Another good days training

Got up early again this morning and went to the Bristol track again. I upped the intensity today and went all out for the first 4 straights. I wasn't able go flat out any more than this as my legs stopped working!!!!!

I am going to have a go again tomorrow to try and make the whole track as I have a race there tomorrow night and at the moment I am blowing out of my arse for the last 2 straights!

Back to Training

Got up at 6 this morning and went to the Bristol Patchway track for a couple of hours training. I have the first and second straights pretty much sorted and I have finally learnt to manual!!!

I did it by accident on the first jump when I hit it too fast and manual without thinking about it and it just clicked!! I can now consistently manual all of the jumps on the first and second straight.

To make this mornings session even better I learn how to pedal out of the manuals as well so I could feel that I got faster as I was able to carry the speed down the third straight.

Tomorrow I will practice going full out for the first 3 straights to get that dialled as well.

My bike is now 100% dialled in and perfect. Thanks to the guys from Crucial BMX in Bristol for sorting it out for me.

Yesterday I bought a freestyle bike for myself and my son for us to play on around town. I found myself a second hand but nearly new Blank Ammo 2016 (http://www.crucialbmxshop.com/blank-ammo-2016-complete-bmx-bike-black-chrome.html?) and a new Subrosa Salvador 18" 2016 (http://www.crucialbmxshop.com/subrosa-salvador-18-2016-bmx-bike.html?) this is what they look like:





We took them for a little spin yesterday and they are fun. Really different to the race bike but still good fun.

We are going to the track in bath now for a bit of a play before lunch.

Just got back from the track, it was really good there were loads of people and they even got the gate going which was a bonus. Feeling really tired now so I am going to relax for the rest of the day ready to go back to Bristol tomorrow morning to train hard again.

I managed to manual the first doubles on my last go but it is much harder than in Bristol. Hopefully after a couple of weeks practice I will consistently be able to manual all of the jumps at Bath too.

New Track

Over the weekend by local track in Bath was resurfaced and had some maintenance done as well.

This morning I have been there testing it out and it is really good. Much faster and smoother and the changes to some of the jumps has made a big difference.

Hopefully it will stay dry for a couple more days to bake the surface hard as it is still a bit we and soggy in places especially the last straight.

Because of this I practised mainly on the first and second straights as they were harder.

Here is a picture of my bike and the newly surfaced track:

I also tested my new five10 shoes and they are amazing. once your feet are on they don't move at all.

I have a race in 2 weeks so I need to start training more. I am going to start going to the Bristol track as the race is at there and I have only ridden the track once so I need to get used to the track.

Slow week

I haven't been able to ride at all this week as the track is closed for maintenance. I have ridden to work and back all week so I have done a bit of exercise.

The new bike is now 100% and ready to hit the track on Monday when the track opens.

First Gates

On Saturday I had my first gate session with the DK. It was really good. I was able to keep up with the clipped in riders for the first time ever. I didn't use the 5ten shoes this week as I wanted to see how much the bike made a difference and get used to the bike before I used the 5ten shoes so that I can gauge the effect of the shoes.

I am going to the track tomorrow night after work to do some training and also to test the shoes.

New Bike up together

Swapped the Shimano M71 crank and the new ceramic bottom bracket off of my old bike and put it onto the new DK. I also put my grips and bars as they were better than the DK ones. Tomorrow I am going to go to the BMX shop and buy some pedals and a break lever to put on the old Redline so that I can get it up for sale. I am going to take the DK to the track and ride it a bit tomorrow as well to see how it rides and get used to it ready for Gate practice Saturday.

Here are a couple of pictures of the fully setup bike. I will take more tomorrow.

I also bought some 5ten shoes last night as I do not want to move to clipless pedals just yet  after my crash. Apparently the 5Ten shoes are the next best thing to clipless pedals so I will see how they are at the weekend.

Here is a link and some pictures of the shoes I bought:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/five-ten-freerider-mtb-shoes-2016/rp-prod136375

Still Hurt

I am still hurt from the crash and am unable to ride still because of shoulder and neck pain. I have however stopped taking pain killers.

I was able to go to the gym this morning and did 10 minutes on the treadmill followed by 20 minutes on the exercise bike and 5 minutes on the recumbent bike as a cool down.

Feeling a bit better as I haven't been able to exercise for the past 2 weeks and I was staring to bulk up again around the belly!!

I am going to do the same thing this week to try and shed some of the excess weight in order to get ready to hopefully get back to riding this weekend.

Got my bike back at the weekend as well. It has been gone through and it now has a brand new crank (Shimano DXR MX7) which look sick! new 40 tooth chain ring new 17 tooth freewheel a new chain and new chain tensioners. I also put on new Maxxis DTH Wire tyres. So the bike is now fully functional.

Last week I also won a new bike (DK Elite Cruiser 2015) on ebay so I am going to swap over the new crank, pedals, stem and handlebars from my bike onto the new one and sell the old bike as I need to recoup the money spent on the new one and new cranks.

I am also going to put the old tyres back onto the old bike.

Bad week!!!

Thursday I forced myself to go to the track even though I was tired on my third warmup lap I wand accelerating out of the 3rd berm and as I did the first peddle my chain came off and I went over the handlebars!!!!

Luckily I had my body armour on or it could have been much worse. But I was knocked out briefly and took all of the skin off of my lower right arm and my neck and shoulder are really hurting.

Today I found out the cause of the chain slip was that the bike had a mountain bike crank on it now a bmx crank!!! This caused the chain to be out of alignment which meant that it came off under load. Luckily it came off while I was warming up and not in a race where I would have been going faster and could have potentially been ridden over by other riders while I was on the floor!!!

Needless to say I am more than a bit pissed off as I have to throw away a £300 helmet and shell out for a new crank, chainring, freewheel and chain. Also at some point I will have to replace the bars, grips and peddles as they all got really scratched in the fall as well.

This has once again highlighted that buying bikes off of ebay is not the best idea! My chear £450 bike has now cost me the same amount of money as a brand new DK bike!!!

More annoying still is that I will be off my bike for another week or so which means that I will have missed 2 more races!!!! this means that I will not be able to race nationals next year as I have to race in 7 out of 10 races this year I think.

On a plus note it means that I can focus more on the 2 local races in Bristol and Bath next month so I will be more prepared for these races.

Here is a picture of my arm after I fell off!