All exposure is good PR

Yesterday I was just flickin around on facebook when Shaun "the machine" Kelly posts this on my wall;

Juan Watney is the Ramsey kids hero! Forget the power rangers, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney. A bloke for ramsey riding a kids 20" wheel bike, is the main man! Legend!

Yer, I was as confused as you are, it turns out that in one of the Papers over here (The Isle of Man Examiner if you want a copy) has an article in, oh my god your not ready for this, im sat here chuckling to myself, are you sitting down?...

Tribute to BMX hero Juan

I was in stiches, so from now on, I shall be refered to as Hero, and will not be answering to any other names. Once you've stopped laughing I guess this is a great thing for BMX over here. The club get a couple of paragraphs in the Manx Independant everyweek to print the results from the previous Sundays racing but normally due to so much going on on the rock are hard pushed to get stuff in.

The way I see it, getting people into BMX is all about good PR, the Olympics was great for us as a sport but now we need to jump on it and work hard to get people in. Over the next 6 months I'm gonna be so pro-active and in everyones face they'll be sick of me, but they'll be talking BMX, riding BMX and hopefully racing too. Anyhow just thought I'd let you all see what made me laugh.

5000+

It's just another Sunday night after a national, isn't it? Ok so 1st things 1st, this time for the 2nd race running I haven't been camping, I've been stopping with Sutty and Sweep at Hoops HQ. These guys have helped me so much over this season and for nothin more than the thanks I can give them, so once more, I know its not much but thank you. Ooooooh its the end of the season, maybe a list of thank you's is in order... Maybe later. Anywho, on Thursday, after squeezing 2 full race bikes, and other assorted crap into a singular bike bag and heading over to Leeds for some night time entertainment (make of that what you will) and Friday Morning I trained it over to Warrington to meet up with Mr Hoops and check out his new Vito, the BMX motor of choice, I'm sure you'll read all aboot it over at sutty.blogspot.com.

So after not really getting a gate practice at home since Coppull Friday was a pretty slow start for me. You know, things take time to get fine tuned and I know how to take a Friday gate session, loosen up and just let it happen. Having wannabe coaches left right and centre telling you your gates are wack and "do this," "do that," doesn't help, I'm sure its meant in the nicest way but its ridiculous, everyone's an expert you know? And especially as I've never been down to EIS, or done gate analysis, or planned a disertation on it, lucky these people are here to tell me drive forward and not pull up so much.

Saturday went ok, got a 3. 3. in my moto's but wasn't as clear of the gate as normal so was getting abit of elbow bashing down the 1st straight. but 2 moto's, whats the theory? Don't have all 3 on the Saturday because then you'll only have semi's and final's on Sunday and that wouldn't be good for spectators. Or was it, don't have all 3 moto's on Saturday because people who're out will go home and not stop the night? Whatever the thinking is Saturday seemed like an absolute non-event to me, after my 2nd 19+ moto I was ready for a lunch and a drinks break, not to go home.

Sunday and it was all or nothing, 1st lap I noticed that my knee's where pretty sore but guessed that a warm up and a few more laps would sort that, so 1 lap, then another, 5 laps later I limped off to the sidelines to contemplate what the hell I was gonna do, I could hardly clip in with my right leg, let alone snap on it. I needed a 6th to be on 12 points and go through to the main, I snapped, my head was telling my leg to push and some other useless part of me was saying "woah now, that hurts, stop it!" So last to the 10 meter line, 7th to the 1st corner and the sketchiest lap of the season, pinched 4th down the lat straight and got 4th pick for the main. Rode my bike over to Mid Lancs tent, put it down, went n got some grub.

Bumbled about abit, did some stuff, and hour went past and it was main time, got my ride, headed to the pens, watered the bushes, watched TJ nose everything and come out ok, watched Sharpy try and get some of the action only to eat dirt big time, check it. Kieron went 2, Issit 3, Dan P 4, leaving 1 or 5, now lets be serious, that's the easiest choice I've ever made, "gate 1 cheers berni" sniggering to myself. Sat on the gate was the most perfect I've ever felt come national time, I wasn't nervous or putting stupid idea's through my head, just chilled enough to do well, "ok riders... Watch the lights." long pause, snap. huh? I haven't got my finger on the brake, errrrrrrrrrrrr. "It looks like Wans got a mechanical" (vernon kay in the background) Yer weekend over, my chain tensioner is hangin off and my wheels sideways rubbing against the chainstay, I watched the race from the finish line, Kieron won his 1st race on a cruiser, and looked rad, #1 next year if he races, no doubt in my mind. Dan H got 2nd n bagged the title so well done to them both. It still worries me how loose a 15mm spanner nut on a back wheel can get in an hour though, you know?

The only way the day could get worse is if Jacob could mess up in any slight way, the kid is amazing, so talented and handles a stack load of pressure so well. Sat up last night with the Sutton's and the calculator working out the different points scenario's; Jack Hall could win with Jacob in 2 and Jacob would still get it, anything less and things got confusing. Main time, check out bikevideos.co.uk for the video but don't expect it to be pretty, Jacob went down hard, KO'd for a couple of seconds and lay there for a good while whilst the useless "emergency responders" set about doing a shite job of sorting him out. Jacob got stretchered to the ambulance, he was battered but ok, which is such a relief, after he realised he was ok he got to realising he may have just chucked his #1 plate away, I was confident he hadn't but non of them believed me, I love being right though, and in the car there was a big trophy and a little trophy (mine) 5th overall in crowser, woop, ha, its better than last year I guess. Just sad I didn't win 1.
Wows this is going on abit, ok so there is the diaryish version, check back in the week for some pics and opinions. Oh yeah, and a big shout out to Pete Lavender, 2nd at the Brits and 8th overall in 15/16s. I can't see, I'm off to bed.

Get a hobby you can put on hold

I love my BMX, there is no better way to have no care in the world than to hit the track and just flow forget work, forget the bills, forget women, whatever your beef, just get rid of it. But there are times when riding isn't an accessible option, and times when I really can't be bothered, simple, the bike sits in the hall and I dont have to feed it, or clean it, or look after it. But horses... oh my days, mums horse went lame the other day and I spent 5 hours in the rain yesterday helping her get it into a stabble, at the end of the day, I didn't wanna be there, mum didn't want her horse to be lame so was in a bad mood and it is a costly affair, vets call out fee's alone more than most of the components on my bike. So be warned, if you dont want a high mantance hobby, avoid animals, if you want your kids to stay in a good mood, avoid emotionally blackmailing them to help you with said hobby.


So its Preston this weekend and i'm psyched, I'm not that assed about how I race, yer I wanna do well, and I know I'll get there, it'll be main time and I'll be in focused to say the least but you've just gotta go out there and ride the best you can, nothing else you can do so dont worry about it, dont get tied up on a result cos at the end of the day anything can happen, judge your performances not on where you finish but how you got there, wow, thats profound.

Went to book my ticket to head over on the boat Friday morning but it was fully booked, oops, heading over to Leeds for the night on Thursday instead which should be a laugh, infact, should be more than a laugh if I happen to bump into the right people whilst out, you get me? wooop. Its been pretty quiet back here, mums off work so I'm helpin her out with stuff, Tax forms where due in on Monday and I count get mine done so thats a £50 fine, great. Still haven't heard back from work so gonna get on the blower to them today and see what the score is with my police check, if they can hurry it up or something, that or I'm going to sign on next week, its gettins stupid.

See ya'll at the weekend, and don't forget to check out ramseybmx.blogspot.com

If I Didn't Have You

Then someone else would do... Ha, love it, watched The Secret Policemans Ball last night, as normal some of the acts where pretty good, and some where pretty standard, this one stuck in my mind as clever comody, I've seen Tim Minchin on Buzzcocks before and never really found him that funny but this is really good, check it out;



It was the last race on the rock yesterday, the new track changes are ok, still need some tweeking but the extra time I've been putting in down there seem to be working for the littluns. Wish I'd have made it to Coppull on Sunday to race in 17+, could have came 4th to Jacob, the kid is fast. But back to the rock, there is a possibility we've found some funding to buy 10 new club bikes, we've sorted a 6 race winter series out, and I had a meeting in Peel on Saturday morning with a commisioner about updating a track they used to have there. It is a U in a U single line "track". The plan is to turn it into a little 2 meter wide play track. With that we could easily stick a pro gate on a start pad and hold little dual races for the kids, it should be ace, plus its 5 minutes from my new job, so come sunny summer afternoons, i'll roll out of work, and do some gates with the locals, could be ace. BMX Isle of Man is happening.

Its Preston this weekend, the last national, rumour has it Kieron was spotted on a cruiser at Manchester on Sunday, lets hope so. I'm not expecting much, gates back home have felt poor to say the least, I'm just not feeling it, lets hope once I've got the track up to scratch I'll be re-motivated, looking at a Euro trip sometime next year with Oggy and the boys, I wonder where we'll end up.

Sorry guys, I'm feeling pretty flat at the moment, check back in the week for excitment, I promise

1 blog down, 1 to go

With all my free time I started up a blog for Ramsey BMX Club, check it! So after just writing the update for that, here is mine. Thursday night after the fun mornings building I had, Skillz, Bri, Sarah and me went down the track to have a play, you could ride around the 1st berm but it wasn't what you'd call finished, and not much had changed, the only thing really going off was the 2nd straight which hadn't been touched, it was just a case of, the weathers good, lets ride. It turned into, who can jump that with the smallest run up, so all about getting you power down, the MTB boys had a bit of an advantage over me by dropping a gear or 2 down to get spinning, but it was a laugh.

I worked nightlife on Friday night, it was dead, just over 60 people in. Got home at 4am and was at the track at 8.30. Max and I worked pretty much solidly all day untill 7 to get things finished. For more info and what have you check ramseybmx.blogspot.com, basically cos I've just written about it once, can't be bothered doing it again. Or can I? From a different perspective really, you know when you'r doing alterations at your track and all the rider muck in? Well it was like that only the kids helping weren't club members, just you're average, out for a ride in the sun kids. It was awesome, a really atmosphere and community spirit thing going down. A mum was down with her 3 and 4 year old sons and was helping chuck some surface on the double into the bomb hole, she was mega impressed with the whole set up and really keen to lend a hand, her motivation, "well everytime I come down with the lads now, they'll remember mummy building that jump." Tbh its true, when the whole community mucks in and helps out it gives them a good feeling as well as the track getting better, so watch this space for more child labour and big things from Ramsey BMX.

Got home about 7:30pm, washed, ate, got ready for work and was at Nightlife again for 10, busier night with only 3 on the bar and 250 drunks, your average Saturday really, pretty ladies to keep me entertained, and drunken yobs for me to wind up. Home at half 4 and up for 9, theres always time to sleep when I'm dead. I headed down to Arrasey plantation with Charlottes little brother to watch the Downhill race they had on, practice, 10-1, first run at 1 should have meant we could have watched the 1st run in time to get Henry to football for 2. It all got held up and we didn't get to see any flyers but it was still nice to walk to course and see a couple of people going hard at different sections. I don't even know who won, but be sure to check the forum later on if your keen to get involved with downhilling on the rock. And yes, that is the sea in the background of this pic of Bri, you don't get a view like that at many downhill tracks in the UK do you? I can think of three like that on the rock.

Managed to drop Henry off in time out at Ayre for me to make it to the track to DJ and commentate on racing, I love watching the kids ride and we've just bought a wireless mic which means I was running around the whole joint getting loud and lairy, its great to have the freedom to rome and see things from a different angle. Commenating is a nightmare though, not many of the kids ride with number plates and we dont do a copy of moto-sheets for the guy with the mic so I'm just expected to know their names, its fine with the kids that come to gates, as they're the guys who's names I know, and they're out there in front so I know to big them up, but I feel bad for the guys at the back of the younger ages, cos I have no clue what they're called. But it was fun, I rode abit in the break and launched the new jump into the bomb hole, taking it like a tripple rather than the double on top, it needs abit more tlc but should be good by next weekend.

Hit up the cinema last night to watch Tropic Thunder, took Philli just to make Scott jealous, mate, she kissed me on the cheek. After the initial, hilarity of JDjr as a black man had worn off things got a little stale and I was gettin bored, it all kicked off around half way through and did get alot better, so if you do go, fight the urge to walk out and you may enjoy it. Tom Cruise plays the money behind the film, but is so well made up I didn't realise, it was only when the credits rolled, n I was like, wtf? A couple of good one liners, and one moment where its silent and then the whole room laughs, 6/10. Wen't to the Royal afterwards to see what they've done in the re-furb, is nice, I liiiiike.

Now I'm just waiting for this stupid police check, c'mon, I'm innocent.

Oh yer, and Bloomy at Peter-bro...

Oh my days