Back to Training

When I woke up this morning my legs felt good and well rested so I decided to go to the track and do some full laps to make my legs tired again.

I also took off my clip-less pedals and put the flats back on as everyone says that it is better to train on flats in the winter. I also wanted the flats as I am working on manual-ling and don't want to be clipped in if I loop out as I am not used to the new bike yet.

I did 6 flat-out laps with 3 minutes rest in between reps which was a struggle with my current fitness level and my legs are sore again!

I then did some manuals on the first straight to practice manual-ling doing a leg pump to bring the front wheel up not pulling on the bars. I also concentrated on looking over the lip of the jump which surprisingly helped.

I also did a bit of pedal manual practice over the tabletop on the second straight which I have got smooth now. I want to try and learn to pedal manual the first double on the first straight as it is faster than manualling but it is quite hard. I will continue pedal manualling the tabletops for now to practice my pedal manuals and also try and pedal manaul the first double for the next few weeks to try and get it dialled.

The weather today was great and there was even some sun as you can see from the picture below you wouldn`t believe that it is December in the UK!:

Rest Day

I am having an impromptu rest day today as my whole body is aching from racing on Sunday.

I am going to start the HIIT program next week as I need my body to get over Sunday before I start as I do not want to over train and get injured before I even get into shape.

I found a really good HIIT program that incorporated the majority of the body weight exiercises that I want to do into it so I am going to this program instead with a little bit of modification in that I will start with one set every day for the first 2 weeks to ease into it and then move onto 2 sets for 2 weeks and 3 sets for a further 2 weeks I will then do the 3 sets twice a week to maintain the gains and start to focus on bike specific training.

The program that I have found is on you tube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLrKgwICkWA&t=424s

It is sold as loosing 10KGs in 2 weeks but I am not in such a big hurry so I am going to stretch it out to 6 weeks to not over do it.

I will start on Monday and train every weekday for the allotted time and keep a record here of my weights and weight loss.

The video is great as it also has a built in timer so you can do watch the video to do the program.

Sunday I will weigh myself and record my weight I will also measure my Vertical Jump as I am curious to see how this program will affect my Jump as there are a lot of similar exercises to most home vertical jump programs.

Also a secondary goal of the weight loss is to improve my basketball fitness as well as my BMX fitness so I will see.

First race back

Yesterday I took the S&M to Bristol for the winter series races. I initially was going to do the warm-up and gates to get used to the bike and the new stem and wheels but it felt so good as did my shoulder so I decided to race.

During the gates in warm-up the bike was amazingly fast in face in my first 2 gates I beat people I had never beaten before by over a bike length to the first corner. This is mainly due to the Onyx hubs which worked as advertised and had instant engagement and my pedal strokes seemed more powerful as well.

In the races I got 2nd, 1st and 4th and took 3rd in the final but my legs were shot after the 2nd moto as I hadn't done a full lap for 3 month.

I also found that the 41-18 gearing was too low as I was spinning out about 3 pedals before the first jump and I was getting overtaken by one or 2 people by then. I have really liked the 42x18 gearing on the DK but unfortunately the S&M doesn't have enough chain stay clearance to put a 42 cog on the front as it only has less than 1mm clearance which is a little too close for my liking.

Last night I was looking at the charts and I can't make up my mind which gearing to go for. A couple of the really quick local racers run 39x17 and a few more run 37x16. I am leaning towards the 37x16 as I was running 36x16 which I liked but found it a little bit too spinny so 37x16 may be better.

Also more of the national riders run 37x16 and are really fast so if they are fast on it I can't have any excuses.

Here are a few photos of the bike after the race:

Apart from the gearing I am really happy with the bike and can't wait to actually ride it properly.

Yesterday's race showed that I need to get in shape quickly so I have decided that I am not going to race until the next Bristol race in January and concentrate on getting by fitness and leg strength back this month. Looking at the photo's from yesterday I need to loose a bunch of weight as well as I look like I have swallowed a beach ball. I also weighed myself last night an I am over 16 stone so I could do with loosing 3-4 stones.

I order to get back in shape I am going to do the following training:

Mondays - AM - Body weight exercises
Mondays - PM - HIIT training on the exercise bike

Tuesday - PM - Sprints

Wednesday - AM - Body weight exercises
Wednesday - PM - HIIT

Thursday - PM - Sprints

Friday AM - Body weight exercises
Friday PM - PM - HIIT training on the exercise bike

On top of this I will do my normal track based training as I always have. I am thinking of doing a more endurance based focus at least 2 times a week by doing 3 laps at a time. I also to continue to focus on Manuals and tap manuals in order to get faster.

New wheels

Picked up my bike from Crucial BMX in Bristol and the new wheels have been built up and put on the bike. They look really nice and are so light and the hubs are amazing really zero drag and absolutely no sound at all which is weird.

I also fitted the Elevn 53mm Stem that I bought off of facebook as the S&M stem I bought was too long.

The frame is looking really dirty as I took the bike in to be worked on after doing gates on the Saturday and didn't have time to wash it.

The wheels are Onyx hubs with Box Focus 24x1.75 rims with black spokes, Crupi 24 tooth rear cog and Maxxis DTH 24x.1.75 tyres.

I also swapped out the Shimano bottom bracket that came with the frame for a Chris King bottom bracket that comes with a 5 year guarantee and the grease can be changed. I also bought a Sinz hollow pin stem and a shimano DXR left handed break lever to swap the right handed one that was on the bike,

I have left my old wheels with tyres and tubes so that I can use them for training on with the profile freewheel that I have at the moment although if I stick with the 37x16 gearing I will need to sell it and get a 16 tooth profile freewheel.

Bike Update

I have been riding both my bikes and I am liking the S&M speedwagon the best out of the 2 bikes. I have decided that I am going to keep the S&M and sell the DK as I have just bought a new wheel set for the speedwagon with Onxy Racing Ultra Hubs which are being built up at the moment at Crucial BMX. I have also swapped over the 180mm drx cranks from the DK to the Speedwagon and I am changing the gearing from 36 - 16 back to 41-18. I also swapped over the stem and S7M bruiser bars from the DK to the S7M and swapped the Crupi stem for a second hand S&M stem that I picked up off of facebook.

While the Speedwagon was in the shop I decided to swap the bottom bracket for a Chris King bottom bracket and also a new sinz hollow pin chain as the old chain was too short for the new gearing. I am also taking the profile elite freewheel off of the dk and putting it on my old wheels so that I can use the old wheels for training and going to pump tracks and the new wheels for racing and gates. I also bought a new left handed shimano drx left handed lever to swap for the right handed one I have at the moment as I prefer the break on the left hand side rather than the right.

Hopefully the bike will be ready tomorrow or Friday so that I can have a little play at gates on Saturday but I still can't do too much as my collar bone is still playing up which is annoying as there is a race at our local track that I will miss!

Still I am hoping that I can be ready to ride at the next winter series race in Bristol on 4th December. I am going to start riding my mountain bike tomorrow to try and get some weight off for the race as I am back up to 95KG's!!!!

Next week I also hope to start sprint training at least twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday nights which should help shift the weight as well.

Bored

Getting bored of recuperating. I still have 3 weeks until I can get back to proper exercise a racing.

I have been riding my mountain bike and last week I did 2 20 mile rides although my legs are really hurting still.

I have decided that I am going to sell the DK and keep the Speedwagon and use the money from the DK to buy a set of race wheels with onyx hubs. I am going to use the wheels that I have as my training wheels with my profile freewheel. All I have to do now is swap all the bits off the DK onto the Speedwagon.

I already have a couple of people interested in the DK so once all the bits are swapped over I will give them a shot.

Also at the weekend I got a second hand S&M stem off of the internet which should be here in the next couple of days.

I will upload some pictures once the Speedwagon is all in one piece.

Back at last

Haven't had anything to report for a while as my collar bone hasn't been healing very well! I got the all clear from the Doctor on thursday and I have just 4 weeks left until I can start bmxing again.

Last month I also got my new bike built up. It is really nice although I have only been able to ride it to and from work and I did some gates with it last saturday.

Here are a few photos from the day I picked it up from Crucial: