15/11/17 – I took the day off today to take my parents to the airport so I decided to make the most of the time off and went to the track for an hour this afternoon to try and blow some of the cobwebs off.
My knee was still pretty stiff and felt like it was being crushed in a vice when I was peddling so I took it easy and just did 1/2 – 3/4 speed start hills and first jump manuals just to have a play. I still didn’t get to rinde the new 3rd and 4th Straights as they were too wet and soft and I didn’t want to cut them up. I also didn’t want to mess up my knee.
19/11/17 – My knee was feeling much better so I went to the Bristol track for a bit of a play. I really did play as I was feeling a bit rough with manflu (sore throat and temperature). I am also really unfit from the 2-3 months off being broken. The maximum that I could manage was 2 straights as a time without dying so I concentrated mostly on first and second straights but mixed in a few third straights as well. Rode for about an hour and a half – 2 hours but did more talking than riding. My knee felt great so one less thing to worry about 🙂
23/11/17 – Finally starting to get over the man flu so went to Bath track today. The track was really wet and the wind was really strong so I did full speed start hill and first jump manuals with flats on. I don’t know if it is the Man Flu or the weather but I really wasn’t feeling it this morning and it felt like I was just going through the motions instead of putting any effort in to it. I really wasn’t feeling the 20″ today at all. I am going to ride the 24″ tomorrow as I am racing it on Sunday so I need to get used to it so I will see if I am feeling the 24″ more.
24/11/17 – Got up and went to Bristol Patchway track with my Yess Cruiser and did 4 pump laps as warmup and then I did 5 x final straights (5th Straights) followed by 10 x 4th and 5th Straights and then I was done. I was still feeling the effects of the Man Flu and also my knee was sore again. I decided to call it a day. On the drive home I decided to go to Bath track for a bit as I was feeling a bit better. I did 15 x First straights at full speed then called it a day. I am definately enjoying the 24″ over the 20″ so I think I will put the 20″ Yess up for sale next month once I see if the Dialled 24″ will sell or not on ebay. I will then consentrate solely on cruiser for now.
02/12/17 – did 3/4 of Ryan Stacks training session today until I blew out my good knee doing gates! The session was really good and Ryan pushed me out of my comfort zone a lot again today. I have sent things to consentrate on getting better at for next month’s training session too which will give me something to focus on. We did loads on the last 2 straights which was good as he has passed some new lines to practice.
03/12/17 – went to bath track again today for an hour as it was raining for a change and the last 2 straights were really wet again so we consentrated on the first straight for a bit. My knee felt a bit better today but I didn’t push it too much as I want to go to Bristol in the morning and do full laps on the 20″.
05/12/17 – Went to bath track again today but the track was still really wet and I wasn’t really feeling it so I went to the car park and did manuals for 30 minutes. I have decided that at least for this month I am going to stay off of the track during the week and just do manuals and pump tracks to try and get my bike skills better. I started my 30 day manual challenge today.
06/12/17 – Did my 30 minutes manual training this morning and then went to Frome pump track and concentrated on manuals and my manual form (straight arms and weight over the back of the bike) and it really worked by the end of the session I was easily manualling the first 2 doubles and was even tap manualling them without using my arms. I will do the same for this week to see how much I can improve by the end of the week.
07/12/17 – Went to the pump track again this morning and after a few pump laps I started practising manualing the first and second straights which I got pretty dialled after about 10 minutes. I then started doing these 2 straights and then doing the last 2 straights to mix it up a bit which was good. I was really aching so I stopped after 30 minutes and went back to the Bath track car park to do my 30 minutes of manual training which is getting better slowly and I have doubled the distance I was manualing from Tuesday until now. As long as I keep progressing I will be happy. My technique is definitely getting better and I am using much less arms than before.
19/12/17 – Went to the track but only had the 20″ so I didn’t do too much as I didn’t feel very comfortable on the bike. I picked up my Yess 24″ in the evening from being fixed so that I can ride it for the rest of the week.
27/12/17 – After over a week of going to the track and doing pretty much nothing and feeling like I want to sell all my bikes I did a training session with the Bath club coach (Mat Eaton) and got the love for riding back. I had been getting really down on myself as I have been riding really badly over the last couple of weeks and nothing I was doing during my training sessions was working. It didn’t help that the tracks were really wet, muddy and slow and the weather was consistently cold and crap!! I took a few days off of the bike over xmas and this seems to have helped a bunch. I got a lot out of the training yesterday, my manuals were getting a bit better, I got a bit more pop on my jumps and I found out that I am really unfit!!! I also found that I need to get back to doing sprints as I have lost a bit of pace compared to the quicker guys again! It is going to be a busy few months to get ready for the season.