03/08/18
Had my first ride of the month today but didn’t do too much as I was really tired as we got a new puppy yesterday and I only got 5 hours sleep.
I was using the dialled again and I have dropped the gearing down to 36×16 from 37×16 and I really liked it today. It felt like i was hitting the jumps much quicker than normal. I can’t wait until tomorrow for gates so that i can gauge if it is better or not when I gate against my friend Matt.
I do not have any races until the last weekend of this month when I have a National weekend in Gosport that I want to do to get some experience for doing all the nationals next year. Between then and now I need to go to the track in Gosport to get some practice and also get loads of sprints and full laps done to get my fitness up as I need to get fitter to cope with the spinnier gearing.
04/08/18
Got to gates late as I couldn’t get moving this Morning as not been sleeping too much as we have a new puppy and she need to go outside every 3 hours at the moment. Did a few warmup gates and the new gearing was really good. I then did a gate with my friend Matt and was surprised to find out that I out snapped him and was only half a bike length behind him at the first jump so all in all the new gearing seems to be working.
Unfortunately my front tyre blew up again as I got to the start hill for another gate so I had to call it a day.
05/08/18
Took the day off today as I had a course this morning and was really tired from not sleeping too much this week. I couldn’t be bothered to get new tubes for the dialled so will take a rest day today and sort out all that stuff ready to start training this week. I need to focus on doing sprints to get used to pushing the new gearing and also get my fitness up doing full laps ready to race with the new gear on Wednesday night at Bristol.
08/08/18
Got my dialled 24″ back from crucial so that I had a bike to race on at Patchway tonight. I also drilled out some 15mm chain tensioners to 20mm and dropped them off along with my Curtis to get it ready to race again as I am going to do my first national series at the end of the month at Gosport so need it working 100%.
Racing went well tonight although it was heavy going with the lack of people racing we had less than 10 minutes rest between Motos. I loved the new gearing out of the gate and I won my first 2 Motos easily. I took it easy in the last Moto and pumped around for a 3rd. By the second Moto my legs were really heavy which is why I took it easy in the 3rd Moto.
My legs were still rough when we went to the pens for the final but I got a really good start and was wining but ran out of legs on the 3rd straight and go overtaken on the last straight and lost a place. Still not a bad first outing on the new gearing.
13/08/18
Haven’t ridden or done any real exercise since last Wednesday when I raced at Bristol. This is mainly due to having the puppy and my son at home so not able to do too much. I got my Curtis back from Crucial at the weekend and it is ready to race. I am not going to ride it just yet as I want to keep it ready for the Gosport National on the weekend of 25th and 26th of this month. I signed up tonight so i have to do it now and will now have something to train for.
I am going to try and get to the Gosport track sometime this week and hopefully over the weekend as well and also maybe once or twice the week before the race to try and get at least a bit comfortable with the track as I will not be able to make the Friday night or Saturday practice as I am working lates and will finish at 2am the night before the Saturday race.
I have loaded the dialled into the car ready to go in the morning when I get up unless the puppy wakes me up at 4am like it did this morning then I will lunch it out and go to Bath to get some laps in instead.
14/08/18
Didn’t get a chance to ride again today as I was tired after getting in late from work so slept in until about 11:30am. I then had to mop the kitchen to try and stop the puppy from peeing everywhere. It was then lunch time and once i had got showered and changed I had to go shopping and then it was pretty much time to work again.
I have decided to go to Gosport tomorrow morning as there are no organized club events on and also Saturday morning for gate practice. Also Decoy track is open on Thursday from 10-13:00 so I may pop down there to get some practice on the 5m Start hill.
15/08/18
This morning didn’t go as planned woke up at 7am feeling really tired due to 4 hours sleep and decided it was best not to drive 2hours to Gosport so went back to bed for a bit and then went to Bath.
Took my Curtis as it had new S&M 29er 5″ rise bars on it last week and I wanted to try it out. It also had new chain tensioners put on it and a new 36 tooth rennan chainring so wanted to make sure that the bike was feeling good.
As it turned out it was the best it has ever been and I really enjoyed riding it. It manualed amazingly and I was able to manual both jumps on the first straight at top speed and smoothly.
I did about 20 first straight and then called it a day as I was feeling a bit spacey from lack of sleep.
Tomorrow I am going to do some down hill sprints in the morning to try and get my leg speed better for the regional next weekend. I am loving the 36*16 gearing and just need to work on my endurance so I plan to do long downhill sprints as there is a pretty long downhill with a big run off near my house that I want to try. I think the hill is pretty much 3-400m so if I can sprint the entire hill it will be about the same distance as a BMX track.
18/08/18
Got up really early and went to Torbay to get some practice in ready for the regional in 2 weekends time. Got a lot done and loving the gate so hopefully I can do a bit better than I have done in the last couple of regionals.
I have also registered for the Gosport Regional next weekend so I can’t get out of it now.
20/08/18
Got up at 5:30 am and drove to Gosport and did 2 hours of first straight practice ready for the National on Saturday. Felt really good and liked the track. Having issues with my bike still though. The bearings in the wheels are seized so it feels like the brake is on then the bearings give a crack and they are normal for a bit before they get hard again.
As this will be my first National and there are 23 people in my age group I need to get this sorted as I will struggle to make the B final as it is. I am going to remove the bearings tomorrow and try and get some replacements before the weekend. I also ad to buy a new number plate as for some reason Britich Cycling decided we need to have whit numbers on a red background and I couldn’t find any white numbers online!!
Luckily Big Daddy Plates are sorting me out a plate that is being sent tomorrow so I will have it in time for the race on Saturday.
21/08/18
Met up with my friend Jamie and his boys after lunch at Bath track to have a play. Had a good session doing first straights and the tabletop on the start of the second straight. Rode for about an hour and a half and then I lost one of the screws on my cleat and got my shoe stuck on the peddle again!!
25/08/18
Got up at 5 and drove to Gosport for my first ever BMX National race. Got down there really quickly and had loads of time to spare to get registered before practice. Practice went quickly with one warmup lap and then 2 gates and that was the practice session over.
Got lucky in my first moto as 2 of the faster guys took each other out down the 3rd straight so I sneaked into 3rd for a bit but lost a place in the last berm as I left the door open and got pushed up the berm. Still can’t complain with a 4th in my first ever National moto. The Second moto was a bit harder but I managed to get a 5th then the 3rd moto was really hard and I got left behind and pumped around in 7th place. Surprisingly I managed to get the last place in the Semi’s and did OK to stay with the slower riders but finished last. In the final someone went down again so I managed a 7th 🙂 but I was on the wheel of the guys in 5th and 6th so not too bad.
Here is a video of my 2nd moto:
26/08/18
Woke up with a bad back so decided not to race on the Sunday as the weather was really bad and I wanted to get my back better by next weekend for the last SW Regional of the year in Torbay.
I have been reflecting on what I need to do and I need to get 1/2-3/4 of a straight faster for next season and improve my gates by a couple of bike lengths to be up with the faster guys. A lot to do but I think I can do it if I train hard and put the effort in.
The most important thing to do before I start training hard is to get my hamstring flexibility better. I also need to drop weight again as my weight has crept up again over the last few months so I need to get a hold of this. I am then going to start in the gym and doing sprints and track work to work on the speed.
27/08/18
The back is getting better but is still sore but it was good enough to take my puppy for a short walk this morning when she woke up just to try and ease the back pain.
I have now started doing lying hamstring stretched with a band holding the stretch for 3 minutes each leg. I did this this morning and the difference in the back pain was amazing!! I am planning to keep doing this every morning and night to try and resolve the issues that I have in my back and knees due to tight hamstrings.
I have been thinking about my training this winter and I think I need to do a month of intense cardio to get rid of the pode and drop as much weight as possible before starting BMX specific training. I am going to start hitting the exercise bike for an hour a day starting tomorrow and see how much weight I can drop by the start of October. I also want to start doing sprints a couple of times a week starting in September after the season is over then in October start doing more weight training and track work once I am used to the increased work load.