This race was another world cup round, this time held in
France. Unlike the others practice day was on Thursday not Friday and Friday
had become Qualifying day due to the XC races being held on Saturday at the
same venue. So the DH race had nothing on Saturday and Race day was on Sunday
as usual.
This race for me didn’t go to plan. Started off with my brakes not really working, so went and saw Shimano and they looked at them and said I needed new brakes, but they couldn’t sell me any. So I started worrying about what to do and came to the conclusion that I would just run my brakes how they were if I had to. My shifter on my bike was also broken so I hung around while they replaced that and a different Shimano dude came over and said they would replace my brakes for me for free but would need my bike for 1.5 hours. Because of this I decided to go do a couple of runs first since I had only done two by this point. Did another 2 runs and they weren’t good so I gave my bike to Shimano to get my brakes sorted. I got my bike back with enough time to squeeze in one more run and found out that my front brake now did absolutely nothing. It ended up even worse than my screwed up brake that I had on before they replaced them. So in total I only did 5 practice runs on the practice day, all of which I went slow as due to being unable to stop quickly or reliably. Went and saw Shimano once again and they told me it was probably because I had a old disc and new pads on and said if it still wasn’t working after a run tomorrow to come back and they would put a new disc on and some new pads in again. After this I went and saw Fox Shoxs to get my forks serviced as there was rubbing on one of my stanchions appearing. After talking to the Fox guys earlier in the day and asking if they would be able to replace my stanchion for me it sounded like they wouldn’t as it was from a lack of service on my part. So when I got my forks back and saw that the stanchion was replaced I was pretty stoked.
After getting back to our accommodation me and hippy cleaned and scuffed up my disc and pads in hope of getting them working again. This all ended up being a waste of time as they didn’t really get any better. So come first thing in the morning when we got to the track I went and saw Shimano once again to get that new disc and pads put in before I even bothered heading up for a run. Once this was done my brakes were working better than they had been since I got over here pretty much. Managed to get in 2 practice runs before seeding which was alright, but kept braking too much and too hard. I hadn’t got used to the feeling and power of the new brakes by qualifying so new that I just had to let go as much as I dared and hoped I didn’t crash. With this mind I tried to do that but kept grabbing my brakes too early into corners and nearly went over the bars a few times from grabbing a fist load of brakes. Not exactly idea. Ended up 29th worst placing ive had so far unfortunetly. So overall I am once again not happy with my results but at least my bike is now fixed and working better now because of it. Hopefully now that I have brakes that work properly ill be able to push myself further and trust myself and bike more.
This race for me didn’t go to plan. Started off with my brakes not really working, so went and saw Shimano and they looked at them and said I needed new brakes, but they couldn’t sell me any. So I started worrying about what to do and came to the conclusion that I would just run my brakes how they were if I had to. My shifter on my bike was also broken so I hung around while they replaced that and a different Shimano dude came over and said they would replace my brakes for me for free but would need my bike for 1.5 hours. Because of this I decided to go do a couple of runs first since I had only done two by this point. Did another 2 runs and they weren’t good so I gave my bike to Shimano to get my brakes sorted. I got my bike back with enough time to squeeze in one more run and found out that my front brake now did absolutely nothing. It ended up even worse than my screwed up brake that I had on before they replaced them. So in total I only did 5 practice runs on the practice day, all of which I went slow as due to being unable to stop quickly or reliably. Went and saw Shimano once again and they told me it was probably because I had a old disc and new pads on and said if it still wasn’t working after a run tomorrow to come back and they would put a new disc on and some new pads in again. After this I went and saw Fox Shoxs to get my forks serviced as there was rubbing on one of my stanchions appearing. After talking to the Fox guys earlier in the day and asking if they would be able to replace my stanchion for me it sounded like they wouldn’t as it was from a lack of service on my part. So when I got my forks back and saw that the stanchion was replaced I was pretty stoked.
After getting back to our accommodation me and hippy cleaned and scuffed up my disc and pads in hope of getting them working again. This all ended up being a waste of time as they didn’t really get any better. So come first thing in the morning when we got to the track I went and saw Shimano once again to get that new disc and pads put in before I even bothered heading up for a run. Once this was done my brakes were working better than they had been since I got over here pretty much. Managed to get in 2 practice runs before seeding which was alright, but kept braking too much and too hard. I hadn’t got used to the feeling and power of the new brakes by qualifying so new that I just had to let go as much as I dared and hoped I didn’t crash. With this mind I tried to do that but kept grabbing my brakes too early into corners and nearly went over the bars a few times from grabbing a fist load of brakes. Not exactly idea. Ended up 29th worst placing ive had so far unfortunetly. So overall I am once again not happy with my results but at least my bike is now fixed and working better now because of it. Hopefully now that I have brakes that work properly ill be able to push myself further and trust myself and bike more.
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Sounds like your bike is all ready to role for the Worlds :D
ReplyDeleteDave