Number plates

I can just see it now... "who's is that number plate? Its dead hard to read"
"its 110, thats Anthony Ives"
"ok, lets get him over and tell him because he's followed the rules and used big numbers that are a bit close it hurts my eyes." Gotta love it, ha. I'm pretty sure I heard Kelv gettin told off too, ha. The other good thing about number plates; just ordered 6 from mark at grooveracingshop.co.uk, for the Manx Champs which are happening this weekend, each catagory winner will get a #1 plate instead of trophies, cos lets face it, my shelves are getting slightly full ha. Cheers mark.

But back to the weekend, Thursday night I went out with everyone from back home before some of them went back to uni. Shauns back off to Leeds and Scott back to the Burgh, as well as other assorted locals town is gonna get very quiet in the next couple of weeks. So got back home about 11, got packed, went back out to nightlife to pick up my wages and finally hit the pillow at 2am, up at 0530 to make the boat and I was shattered. Met up with mum in Liverpool to do some shopping for work clothes and spend quality family time, I dont get to see mum enough so have to make the most of it when we're both at a loose end, plus it was her wallet that was out not mine. Went up to gates with mum at Coppull and rode, alot, being at home is great but boy my riding suffers. It takes about 20 laps to get confident to start to take off rather than 2. The track was riding sweet and I had a bed at Hotel Sutty for the weekend, whilst drifting off on Friday night I'd never have thought that I would be this close to a national win.

Saturday went good, moto's where ok and my 1st straight was keeping me in cruiser, a 2.2. in the 1st 2 moto's was ok, a bit of shoulder action with Kieron in the 3rd and an off and 5th left me with 7th pick for the main and an ice pack on my wrist. Gate 8 was open and to be honest I was counting my blessings, its way better than being on the outside. Snap, pull, power, next thing I know and everyones gone wide round the 1st corner and I'm side my side with Josh over the 3rd in joint 1st, he boomed the big step up and I couldn't get any pump off the downside, followed him round the 90 right and went up the inside to make the move, it didn't pay and left me too far back to compete for 1st in chaos corner. I quality race though, and fair play to Josh, the fastest cruiser yowth when he wants to be.

It was great staying with Roy and Co for the weekend, its such a relaxed vibe and a nice place to be, Shea is the best, always smilling and even helped me clean my ride on Saturday night. Jacob is the most modest British Champion ever even if he made me clean his bike too. The head of the house is obviously Dianne, ha, cheers for letting me stay. Sutty, well done on Sunday man, and cheers for everything, that girl in Liverpool wanted me and you know it.

Sunday wasn't so great at the track though, I had a big off in my 1st 19+ moto leaving me limping and with a huge need for a new set of race pants (thanks mum). So with the tags still hanging off my ass it was straight back up for cruiser, I only really wanted to qualify for the main so was just chilling, 3rd moto I put OJ off at chaos corner, sorry bud, couldn't resisit. Main time and I snapped ok, again from 8 but it didnt quite go the same, I got caught up in the bunch and was really hurting so ended up 6th and started shouting my mouth off over the finish line as Kieron had won, If you wanna read more on that its the last 2 paragraphs.

So I had a great weekend, thanks to Gav at bikevideos.co.uk for putting the 3 most important finals up first on Saturday night, cheers to Rich and Scott for the best comentary (you 2 on the mic are an unbeatable combination), thanks to the NEBMX crew for looking after my mum, she loved it, Reidy, cheers for letting me have a blast on the Dolan, rode sweet, cant wait till I get mine ;) and again, thanks to the Sutty's.

So see ya'll at Preston, I've got some fun to have.

So the controversy on Sunday regarding me and my big mouth, during one of my cruiser moto's I thought I'd heard Kieron's shifter working overtime, after hearing from a "reliable source" that his shifter didnt work I didn't think anything of it untill Dan P said he'd heard it too, so I went and asked Kieron was he shifting, he said yer! Whats he playin at? For one, he really needs to start hitting gates if he's using different gears for the start hill and the rest of the track if he's still getting pulled. The way I see it, no matter how close his bike is to a cruiser; 24" wheels, his "forks were pretty much locked out" and whether he's shifting or not, its still not a cruiser, its a mountain bike! My mates have seen pictures of Kieron racing before and think its wack, "what a 4Xer doing at a BMX race?" and these guys ride, let alone trying to explain it to the girls that dont understand the difference between BMX and downhill, "but its just riding bikes isn't it?" Yer it is, and I've never complained at regional level before, or even been that bothered when he's turned up at nationals, because I was under the impression that the reason he wasn't buying a cruiser was because he has no money, so assumed (yer i know, assumption is the mother of all fcuk ups) that he wasn't going to follow the national circus around, its an expensive game and all.

But now he can get a ranking and will probably push people who have supported the series all year round (OJ and Twarn) down a ranking place I think something needs saying. I'm pretty gutted for OJ to be honest, he's in 9th spot and needs a good result to move up to 8th otherwise he wont get anything to show for this year. Even if not OJ, there are 8 BMXers who've qualified for an end of year trophy, one of which wont get one because of Kieron. Anyhow, I was pissed cos he won, and I told him, better that than be one of these people that says stuff about people rather than too them. I'll be e-mailing the commission after Preston asking for a rule change, BMX should be looking forward and at a national level shouldn't want to rely on mtb's.

Written On Friday

Ok so, all the pictures are sideways, yer i know, i've been on the picasa website and tried to rotate them but it aint having any of it, just at hotel sutty and loving it, expect that write up another time, and i'll sort it out tomorrow, but for now if you recon your neck can take it, tilt to the right, and this is where i was at on friday...

You're Freakin Me Out, You Wore A Mask Called Counterfit

So went for the interview for this job as ESO at QEII yesterday, all tarted up n lookin pretty slick, i'm pretty young and inexperienced at this whole interview lark, never mind looking after kids with autism so knew I had it against me. Walked in, and was so nervous, they picked up on it straight away, "dont worry, we're not looking to trip you up". It was my first interview for a proper job so had nothing to gauge it against, it went ok I guess. They pointed out that my CV was written pretty badly but full of so much quality content that they couldn't pass me up and wanted to get me in to see if I could put what was on the paper into what they where looking for in the role. Loads of challenging questions and me being conscious of talking too much, it went ok. I headed over to Douglas to catch up with Charlotte who's just got back from the states, waited around all afternoon with her n Becky, nervously for the phone call, I only went and bloody got the job. So chuffed its mental, so now I've gotta wait for all the paper work to be sorted and I start in a couple of weeks. So yer, I'm 1:1 on the interview to job ratio scale, wooop.

In other news, its ERA this weekend, I think, there is stuff on the website but not much talk of it anywhere else. From the looks of it its part of a bike festival in Kingston Canada, in my eye's the way elite racing should be to get it to the masses. Go211 dont seem to be covering it, so I guess we'll have to find the video's next week. For more, obviously head over to BMXtalk to hear all the latest bull and e-heroes opinions. oooo I sound so bitter, but seriously, this event looks awesome with some great riders rumoured to be going, can Clayton still pull? His names not on any rider list I can find, but he's still Doc Smooth right? Well Cisar is gonna be there and that boy has mad skills.

Can't wait for Coppull, I know i'm not riding great but its just being there, I'm gonna love it, can go for a coffee with John B and watch some quality racing. Just been looking at Abi's pics and the track looks to be running smooth, cant find any video though so lets see how that last straight works, I've heard things but havent got any closer than the title pic, looks shrweet though. So the question is... One footer or about to fall off mate?

Its raining here, had 50 tonnes of dirt dropped at the track on wednesday and its gotta be dry before we can do anything with it, sad face. Big downhill race on sunday, no doubt i'll post pics. l8rs

From bad to worse... NOT

Just a quick one, I'm up at scotts watchin mtb DVDs, I've had loads of thoughts for my caddy but dont have one, which sucks. On the top of my head is that I've gone from being a no hoper uni drop out to, Junior Cycling Development Officer for the island and I've got an interview tomorrow for an Education Support role at QEII high school, seriously, I'd be soooo happy if I got it. all my worries would be gone. But dont wanna jinx myself so not gonna say too much, talking of jinx though, one of the favours i'm doing for mum this week is looking after one of her friends who's on holidays kitten, called jinx, how do i get roped into this stuff?

But on the bad side, mum went away for 2 weeks today on the 3 o'clock boat, I get a phone call at 1 from her whilst I'm at work; "can I borrow your car?" It appears that the gearbox has fallen out of the megan, a four day turn around and about £1200, so after abit of panic she did the sensible thing, and bought another car, yer thats 5 cars between the 3 of us now. WTF? I guess we'll sort it out when she's back. So other things on the list of stuff i'm doing for mum include, looking after her 2 dogs for the full 2 weeks, looking after someone else's dog this weekend :S sorting her horses for a couple of days, taking her boss out to the horses to make sure she is capable of riding, oh yer, and looking after this kitten.

Coaches night out was last friday, had a laugh with the guys, not many people turned up though, spent saturday recovering from a mammoth hangover and then worked till 4 at shiters, got covered in blue stuff as there where smurfs out for a mates birthday, and some 35 year old bird would not leave me alone, plus a girl i got with a couple of weeks ago was all "why havent you called?" its this small pond, i cant escape. This sunday coming is the Isle of Man Downhill national so I'm gonna go and marshal for scott and watch some mint racing apparently, they've built the course especially for the race so it should be a good one.

Anyhow, I've gotta go cram for my interview, anyone know anythin about ASD's?

I need a writers caddy

That’s right, you read the title correctly, I’m after a pen fairy to follow me round with a selection of fine biro’s and such so when I have an idea I can write it down. You know when so much goes on in your head you forget most of it, that’s exactly the problem I have, or maybe the blessing? Is it that I forget most of it because its utter garbage? Well to a couple of those things I’ve forgotten here goes;

Oggy, if my memory serves me correctly I didn’t put you on my list of people to thank a few weeks ago, or maybe I did, but I’m currently on the floating slave ship from Liverpool to the rock with no internet access so who knows, but if not here’s a special shout out to the legend himself. I still remember 3 years ago when I rocked up at Bradford for gates and you where there, it was crazy. I’d looked up to you for years; even sold my soul to get a 24/7 Oggy Special 4X bike for Christmas and ended up with a DDG shooter instead, apparently my soul wasn’t worth that much. It was like meeting David Beckham or some other generic icon type guy, except you are the real deal, and a couple of years later a true friend, cheers for everything dude. Or maybe I did mention you before and that was just a pointless rant, see, I need some sort of magical help.

The brits, again. Farran, dude your pull this weekend was great, but every time you get on the track I worry your gonna do something stupid. This weekend you held you own man, that move in the final was great, showed full on composure. Great racing bruv. Nate, you where the under-dogg (sorry) for sure in that run off but again made it count, great move man, the crowd loved it, n it’s good to see you in an elite main. There’s a load more but I’ve forgotten, ha.

I’m still gutted for Jordan Perry, and pissed off at the same time, I haven’t seen any video but I’m convinced the result should stand, like I said before, if we’re gonna DQ people for making moves, especially when they are blatantly faster on certain sections, then we’re gonna get the follow the leader style racing that no-one wants. On the plus side, you can definitely tell he’s been attending some route55 one to ones.

Oooooo another thing, John Butterfield, thanks for the call today, It’s nice to know you check wan.com, even if today was the first time, ha. Again, you’re up there with Oggy, maybe not in the “wow aren’t you ....?” but for sure in the friends I’m gonna miss category. Ok so there are quite a few of you, but you’re a special bunch, remember that. Yer even you Owen, and I’m gonna try and get back soon.

Next questions, who’s going pro next year? Which pro’s are gonna call it a day? Will any pro’s hit up the Manchester SX pro line? How will the 16 year old Talent Team guys get on in Junior? Oh hang on, there are still 3 races to go, this is strange, the brits is normally where all the fun stops and the winter begins so all these stupid questions get brought up to make those early nights pass by faster. Only one question then... Will BC allow Tambo to go pro at Coppull and keep his junior points now he has the title all sewn up? I don’t think so, but they should!

P.S. just spell checked this and Microsoft wants me to replace Oggy with Orgy, hope that made you smile if nothing else has.

P.P.S. just checked my Lets Not Forget post, yer i thanked Oggy, oh well, count yourself twice as lucky mate.