot of laughs and fun with the DMR crew, which has now snowballed into a few other things coming from that.
The European Champs, well that was mid-wrong-frame time and was a bit of a damp squib for us in some ways with him not really getting his riding going and struggling to put down some decent laps... Oh how i wish we'd known before then ... oh how much... Not that he'd have jumped into P1 of course, but a more respectable finish would have been nice.
He's a qualified British Cycling coach now and doing his first proper day as a coach shortly, this is massively going to build his future for sure.
I guess the elephant in the room is World Cups. As you may have seen earlier he was chosen for a Reserve Rider for World Cups and we really thought we had a shot at getting a chance, despite the knowledge we'd be unlikely to qualify. However circumstances conspired against him and sadly it didn't happen this year. But we'll keep pushing, riding and trying for 2026 and beyond.
His enthusiasm is still 100% and his training and effort is suerb, he's living the dream at the moment. There's still the fact that we only have a certain amount of time and money we can throw at this of course, i'd love to send him to New Zealand for winter to train at Rotorua or somewhere but that's not plausible. So we can only do what we can do.
The gaps to the front riders at Nationals now are acceptable, he's right on the heels of the faster lads and knows what it's going to take to get to them.... But of course that's easier said than done.
So what's 2026 bringing... Well, pretty much the same as 2025 but hopefully MORE of it lol. There's a possibility of some time in Spain for him and also Portugal, along with some other little gems that may come up. We don't think we'll be hitting the European Champs this year as it's in Bulgaria which removes the road-trip of it really, but it's not impossible we'll fly over... i dunno though yet.
He's got the Atherton arriving along with a couple of new sponsors who are helping him out, to be honest we would't be where we are with all this if we'd not had their help in the last 3 years, they've made it all possible. 2 of them are from here, but STW frown upon the sponsor stuff so i won't say anything more here 🙂
bring on the fun... we keep pushing and trying.
As always, winter brings changes, discussions and craziness. Obviously the first major one being the swapping of the bike to the Atherton A200 which is being built.
But there's also the background stuff going on, some of that at times seems to be a job in itself. There's lots of if, buts, maybes, but sometimes things work out nicely. Part of it i can't get into yet, but part of it i just wanted to say a MASSIVE thank you on here, hopefully it won't get the wrath of the Mods as we're no longer with the sponsor, but so be it.
Anyway 2 years ago through our LBS Rotec Bike we got a message that Oxford Products and Mint wanted to help the boy out and have given him a tonne of help in the last few years, lots and lots, going over and above and even when things didn't quite work out they were more than happpy to help us out as much as they. I've been massively impressed with their bike wash, it's seemed less abrasive than others and doesn't affect anodising as i've seen some do so. But the guys at Oxford are posters on here, although they've never mentioned it as far as i know. But yeah i just wanted to thank them publically on here.
There's other things coming in the future and other sponsors helping the boy out.. It's amazing what they do for him.
Well despite my frustrations of not finding a house as easily as i want in FoD, we do have a few bits of good news. The boy has fallen into his role as MTB coach really well and is spending lots of hours at the moment learning his trade. Even though he's qualified to teach, being a teacher is more than just having done a course, so he's learning from his mentors and picking up skills, tips, tricks and observations. At the moment due to his age he can't be unleashed solo on the public anyway until he turns 18. So his learning is with another coach, which suits as he needs to build up 100 hours coaching to get his next qualification anyway.
With regards to other winter plans, he/we have had a couple of weekends of lack of pressure, just riding, playing and enjoying really. Bit of a post-season break from it all. He's been riding plenty and hitting the tech as well as the coaching, but not racing, we've skipped a race at FoD and are not bothering with the 100% race in 2 weeks time (first one we've missed in 3 years), so we'll be up at Dyfi and Llangollen as well as a bit of Afan, Cwmcarn, Barrys etc etc... Just honing the skills and getting the fitness..
With regards to other stuff, he's now been given Rider Team Athelete stuff from DMR, which was always part of Katys setup but he's now a DMR rider within his own right, along with that brings a load of opportunites, sponsors, parts and 'stuff' that is currently on order. But it's also the people he'll ride with more next year and the places he'll be hitting. It's all different little aspects of making him into an all round rider and increasing his rider profile I guess.
That's awesome news on the coaching and team front!
That's awesome news on the coaching and team front!
Thank you... it's all part of the endless adventure we seem to be finding ourselves in. We've put in an order with DMR/Upgrade bikes for a tonne of stuff for his bikes, which we're now waiting for, but we may need a bigger van for it all 😀 😀
In some ways though i'm more excited about the coaching as that's something that he can actually make a bit of a living doing.. How much of one remains to be seen of course, but it'll put food in his belly at the least. It's also opening up options for plans for winter next year which involves New Zealand for the winter and either Rotorua or Queenstown for some fun and games...
In some ways though i'm more excited about the coaching as that's something that he can actually make a bit of a living doing..
Lets hope British Cycling get their act together next year for the Gravity Coaching courses - they only ran 1 this year.......
In some ways though i'm more excited about the coaching as that's something that he can actually make a bit of a living doing..
Lets hope British Cycling get their act together next year for the Gravity Coaching courses - they only ran 1 this year.......
That is a somewhat bizarre thing i absolutely agree mate. I didn't even know they had a gravity one, i thought it was classed as XC.... but i must admit i've not looked fully in depth yet as he's not 18 until middle of next year and therefore can't do any more courses yet.
Yeah they've split MTB in to XC and Gravity - but have been woefully behind on the Gravity courses....
You need to be careful with which course, the remits are very similar, but obviously focus on the chosen discipline - the XC covers racing, pit stops and other stuff - but the trail/technical area remit doesn't cover bike parks/DH etc. So you need to be careful due to insurance etc.
I've been waiting over 18 months to book on.
Yeah they've split MTB in to XC and Gravity - but have been woefully behind on the Gravity courses....
You need to be careful with which course, the remits are very similar, but obviously focus on the chosen discipline - the XC covers racing, pit stops and other stuff - but the trail/technical area remit doesn't cover bike parks/DH etc. So you need to be careful due to insurance etc.
I've been waiting over 18 months to book on.
If you could keep me posted when you see anything that would be massively appreciated please.