After planning all week to race the national at Gosport on Sunday I wasn’t able to race as I had to work so I went to the local track in the afternoon for a bit of a play on my jump bike instead. I put my Pedal Innovations pedals on the bike and sorted out the back wheel as it had moved again! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a chain tensioner that would work on the dropouts as they are the tapered dropouts so need a special washer that is supposed to stop the wheel moving but doesn’t! I think that it is because I am just too heavy for them but I’m not sure!
I’m pretty sure that the Supercross chain tensioners that I have on the Curtis will work as they do not have any parts that go inside the dropouts so should be fine. I will buy some when I get paid and then the jump bike will be 100% ready to ride! I have left it in the container and brought the Dialled MX24r back as I want to get that ready to put up for sale ASAP as I need money!
As I was riding the jump bike I decided to practice my manual form by riding slower and concentrating on keeping my arms straight and getting my arse over the back wheel and it worked really well as I was starting to manual things that I usually struggle with with very little effort! As I am probably not racing again this year I have decided to really work on building my skills so riding the jump bike will on flats will help with that a lot.
As the Curtis has had a bath and polish I will only use it for gates and coaching sessions when I do them! Or if I decide I really want to ride the Curtis that day.
As the Jump bike is ready to go and is in the container along with my helmet, gloves and body armour I can not ride the e-bike up to the track in my lunch break and ride for an hour and then ride home again!
As I am way slower I plan to do 5-10 pump laps a day and then work on either Manuals or Jumping on the 3rd and 4th straights until I get better and then I can move onto the Second straight which is my weakest straight as I hardly ever ride it as 90% of the time it has a headwind which sucks! The 1st and 3rd straights normally have a tail wind so I generally ride them more although I usually ride the 1st straight the most as I am best on that straight! This is why I now plan to ride mainly 3rd and 4th straights to work on my weaker straights.
Some of my friends have progressed really quickly by riding mainly the last 2 straights as you get more jumps in a shorter distance than on the 1st and 2nd straights! Also once you have jumped the jumps on the 3rd straight the jumps on the 1st and second straights seem way less intimidating as they are bigger but pretty mellow in comparison!
I have decided to set myself the goal of Manualling all of the jumps on the 3rd and 4th straights and jumping the 2nd and 3rd jumps on the 3rd straight by the end of the month then I want to move to jumping the 1st and second jumps on the 1st straight then I will concentrate on riding the 2nd straight and start setting goals on there too!
When I am not riding at full speed I really like the jump bike its just when riding flat out or out of the gate that it feels odd! It feels really good for pumping although I keep sitting on the back wheel which I guess I will stop doing once I ride the bike more, Lets see!
I am still toying with getting another Curtis frame for xmas but I am not sure which one to get! I am flip lopping between a 24″ jump bike frame or an OS20 20″ bmx frame. At the moment I am more for the jump bike but we will see how I get on with it over the next month or so!
I need to hurry up and decide as I need to order it pretty soon to have it ready for xmas 🙂
Depending how I get on with the 26″ jump bike I may just get a 26″ Jump bike frame that is basically a scaled up version of the 24″ Cruiser that I have at the moment then it should ride the same as the BMX and I can use the Jump bike to get comfortable with jumping and on pump tracks and then Race and progress to doing the jumps on the 24″ Race Cruiser when I have them dialled in!
I am feeling a bit tired and run down today as I have a really busy weekend but I really want to start training properly so I intend to go to the track in my lunch break whether I am feeling good or not as I need to start putting in the work ready for next year! I am also falling way behind my friends as I have basically had 10 months off the bike and got really fat!