Gearing Better

Woke up and did my weakly weigh in and was surprised to see that I was down to 102.20 kgs which was really unexpected although we went pretty hard at gates on Saturday morning. The new 37x16 gearing felt really good and after a couple of bad starts I was up with or beating the guys that are usually a bit ahead of me by the first jump.  I was talking to some of the guys and they suggested that I raise my bars as they looked low and this may be why I am having so many problems manual-ing. I did this when I got home, I raise the stem 2 spacers to see how it was.

Yesterday I woke up really sore from gates but had my first race on the new gearing and it is much better. I was able to keep accelerating all the way to the first jump without spinning out and feeling like I was going backwards.

The new bar position was really good too. I wasn't concentrating on my bike at all it felt really natural.

Had a really good race today. Took 1st, 1st, 1st in my motos and 2nd in the final after taking the wrong line on turn 3 and leaving the door too far open. To be hones I was so tired by the final that I don't think that I would have had the legs to win anyway.

My sprints last week payed off as I felt really strong getting to the first jump and I was pulling away from the rest of the field in the last 3 peddles before the first jump.

I have decided that I am going to concentrate a bit more on full track sessions at gates from now on instead of just gunning the first straight and then cruising the second straight and pulling off the track. I am going to do full laps. I think this will be a good strategy as my gates are pretty good now and I need to practice racing the whole track as this is my weakness now.

I will post some of the photos from yesterday's race later today.

I have decided that I need to go back to basic's with the manual-ling and I am building a manual stand so that I can practice manual-ling without moving. I think that at the moment I am not getting far enough over the back wheel and need to practice this in a controlled situation and a manual stand seems like the logical first step as you are just practising pulling up and holding the manual and finding the balance point and keeping it. I have put the manual challenge on hold temporarily while I build this manual stand and hopefully it will be ready by the weekend.

After riding to work this morning I have decided to rest tonight as my legs are really aching and my ankle is really sore from where I twisted it a couple of times over the weekend. I will see if I fell well enough tomorrow to train instead or whether I rest tomorrow as well an wait until Wednesday to train. To be honest yesterday was harder than a sprint session so I can take it as a day training.

Here are the photos from Sunday: