New bits for the 20"

Got some new bits for the Year 20" to get the gearing to pretty much the same as the Yess 24".

I am riding a 37x16 on the 24" with a 24x1.75 Tioga power block which gives as ratio of 55.54.

The 20" was with a Tioga powerblocks 20x1.60 and a gearing of 44x16 which gave a ratio of 53.59 which was much lower and explains why I was so tired racing he other week.

I am now changing to a 20x1.75 powerblock on the rear and changing the gearing to 42x15 to give a ratio slightly higher than the 24" at 55.78 which is as close as I can get it I think.

As I said I have bought a new powerblock folding 20x1.75 tyre and a new box 15 tooth sprocket. I already have a rental 42 chain ring that I will use for now although I have a new rennen 42 tooth chain ring in the post as I prefer the look of them to the rental chain rings.

I also bought a bunch of inner tubes to re-stock my parts box.

Here are before and after photos:

Picked up Dialled

I got up this morning and washed the Yess Cruiser again as I did a really bad job yesterday. I then went to Crucial and dropped off the Yess as it has a crunchy headset and picked up the Dialled.

I also got the box brake lever fitted to the dialled while I was there.

I also picked up my son's wheel ready for us to ride tomorrow.

When I got home I washed the Yess 20" as well as it was still really dirty as I only rinsed it off yesterday.

It is looking really good now.

I am taking the day off again to make sure that I am well for the weekend. 

Dialled Ready - 25/10/17

Had another rest day today as I was still feeling rough.

I did get up and wash my bikes as they were still muddy from training on Monday afternoon.

I got a call from Crucial to say that the Dialled was ready to pick up apart from needing a new brake lever.

Luckily the Box Lever that I had bought arrived so I went into work and picked it up and put it in the car ready to take to Crucial to be fitted tomorrow.

I am going to drop off the Yess 24" as the new box headset that I bought is crunching which is not good as I only bought it about 3 weeks ago!!! Not very impressed with the durability. Once the Yess is all done I am going to take it to my parents to leave it stored in their Garage for the winter as I am just going to use the Dialled and the 20" Yess for now.

Rest Day - Getting Ill

I woke up this morning feeling really tired so I went back to sleep after eating breakfast until about 12:30.

I then went out and ran some errands and went to lunch with my son.

When we got back I went to sleep again and when I woke up my stomach was bad and I had diarrhoea and was feeling sick.

I have been working all evening so far but have been having frequent trips to the bathroom which is not pleasant.

I am not sure if this has been caused by me eating an entire Dominoes Pizza last night or if I am getting tonsillitis again as I get a bad stomach a couple of days before I get ill when I have tonsillitis so I will see.

Unfortunately this meant that I was not able to ride today but that was probably for the best as my left knee was pretty sore this morning when I woke up.

Revised Training

Had training this afternoon with the Bath club coach Matt Eaton.

I used my Cruiser for most of the training and I found that I am really bad out of the gate on flats now :-) I kept lifting my feet off of the peddles all of the time!!!

It was a really good session and I have learnt that I really need to work on my manuals so I am going to spend a month focusing on manuals and then once I am better at them I will start with sprints and the other skills. We did a really good practice where we went half speed and tryed to manual the long tabletop on the 3rd straight and I was really really bad at it even though I can manual it at full speed. This showed that my technique is really off. For the rest of this week I am going to to pump laps followed by lots and lots of manual training on this tabletop followed by flat manuals in the carpark before I go home.

I am going to put flats on my 20" to use it to practice on as I am feeling more comfortable on it than the cruiser at the moment. I am going to take the Yess Cruiser to my parents house again tomorrow as I am not going to use it until next year. The Dialled is being built up with flat peddles as well so I can use this when I want to ride the cruiser for the winter.

This will also give me time to heal my ribs as they are obviously not totally healed yet and were sore again today. After a month or so I will start going hard with the sprints to get faster again.

Bristol racing

Went to Bristol track today to race in the first round of the Bristol Winter series.

Started off OK and I did a few laps to warm up then did gates. This is where it went wrong. I hit the gate on the first gate and went over the bars. Luckily all I did was graze my knee. I did 4 more gates at hit the gate every time!!!

In my first moto I hit the gate again but managed to stay on and finished second although my ribs were sore and I was knackered. The second moto I managed to gate well and won the race although I really hurt my ribs and was really tired and decided to call it a day so that I didn't agitate my ribs any more.

I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't race all the races as there were 2 national riders racing today and I finished just behind one hitting the gate in my first moto and I beat the other in my second moto. All made better by the fact that I was riding my 20" that I had only ridden for 3 days before racing.

I am resting up now as I have training tomorrow as long as my ribs are better.

In hind site it may have been better to have not raced today but you live and learn.

I had better news this afternoon when I sold my Ice Cruiser Frame so I have some cash to pay off the credit cards so the dialled may be saved to a while yet or I may seel it to pay off the credit cards a bit more :-)

The results for the racing were posted and even though I only raced 2 races I still had 4th pick for the A final and didn't finish last overall :-)

Hoping to be healed for next months race so that I can make all 4 races and then move back up to f1 for the next race in December.

Weigh in

Managed to sneak under 100kgs this morning in my weigh in at 98.85kgs.

As long as I can keep my weight dropping every week I will be happy. I can tell that I am gaining muscle too so the weight loss is a bonus.

I am a little worried as my left knee is really sore at the moment which I hope is caused by the cold wet weather and not by my knee getting worse. This knee has been a problem since I hyper extended it when I was 11 and is due to get arthritis in it about now so I may have to go to the doctors to check it out next week.

I am getting ready to go to Bristol to race this morning an am excited to be back racing but a bit apprehensive as I haven't managed a full lap of the track yet! Also the weather is crap so not really pumped to be getting out of bed of I an honest.

Picked up 20" from Crucial

Picked up the 20" Yess from Crucial early this morning and went back to bath for gates but unfortunately gates were cancelled.

The Yess is now looking amazing and riding even better. Swapping the cranks, stem, bars and tyres has made the bike even lighter. I did a few first straights to get used to the bike ready to use it for the Ryan Stack training this afternoon and race on it  tomorrow. 

I am going to leave the 24" at home this afternoon and tomorrow and just use the 20" as I really want to get used to it for the start of the season. 

I dropped the dialled off at Crucial to get built up with the bits off of the 20". I still haven't decided what I will do with the dialled. At the moment I want to keep it to train on but I may have to sell it to pay off the credit cards I am not sure yet. 

Dropped Yess off at Crucial

Took the 20" to the track this morning early and did some training.

I then took the bike and the bits off of the Dialled over to Crucial ready for them to build up ready for the weekend. I am putting on Renthal bars and Tioga powerblock tyres as well to make the 20"as close to the cruiser as possible.

Both bikes ride really similarly already so I am hoping that by setting them up the same I may be OK to ride both bikes next season and not have issues with not feeling right on the bikes when swapping between 20" and cruiser.

Bits ready to take to Crucial tomorrow

When I got home tonight I took the cranks, stem, grips and brake off of the dialled and put them in a bag ready to take to Crucial in the morning after training to be put onto the Yess 20" ready for the weekend.

I am going to train on the 20" tomorrow morning and then on the Yess cruiser in the evening and Friday as well. Hopefully they will be able to get the bike finished by Friday afternoon ready for me to ride Saturday and race on Sunday but I will find out tomorrow if it is possible or not.

First straights

Didn't get much sleep last night thanks to national rail doing maintenance on the tracks near our house from 1am until about 5am.

I still managed to get to the track after work although I was a really tired. I did 3 pump laps followed by 25 first straights. I used my clip less peddles today to get used to clipping on on the 20".

I am really loving riding the 20" yess and I am definitely going to swap over the bits from the dialled onto it. I plan to take the parts off of the dialled tomorrow night ready to take them along with the Yess to Crucial Thursday morning to be built up.

I will the leave the dialled there when I pick up the Yess to be built up to sell as I do not have space to keep all 3 bikes. Also with all the bits on the dialled from the Yess I can sell it cheaply and still make a profit.

I have decided to ride the Yess as it is for now apart from the parts that I am swapping over from the dialled.

I have also decided after talking to a friend at the weekend that I will get more out of racing over the winter compared to just training as you push yourself much more in racing than training.

I have decided that I am going to race on the 20" and race over 30's on Sunday and then race on the cruiser in the deep south winter series where I will most likely be racing lots of National riders.

Hopefully next month I will be fit enough to race both 20" and Cruiser at the the next Bristol winter series. Riding 20" in the over 30's and cruiser in F1. I am just going to race cruiser at the deep south as the level is too high for me to keep up when  tired after racing on both bikes. 

20" at the track

Took the YESS type O to the track tonight to do some laps. Once I had pumped the tyre up from 20psi to 80psi the bike rode really well.

Just like the Yess cruiser I have the bike handles amazingly and feels really fast. I even got manualling at high speed by the end of the session.

I am going to take the type O and the dialled to Crucial tomorrow to swap over the cranks, stem, grips and brakes as I want to race the type O this year after riding it and the Dialled is going to be my winter training bike or maybe I might sell it to buy some onyx wheels for the type O I am not sure yet.

All I know is that I am loving riding both of the Yess bikes so I am keeping both now. I really like the dialled but if I sell it then I could have onyx hubs on the type O as well as on my cruiser which would be even better.

Busy day

Had a busy day today. Got up at 5 am and picked up the bargain of the century! I won on eBay last week a 6 month old Yess type O pro xl frame with sei parts kit for £150!!!!! When  I saw the condition of the bike I gave the guy another £50 as it was an insult to pay so little for a bike that was £899 new.

Brought it home and then had a nap and then walked to the track with my son and had a play. Unfortunately I didn't check the tyre pressures before I left so I couldn't really ride as they were too soft.

My son did a bit of jumping and then one of his spoke nipples snapped so we walked home!

I have to say that I really liked the Yess from the little that I rode it and can't wait to ride it more this week. I am going to leave the flat peddles for now but think I will put the clip less peddles on it for later in the week.

I then got my Dialled ready to train in the morning by putting on the cool down post and seat and also lights so I can get up at 5 again in the morning and the bike is ready to go.

Bristol session again

Got to the track and played around again today. I took my Yess and I have changed my mind again. The Yess is much faster than the dialled so I am going to keep the Dialled as my training bike and the Yess for racing.

Playing at Bristol

Had a really good day at Bristol Patchway today. I did 3 full pump laps followed by 5 first, second and third straights. After this my friend arrived and we messed around doing lines on different straights.

I am really liking the Dialled and I jumped a lot of jumps that I haven't done before especially on the last straight. I am seriously considering selling the Yess again and building the Dialled with the Onyx wheelset and the Chris King bottom bracket.

I hurt my ankle a bit more today so I will need to take care of it and use the ankle brace for a while when riding. I am going to switch to clips again for a couple of weeks as I have hurt my big toe using flats today.

The track was running really well today and the rain held off although it was a bit windy.

I managed to do one full speed lap but I was blowing out of my arse afterwards but at least I managed the lap.

I want to take both bikes to the Bristol track and do some timed laps to see which bike is fastest. I may do this tomorrow as there are no gates in Bath. I want to see if I am faster on one bike than the other to see if I would be OK on the Dialled or if I am faster on the Yess. I am thinking that I may be better off breaking down the Yess and selling the frame and forks and keeping the rest of the bits to go on the Curtis when it is ready. Then if I really want a Yess again later on I can buy one.

I thing the Dialled and the Curtis will be the best pairing of training and race bikes as they are both chrome and have the same 21.5" top tubes.

I am also seriously considering breaking down the Yess Type O that I am picking up at the weekend and selling the frame and building up a cult race frame or buy another Dialled 20" frame. The SEI parts are all really good so the bike would be race able and similar to the dialled.

I am seriously considering racing 20" and Cruiser next year to get more experience and improve my fitness as well. This is especially important as I want race Nationals in 2019.

Pump day

Got up early and went to Crucial to pick up my Yess and also I bought a seat clamp for the Dialled and also some new winter gloves.

I also got a crucial sticker and stuck it on the Dialled.

I think it makes the bike look much better. I am going to get a custom Dialled Bikes sticker made up later on but for now the bike is fine as it is.

After I got back from Crucial I got changed and went to the track with the Dialled. I did 10 pump laps again followed by 6 full speed start hills and first jumps. My manuals are starting to come back and I managed 3 out of the 6 manuals cleanly. I the  had to stop as I tries to peddle manual the tabletop on the second straight and pinged one of my ribs so I stopped to not agrivate the rib any more.

My ankle that I twisted yesterday was OK. A little sore and it came out of alignment a couple of time walking up the start hill which hurt but nothing too bad.

I was much happier with my fitness today than I was on Tuesday and I think the rest day helped alot. I wasn't tired after the pump laps which was much better than Tuesday when I was blowing hard after 4 pump laps. I could have done more first straights if I hadn't of hurt my rib so it is looking better for next Sunday's race than  it was on Tuesday.

SORE

I woke up really sore yesterday morning (Wednesday) so I decided to have a rest day. I basically stayed in bed and watched Netflix most of the day.

To make matters worse I stepped down a hole in the grass when I was walking to pickup my son and now my ankle hurts and is clicking when I walk. Luckily it was my knackered ankle so it doesn't have any ligaments to damage.

Also I got a call from Crucial to say that the Yess is ready to pick up.

Pump laps

Got woken up at 8am this morning so got ready and went to the Bath track and did some pump laps.

I am really sore from yesterday so I will take it easy for this week and then try and ramp up ready for Bristol on 22nd.

It looks like it may take a bit longer than the 2 weeks I have until Bristol to get back in shape as I struggled to do 10 pump laps with rest in between which was my warmup before I crashed!!

After the 10 pump laps I managed 5 full speed start hill manual the first jump. My manuals are really bad again  but I managed one out of 5 manuals clean without nose bonking the top of the double so there is room for improvement.

Tomorrow I am going to try and 3 pump laps as warm up followed by 6 full speed laps with 5 minutes of rest in between to see if I can do it or not.

I have to say I really like the Dialled bike now after changing the bars. I need to get a 30mm seat clamp as the one that I have on it at the moment is too big so the seat moves a bit which isn't too much of an issue but it is a bit annoying.

Dawn raid at Bristol done

Got up at 5:30 this morning and went to Bristol track to get some laps in.

After doing my 5 pump laps I realised that I was not in any condition to do full laps yet so I did 10 first and second straights instead with the focus on getting faster each time and also pumping into and out of every jump.

It was my first session on the dialled and I must say I liked it. I also loved the flat peddles that I bought (nukeproof Sam Hills) and they worked really well with my 5ten shoes so well in fact I didn't really notice a difference from clips after I got my feet placed correctly.

I then went to the parcel force depot around the corner from the track and dropped off the wheels that I had sold and the went to Crucial and dropped off my Yess to be serviced ready to race next weekend.

I also bought new Rental bars for the Dialled so that it is exactly the same as the Yess.

I then went home and fitted the bars.

I am going to clean up my S&M bars that I took off of the Dailled and get them on Facebook to sell.

Relaxed Bath session

Took a friend to the track for a roll around which he loved. He even managed to jump the first table top on the last straight.

I had a couple of laps on the Yess and was knackered. I had a go on the dialled and loved it. I didn't try manuals or jumping but it felt really good. I am going to do laps at Bristol on it tomorrow early so I will have a better idea then about it.

Here are a couple of photos of the bikes.

Tomorrow morning I am going to swap the bars from the Yess onto the dialled as I will be using it most and I want to get used to the renthal bars. I am dropping of the Yess at crucial for a service so I will get another set of renthals fitted so the bikes have identical front ends to help with swapping from one bike to the other for races.

I also have to post the wheels that I sold on Friday so I will drop then off at the deploy near the track on the way to Crucial after I finish training.

Building up the Yess

I have started building up my Yess.  This morning I put on the seat and seat clamp that I bought last weekend.

I am now getting ready to go to Crucial to buy the rest of the parts that I need so that I can ride this morning.

I picked up the forks that I bought off of facebook on the way to Crucial and then I bought the following bits to build but the Yess:

Renthal 24* Cruiser bars (http://www.crucialbmxshop.com/renthal-motoxl-20-bars-12722.html):

Crupi i-beam stem 52mm (http://www.crucialbmxshop.com/crupi-i-beam-stem.html):

Box 2 headset (http://www.crucialbmxshop.com/box-two-integrated-headset.html):

Ciari headset spacers (http://www.crucialbmxshop.com/ciari-anelli-headset-spacers.html):

ODI Vans Lock on grips (http://www.crucialbmxshop.com/odi-x-vans-lock-on-grips-coloured.html):

I then went to Bath track and built up the bike and did some gates.

I felt OK on the bike rib wise but everything felt weird as I haven't ridden for so long and I have lost a lot of leg strength. I am going to start back doing full laps on Monday morning to blow away the cobwebs and try and get rid of the awkward feeling on the bike.

As a bonus Julian House called at 5pm to say that the dialled was ready to pick up so I ran over there and picked it up before they closed.

Body armour Arrived today

My new body armour arrived today from Chain Reaction. I went for the Leatt Body protector 3DF Airfit 2017 as it gives the highest rating of body protection and it also supposed to be really comfortable.  First impressions are really good although I haven't tried it on yet and I left it at work so I have no pictures yet. 

I am going to Crucial early tomorrow to get the rest of the bits to build my Yess back up so bars, stem, grips and headset then it is ready to ride or sell whichever I decide. I am then going to do a few gates to get back into riding. I am going to have a really light session tomorrow to see how I go and then start back slowly next week ready to harder the week after ready to race on the weekend after.

I am not expecting too much as I have been basically bed ridden for 2 months but I want to get back into riding as quickly as possible. I am going to race the over 30's as I am not ready to race the F1 again yet.  My ribs are feeling pretty good walking now so I think I should be able to start back on the bike now as long as I don't go overboard which is a problem but I need to be more controlled. I have also pilled on 3 kgs so I need to burn that off asap. 

I am planning to do mostly pumping for the first week or so to get used to the bike again and then the week after start back with the sprints, manuals and bunny hops. I am on lates next week which means I can get a lot of track time in during the day which I need to get back in shape and get the bike control back.