The journey from small guy to teenager...

[weeksy]

Well done to all the Weeksy's on a cracking year, enjoyed following his progress.

I guess as he's going up a class/ age group that the next couple of years should see big improvements as he gets physically stronger? Always with these things though everyone else does the same and the competition gets much much harder. Hopefully he'll keep at it, many don't and fall away.

Looking forward to hearing about 2025.

Yeah that's the theory, last race he was behind Billy Pugh (who you know of course) who races Worlds and was 2.6s off his pace.. So he's not quite out in the wilderness but not quite chasing him down either. Close enough though that it's not impossible maybe? Year 1 of the 2 years is always the tough one for all the youngsters, so that'll be mostly finding his place in the world and building up speed and yes deffo strength etc. He's certainly not showing any outward signs of dropping off in enthusiasm for the moment anyway.
Plans are very much running ahead for 25, but as always at this time of year, i can't give any details lol.

[weeksy]

Well that's somewhat interesting there... 2 trips for Fort William and we've never been to Cwmcarn, Llangollen or Revs....

IXS DH Cup
23-25 May Willingen (Ger)
30-1 May/Apr Winterberg (Ger)
(30km apart & Half Term)
4-6 July Spicak (Cze)
1-3 Aug Lienz (Aut)
15-17 Aug Ilmenau (Ger)
29-31 Aug Bad Tabaraz (Ger)
3-5 Oct Bellwald (Swi)

UK Downhill
Round 1: 12-13 April – Cwmcarn
Round 2 (UCI C1): 10-11 May – Fort William
Round 3: 14-15 June – Rhyd-y-Felin
National Championships: 19-20 July – Fort William
Round 4: 16-17 August – Llangollen
Round 5: 27-28 September – Revolution Bike Park

[Count Steer]

Well that's somewhat interesting there... 2 trips for Fort William and we've never been to Cwmcarn, Llangollen or Revs....

IXS DH Cup
23-25 May Willingen (Ger)
30-1 May/Apr Winterberg (Ger)
(30km apart & Half Term)
4-6 July Spicak (Cze)
1-3 Aug Lienz (Aut)
15-17 Aug Ilmenau (Ger)
29-31 Aug Bad Tabaraz (Ger)
3-5 Oct Bellwald (Swi)

UK Downhill
Round 1: 12-13 April – Cwmcarn
Round 2 (UCI C1): 10-11 May – Fort William
Round 3: 14-15 June – Rhyd-y-Felin
National Championships: 19-20 July – Fort William
Round 4: 16-17 August – Llangollen
Round 5: 27-28 September – Revolution Bike Park

Never mind Cwcarn, Fort William and Revs....that's local...

...what about the Ger, Cze, Aut and Swi bits?!?

[weeksy]

Well that's somewhat interesting there... 2 trips for Fort William and we've never been to Cwmcarn, Llangollen or Revs....

IXS DH Cup
23-25 May Willingen (Ger)
30-1 May/Apr Winterberg (Ger)
(30km apart & Half Term)
4-6 July Spicak (Cze)
1-3 Aug Lienz (Aut)
15-17 Aug Ilmenau (Ger)
29-31 Aug Bad Tabaraz (Ger)
3-5 Oct Bellwald (Swi)

UK Downhill
Round 1: 12-13 April – Cwmcarn
Round 2 (UCI C1): 10-11 May – Fort William
Round 3: 14-15 June – Rhyd-y-Felin
National Championships: 19-20 July – Fort William
Round 4: 16-17 August – Llangollen
Round 5: 27-28 September – Revolution Bike Park

Never mind Cwcarn, Fort William and Revs....that's local...

...what about the Ger, Cze, Aut and Swi bits?!?

The UK stuff we're 100% in for, the IXS series we're debating what's viable depending on finances as the plan is potentially to race the European Champs again, i expect we will do 1 of the IXS races, but 2 may be a stretch.

[weeksy]

With it being winter it's a good time to do some stripping down of the bouncy bits. I noticed the 2 mino link bearings were crap so whipped them out.
IMG_20241215_154620 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Only to find I'd used 1 of the 6900 bearings from the pile to fix someone's bike at a race meeting, eek. So I'm a bearing short.
There's nothing I hate more than leaving a job not quite finished.

I've ordered 3, but won't see them till Tues.

[weeksy]

After the weekend of riding my Fuel the boy has decided he'd love one of his own. LOL. Mine is a fraction small for him being an ML, even though we're the same height he prefers bikes a little bigger it seems.
We're currently waiting for a mail from the coach, but this is currently at the top of the list.


I am slightly concerned he's not in love with the colour scheme though. But it's close by and the right money. It'll need a brake change throwing at it, but they don't seem to do many/any with Codes as standard which is a shame for us. I could buy a later Gen6 for not much more money but he fancies the lighter weight of the Gen5 (13.5kg > 15.3kg) even though the Gen6 is a bit slacker and more enduro based. I'd have thought he'd prefer the slacker one, but he loved mine.

[weeksy]

Well that changed after sitting down and chatting about it all

fuelex8xt_23_36348_a_primary by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/bike ... 6/p/36348/

Just ordered up one of these... It made sense to go a little heavier but have more bounce, better bounce and a little stronger in terms of frame etc.

It's a 64.5deg head angle and he's gone for ML rather than L due to the extended reach on the Gen6, this one is 470mm reach which is the same as a Gen5 Large and 470 is about industry standard in Large.

[weeksy]

Sodding hell, 3 times to fort William!

[Mr Moofo]

Sodding hell, 3 times to fort William!

I've been once, not cycling. And it rained, a lot
That was enough

[weeksy]

We've not had rain on either visit, I doubt we'll get that lucky 3 times next year.

We're currently mid debate for the boy as we've got
Pearce
UK national
IXS
Euro champs

He needs to work out what his primary focus is as we can't race everything. Just not enough time and most importantly money.
We don't know where the Euro Champs are yet, which could help or destroy that plan. So of the events are in Portugal, if the DH is there then that'll wipe out a family holiday

[weeksy]

The new 'Continental Series' has now been announced. This is what the UCI are considering to be the Gateway into World Cups.

There's 2 events in Europe in the DHI cat
Portugal - Santiago de Besteiros - 4th April to 6th April. (This is also an IXS round)
France - Les Menuires - 22nd to 24th August.

If i'm being completely honest, i'm not seeing year 1 of Junior as being a realistic option for us/James as i still think he needs to find speed, experience and knowledge before being ready to even think about WCs.

But that's the information as we have it

[weeksy]

IMG_20241228_110957 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

[Skub]

That first vid is hair raising.

[weeksy]

That first vid is hair raising.

Wasn't flat out as it was his first day on the new bike, but pretty hard riding.
The other kid is young at 12 years old but is one of the hottest prospects in the UK and allowed to race in higher age category to give him some proper racing. Last time they raced my lad did him by 4s over a 1 mins track. But I think it'll be smaller gaps next year. He races in what I guess would be the equivalent of a top BSB or mid pack wsb team. He'll go far I think

[Skub]

HTF they know where they are going baffles me. I suppose part of my 'oh shit' reaction is being taken by surprise at the sudden direction turns. Several of those trees have me written all over them!

[weeksy]

Lol it's not that hard to see, but admittedly I'm going 20s a lap slower than them
I was happy though today as 3 parents of racers were out on trails, usually I'm one of the slower ones but I was the fastest of them today

[MingtheMerciless]

HTF they know where they are going baffles me. I suppose part of my 'oh shit' reaction is being taken by surprise at the sudden direction turns. Several of those trees have me written all over them!

It’s different in the real, something about it being on video makes it difficult to see the line sometimes.

[weeksy]

Well that was interesting... To me anyway.

The boy mentioned last week his bike was rolling really slowly. The only reason i could think of was we'd fitted the standard Bontrager wheels. Now i know they had new bearings only recently but they deffo spun slowly. So i fitted some more at Dyfi (from Kinetic) and they too were really slow.... Way way slower than the Hopes.
So i bought some Trek ones...
https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/equi ... g/p/39513/

I can only assume this is because the bearings are 20307LLU whereas the others are LLB

the Trek ones spin lovely.... I don't think there's anything wrong with the others, but due to the fill/balls/cages they may be pivot bearings rather than rotational bearings ? Possibly anyway.... Either way... they roll lovely.

[weeksy]

In other news, the Canyon Sender looks to be sold, a decent enough price but does mean that i have the complexity as it's sold as a whole bike that i've got to replace all the spares. So i've started the process and picked up a standard Bontrager rear wheel to give full swappability. 

We/I'm having a few debates on brakes... Really not sure what to run in 2025. The Code RSCs have been great but not without a few minor niggles at times but happily never really over a race weekend. It's been the internal seals on the master cylinder piston usually, or the usual sticky pistons in the caliper.

I was tempted to try some new items and obviously we'd tried the Hope Tech 4 recently and didn't bond... he's also tried and not liked the Magura MT7 due to the lever feel. He's never been a fan of Shimano and the way they ride, so we're kinda running out of options here.

What is tempting me though is the SRAM Mavens. There's some reports of them needing a bit of TLC with piston massaging (pushing in and out a few times) and some issues getting them to bed in but overall they seem incredibly powerful.

We/he do like the RSC side of the brakes, he's quite fussy with brakes (no 5hit) and at times will dial in the pad bite point as the pads wear over the course of a weekend. We run Galfer green pads which don't last the longest ever but do work really really well.

The Mavens can be had for £189 a side on the Silver (non-Ti bolts)

https://winstanleysbikes.co.uk/sram-mav ... #173=10632

The Code RSC can be picked up for £125 a side

https://www.biketart.com/products/sram- ... aKEALw_wcB

We do 100% need a set of brakes though as we're a set short after fitting to the Canyon.  I liked the look/idea of Hayes Dominion A4/T4, but i don't know a lot about them, apart from the fact they're supposed to be incredible.