Good days racing

Had a good day racing today at Bideford. In the motos I got into the B final. In the final I was first out of the gate and got to the first berm in second place. In the end I got 4th place but I was close to the 3rd place rider.

Looks like my training is starting to pay off.

I am off to do laps in Bristol tomorrow morning early to keep up the progress.

Manual training

Went to the bath track today and practiced manuals on the first straight. I have now managed to manual the second double 3 times and case on the top of the second double a bunch of times. By the end of the session I was generating so much more speed over both jumps.

I also did a manual lap where I was able to manual not only the first and second jumps on the first straight but also the first double on the second straight and the double on the third straight so my manuals have got a bunch better.

I am also now wheeling the tabletop on the second straight which seems faster than jumping it.

Bristol Monday morning training

Got up at 5:30 and went to the Bristol track to do a quick training session as I had to be back by 8:00 for my wife to go to work.

I practised jumping the first jump for a while as a warm-up and then I did a couple of full laps to finish. I did 38 seconds for both laps so not too slow but not too fast.

Manual training

Had a nice chilled session at the track today with my son. He got bored so he filmed me practising my manuals over the first double.

I did a couple of good one and a lot of casing. Here are a couple of the better ones.

Good Training this morning.

Had a good training session today in the sun.

I was going to do full laps but I wasn't feeling 100% so I concentrated at doing first straights manual-ling the first jump and doing sprints back up the start hill from stopped.

After about 10 manuals where my front wheel just got over the lip or cased on top I finally started manualling properly and smoothly with my front wheel hitting down the landing ramp. It felt great and I was generating much more speed. After this I managed 5 or 6 tap manuals where I jumped the lip and both wheels landed on the down ramp. There are even faster so from now on I will try and do those instead of manuals.

I didn't have as much success on the second jump although I managed case my front wheel on the lip of the second double which is much better than I usually do. I will keep practising first straights to see if I can get to manual this jump by the end of the summer.

I also practised jumping into peddle manual on the tabletop at the start of the second straight which is much faster than pumping it. Tomorrow I am going to try and jump this tabletop as well as I am just and just casing the landing still.

Full Laps

I wasn't able to go to Bristol this morning as I had to take my Son to school so I went to the Bath track instead after dropping him off at school.

It was really hot today but I was able to do a warm up of a full lap pumping followed by a full lap peddling constantly (using the break to control speed) followed by a full speed warm up lap.

I then did 6 full speed laps with 5 minutes rest in between.

The last lap was a struggle. Unfortunately Strava didn't record my lap times very well so I am not really sure how fast I was doing the laps.

I am looking into alternate methods to time laps as Strava seems to be really flaky!

Tomorrow I am going to do 2 x 10 start hill sprints followed by 2 x 10 downhill sprints both with walk back rest in between.

Training with Couch

Saturday we had training with a couch which was really good. We practised drills to get used to cornering in packs which was really good and really tiring. We then did some uphill sprints up the start hill where we stopped at the bottom of the hill, balanced and then sprinted when the coach told us to.

I was quite surprised as I was the only one that breathed and kept my hips forwards in the sprint position and had to demonstrate to the group.

Unfortunately I had to go after this as I had to get home before my wife went to work.

I talked to the coach and we are going to go to Tiverton on Tuesday nights when I am not working to have extra training sessions as he runs session there and there are not too many people training.

Looking forwards to these sessions.

Also talked to him and some other people about increasing fitness and they all said about sprints so I am going to start spints next week.

I also talked about the new 180mm cranks and that I don't really like them too much as everyone said to keep at it as they really are better.

Wednesday racing

Went to Bristol last night for Wednesday night racing. I did ok and I was starting well but I was still behind the top 3 guys by the second jump.

I also pulled a calf muscle in the final but still managed to get 5th.

The new bars are really good and the bike feels really good. I also bought some 180mm Shimano dxr crank arms to see if they are better or not. I fitted them tonight but haven't tried them yet. The cranks came with a 42 tooth chain ring as well so I may try it out at the weekend.

New Bars

My new S&M Bruiser bars arrived today so I fitted them and my Crupi front loader stem on the bike and took it to the track for a couple of test laps.

The bars are nice, they take a little bit of getting used to as they are quite a bit higher even with moving from a top loader to a front loader stem.

The bike is much easier to manual and the front doesn't come up when sprinting any more. I took 2 seconds off of my best lap time so they must be OK.

I have a race tomorrow night so I will be able to see how the bars are then.

Gates

Had a rest day yesterday and also Slept in this morning so I was really fresh for gates this morning.

I practiced listening for the beep instead of watching the light as everyone I have spoken too has said that it is faster and better. I also practiced rolling backwards before going out of the gate which seemed to be working well.

I managed to manual the first jump a few times but there is still a lot of room for improvement as I am not getting any speed off of the backside of the jump.

There were not many adults at practice today as there was a national race  but I beat everyone there out of the gate. I was also jumping the table top which I havent done in months.

Trained Again Today

This morning I went to the Bath track and recorded the exact lap of the track on striva. I then did some training. I did 5 full laps and then practiced doing the start hill and manualling the first and second jumps and jumping the tabletop on the second straight.

When I got home I mapped track on strava and saved it as a segment so that I can keep a track of my lap times.

While I was at the track a guy who was British number 2 a couple of years ago arrived to do some training. I asked him about training and he said that skills wise the best skill to learn is manualling and to keep at it as I am almost there. He said to forget about jumping for now as manualling was much faster especially when you learn to do tap manuals.

I also asked him about the training he used to do and he gave me loads of advise. He said that he did uphill sprints in the off season and did 12 sprints with walk back rest. In season he said to do downhill sprints and do the same number and frequency as the uphill sprints.

He said that when he did full laps he did 6 laps with 3 minutes rest in between and that on the last rep he was usually almost throwing up.

I was also talking about gearing and that I wanted to go up a tooth at the front and he said that it would be better to go down a tooth at the front as the first straight is the key to good results.

I am going go from the 41x18 that I have at the moment to a 40x18 tomorrow to see how it goes in gate practice tomorrow.

Clipped in update

I forgot to write about my first race clipped in on Sunday. It went well, and I am definitely not going to go back to flats any time soon.

I was able to keep up with the faster guys up until the first jump which I hadn't been able to do before.

Because of the improved first straight I had my best results in the motos so far. I took 5th, 3rd and 4 th. I came 7th in the semi and 8th in the b final although I was in 6th for over half of the race.

On Monday I went to track Bristol early and did some laps and managed to beat my PB 3 times twice at 36 seconds and a new pb of 35 seconds this shows that clipless pedals are definitely faster than flats.

New forks

I bought some 20mm chrome forks for my bike as I have had problems with my left shoulder and arm due in part I think from the shocks from casing manuals and my carbon forks.

Someone at the weekend suggested buying some s&m chrome forks as they absorb more shock and are actually lighter than carbon forks.

I decided to try some cheaper chrome forks first before shelling out £150 on the S&M forks.

I went on eBay and bought some URP 20mm cruiser forks £30 delivered. They arrived today so I put them on my bike and went to the track to do some testing even tough I wasn't supposed to be riding to rest my arm!

First impressions are really good. The bike feels much smoother and there are no shocks going up my arms. As I was there I decided to try and manual the first jump and was able to do it a couple of times and also cased a few times without pain in my arms.

I am going to do a proper training session to MN borrow to see how my arm feels.

Here are some photos of the new bike. Oh I also bought a new Allen key with the 3 most common sizes for a bike in a star shape. I also bought a couple of all stands so that I can start sprint training tomorrow.

Clipped in

I went to gates today and it went fine clipped in, even though it was really windy so I am going to ride the clip less pedals tomorrow in the regional to see how it goes.

My new kneepads arrived today. They are Fox Racing Launch Knee-Shin guards 2016. I really like them as they are the first knee/shin guards that actually stay up. I like the 661 kneepads that I bought last month but they slip down so that the knee pad is actually below my knees which is a pain in the arse. I am going to use the 661 pads for lap training during the week and the Fox ones for gates and races.

Bath Regional 2016

Bought some photos of my son and myself racing in the last SW regional here in Bath.  Here they are.

Getting better

Feeling better today although I still can't breath properly. We have gate practice tomorrow morning at 10am so I will see how I am at full speed. I am also quite excited as it will be my first gates with clipless peddles so should be an experience at least.

I am off to my container in a bit to pick up our bikes ready for tomorrow and also to pick up some old tyres to put on my old cruiser as I am putting it up for sale online along with some other bits that I want to sell.

I want to use the money from the stuff that I sell to buy some new handle bars as the rentals that I use at the moment don't soak up any of the vibration of the track and are giving me sore wrists and shoulders.

I have been looking and I think that I will buy some s&m bruiser bars as they are supposed to be the best bars at the moment for a cruiser.

None of the online shops have any in stock which is a sign of good stuff.

I am contemplating going from gates here in bath to gates at the track in Tiverton where we will be racing on Sunday so that we can get some practice on the track before Sunday. If we leave here at around 11:30 we can get to Tiverton by just after 1pm which is the time for gate practice there. This will also mean that I will know the way for Sunday which will make it more relaxing.