Sunday 27th April 2025 This morning I went to the track at about 8 am and did a power hour on the Black Market Contraband 24″ and tested out the lower travel forks that I got back from TF-Tuned and I have to say they were so good that I didn’t get over 3/4 of the travel even with some pretty hard landings and after a bit I forgot that they were even suspension forks as the bike felt like a BMX Cruiser 🙂 To say that I am happy with them is an understatement. I will swap the bars for my higher rise BMX style ones as the bars are too low and my back started to hurt after a bit due to the low bars! Monday 28th April 2025 This morning while I was at the office the Parcel Force driver delivered the Onyx 16t steel sprocket for my Onyx wheels and I have just fitted to to the wheel, pumped up the tyre as it was really flat as it had a Tubolito tube which loses air anyway and hasn’t been used for months as I have had the Profile Elite wheel on there instead while the weather was bad! I then put the wheel back on the Curtis ready for sprints tomorrow and gates on Wednesday. I decided to leave the 36 x 16 gearing on the bike this week to see if there was any difference in gate times at Andover on Wednesday compared to the Profile Elite wheel last week and then I may change the gearing to 37 x 16 after Wednesday to see how that goes! This evening when I am on call I will swap out the bars on the Black Market as planned to make the front slightly higher. Tuesday 29th April 2025 At about 13:00 when I finished work I got ready and loaded the Curtis into the car and drove to the track. I got the measuring wheel out and marked a 25 m line and then tried setting up the skilz timing system up but again I couldn’t get it to work so I gave up and raw dogged my sprints instead as the kids would say! I got 12 x 25m sprints in with right foot forward for all of them. Once I finished the sprints I tried to ride the track but my ankle was really sore as I had twisted it walking to the office on Monday. So i aired on the side of caution and called it a day and headed up and put my feet up for the rest of the day! Wednesday 30th April 2025 I worked from my parents house again after lunch and went over to my friends house and then he drove us to Andover and we did gates in the sun for once which was amazing 🙂 I had a really good session and managed to get a pb of 2.496 seconds on 16th and final gate of the evening. I had a lot of times way better than last week so the Onyx hub is definitely faster than the Profile Elite wheel. My time was 0.047 seconds better than my previous pb which is a fair bit really and there was definitely no wind today so it was a true pb.  
I also gave the Skilz timing system to my friends kids to try and get them to get more interested in sprints as well! Tomorrow I will swap my gearing out for a 37 x 16 and fit a new chain as well and see if that is better next week. Thursday 1st May 2025 This morning I got up at 6 am and walked into the office with the 9 kg weight in my rucksack and I felt pretty good to be honest! I then worked until 13:00 and walked home again which was a bit of a struggle as I hadn’t eaten since about 3 pm the day before and had done a lot of exercise. When I got home I made bacon and eggs and then had a nap before going back to work until 4 pm. After work I got ready and then went to the track for 17:45 and set up the gate and got ready for the gates session. I did a bunch of gates but I was really sore from the weeks exertion but it was a fun session. I also marked a 50 m sprint line so that I can got to the track first thing and get some 50 m sprints in before work in the morning! I was planning to do weights tomorrow morning but I think that I am better off getting a second sprints session in this week and leaving the gym until next week as its a bank holiday on Monday anyway so I will have time to go to the gym first thing and figure out how much time it will take to walk there work out and walk home again before work. I then packed up and went home and had an Epsom salts bath to try and get rid of some of my soreness! By the time that I was out of the bath I was on just over 17000 steps for the day which is really good especially as about 8000 of the steps were weighted 🙂
Saturday 3rd May 2025
Weight = 103.7 kgs
Steps =
So due to the heavy day yesterday and the late night I disabled my alarm and woke up when I woke up and that turned out to be 7:30 am so not too late. I did my weigh-in and was up 0.2 kgs to 103.7 kgs so still 013 kgs so not a big deal and I didn’t walk much at all so not bad!
At about 8:30 I talked myself into getting out of bed doom scrolling and got dressed, loaded the Curtis in the car and went and did sprints as I didn’t get to do my 2nd sprint session of the week yesterday! I did a pump lap to start and then cracked on with 6 x 25 m sprints with 3 minutes rest followed by 6 x 50 m sprints with 3 minute rest in between. I then did about 5 slowish 3rd and 4th straights to finish off working on slower, smoother manuals then i called it a day and headed home feeling proud of myself for getting a full week of practice in.
I noticed that on the 50 m sprints I started to lock into the attack position with tight abs which I haven’t done for years so that is a massive step forwards I think. Going forwards I will do 2 sessions of the same distances that I did today as it seems to be more effective than doing 25 m sprints one day and 50 m sprints the next session as I was planning. I am also going to reverse the sprint direction again and run off into the track instead of down the path as it its way too dangerous to do spring that way during the week. Plus you can do a pump lap after the sprint to work on track skills too 🙂 I am still amazed at how quickly my fitness has come back now that I am eating cleaner and the fasting sorted out my asthma 🙂 I have also dropped about 1 stone in just 18 days too!Â
I am about to build up the Dialled as my big tyre pump track bike so that I can try it out tomorrow morning first thing at Little Stoke and probably Patchway too.Â
The Bike looks mint and I can’t wait to test it out tomorrow morning! I am still debating if I should put the Dialled stickers on it or keep them for later. Its probably better to leave it unbranded for riding at the pump track anyway.Â
