Follow the Gravity School Race Team as they attend the first camp of 2024.
Theo Goodsmith, Oscar Hakes, Nuno Reis and Rueben Taylor head out to Ventoso Gravity Park built by TrailTools.eu for a three day practice and coaching session with Jack Reading alongside one of the Gravity School coaching riders.
Making use of the downhill world cup level practice track the boys compete for glory and bragging rights using the timing system, as they prepare mentally and physically for the first race of the season on Caramulo, Portugal.
Find out how the race unfolded and what’s next for the riders as the 2024 Downhill Race season gets underway.
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Produced by Loamlife Media, official media partners for Gravity School Racing in their 2024 season.
We spent a week in Portugal filming with the guys followed by a two week editing process. We had to overcome multiple issues throughout the process, least of which was a block of missing footage from race day, and audio issues encountered throughout the week.
We took lots of fresh lessons from this as we continue a steep learning curve. We set our sights on the next race camp where we’re following Theo as he tries to follow up his podium finish in Caramulo.
00:00 Opening Title
00:46 Introduction
03:00 Ventoso Gravity Park
04:35 2024 Team Riders
06:53 Heading to the Races
07:42 Arriving at Caramulo
08:53 Practice Runs
11:46 Quali & Race Day
13:01 Finals Recap
14:51 Race Reactions
15:42 Podiums
16:17 Reflections
16:31 Jack’s Recap and Next Episode Teaser
W I mean speed is subjective right everybody’s uh going to feel different fast to one person will feel slow to another person um so the real trick is being able to make what feels fast to you one day feel slow another so you’ve progressed you’re old fast now all of a
Sudden feel slow and when you do go fast you’re faster against the clock with the the gravity school what is it you’re doing to help your Riders to go fast so the big thing with the GU is to use it as an example if I’m doing a
Follow Cam run with one of my Riders where I’ve asked them to put down their best R of the say the weekend or the two- day coaching program to them that will feel fast as to me following it it probably won’t so what I then do with
Those guys is go through the GoPro run I will have done a time as well that they can see what their time was and how it Stacks up to mine and we’ll analyze every single element of what they’re doing so that throughout the process of the coaching we’re looking at body
Position we’re looking at line Choice bike setup even things like mental approach so that when they go into that timed run at the end of the weekend they’re going to get more out of themselves than what they got before left right to get the right smooth onto
The flat section if you’ve got that in your head for the morning your first runs will be so much more productive Off the Mark whereas if you do track walk and and [Â __Â ] about and don’t remember it all yeah you come up for first run and you’re the track walks kind of redundant
You know what I mean so as you make your way down the guys are trying to find speed right that means we need to going fast and when we race in the summer we riding hopefully fast dry tracks especially if you’re racing Europe if you’re racing around the world and in
The UK with the weather we get and the tracks we have it’s difficult to do that like you you’re genuinely limited on being able to practice like that and also setting the bike up in 4° is very different to setting the bike up in 20°
Later on in the year so coming out here to to where we are and we’ve got a 3 minute long track which is fast um it’s got rough sections um it’s got high press Corners that are going to try and destabilize Riders it’s got big jumps we’ve got great weather uh it’s warmer
As you can see the track itself what is it with this track here that makes ideal for this type of training yeah so this track’s being created by Trail tools specifically for downhill trading and what I mean by that is it has variety all the way down so there isn’t really
Anything this track doesn’t have so it challenges the bike it challenges the rider it challenges the mind we’re in a very unique position where you know this is our test track we can look after it maintain it um with our partners we can build specific features for what we want
To test or if some of these guys say to us all through that section we’d like some whoops we can actually do that within days and that’s a very unique position to be in to be able to specifically create a training environment not just for the team but
Also for our gravity School riders that come out here train all right yeah so the way we run the camp is we’re at the bip par for three days track walk and two or two and a half days riding geared around racecraft so we run through a race process so essentially see simulator
Race like I’ve kind of described there um tomorrow going into today too we’ll build in towards everybody trying to put fast time down we’ve got leaderboard that um they’re all fighting to be in a certain position on them and they take that quite seriously so that’s our time
Here we then have a reset day um sometimes we do a little bit of riding on that reset day but we start to wind down by that point take the pressure back a little bit and then Friday we head on to the race venue do a track
Walk get the pits set up and we’re one team throughout the week where we’re all helping each other and working together and then again we then run through the same process that we’ve done here at ventoso Gravity Park but at the [Applause] race I’m V good Smith I’m 16 years old been racing since 20 oh no messed up I’m the good Smith I’m the goodsmith I’m 16 years old and been riding since 2022 we’re at ventoso bik Park training for the upcoming season so how how was your first day
Riding it was pretty Mega this morning first few runs sick and then I like came into the Rock Garden way too fast and got front puncture so that wasn’t very good sorted that out and then I put down a 319 then it was a 34 Jack followed me just then I did a
308 I think so bring in the time down for the first day my name is osar hes did a few World Cups last season and I’m going to be hopefully playing for a Jersey getting some more racing experience in World Cups this Year so it’s been the first full day rideing the the new track yeah so Mark’s been building some new sick BMS so we’ve been riding them all day been real sick been running real good as well yeah times are pretty good managed to get uh three or four my first full
Run listen to Jack the coach for some good tips and managed to get under 3 minutes so 259 pretty good pretty happy that time but I’m still definitely going to build on that tomorrow try and get some quicker times on That it’s really exciting we’ve obviously got the first Camp of the year but we’ve also got the first race of the year which is the Portuguese International race which is a UCI event for the it’s his first Junior race and for Oscar it’s uh first junior year two
Race so he’s Keen to really impress and then we’ve got Ruben and Nuno as well so five Rider Strong turnout for the team at this one yeah we’re all super excited it doesn’t look like we’re going to get fully dry race weekend but everybody’s fight up zi points is prize money
Bragging rights so yeah big one for the team Let’s uh we’re keen to kick things off on a high new venue excited yeah always nice to come to a new venue it’s uh been racing a long time revisit a lot of venues if you come to a new one you’ve
Always got that kind of excited feeling of what’s the track what’s the layout so we’re going to head across and sus out the bits always first job is kind of lie the land where we’re going to put the vehicles where we’re going to put the
Tents we need a spot that’s got a little bit of exposure to show off the team the Branded they also uh need to keep mindful of the weather I think it’s actually sleeping down but uh we want to be able to get the vehicles out each
That he it rains a lot so um yeah sus that out then we’re going to go for a trap walk tear the boys up onto the track look at the line have a wander up and down so yeah bit of a chill day today uh we’ll then
Load up the Vans ready for tomorrow morning and drive across nice and early tomorrow morning ready for Practice good jump do you think this uh rad gap’s going to really test you FKS and real suspension up Reuben you going test my ankles all right an Theo so first time here what you reckon looks insane yeah yeah man what’s your favorite looking part of the track probably say like the
Middle section looks like proper off camera in some places some good Corners some good insides pretty pretty sick for Jack’s most challenging section the jum the jumps J no uh probably a rock small rock garden up near the end looks pretty technical but I reckon if you can grab
The inside I think that’ll be the fastest let’s just get this in the video real quick you just got to come into this cor and go bang and you got like look at that first thing here on a Friday is the beer be van like pits
Are empty pits are empty be van yeah portal baby is yeah it is this guy in the this is like a test no no no what are you doing just signed on about to head up for practice Sick How was your first morning riding the track it was nice it was super rough muddy but yeah the track felt nice and the bike was running really good so the weather sort of held off like mid Midway through a bit of rain but tracks running up nicely
Top is really windy at the moment so it’s kind of hard to stay like get your body position right and stuff like that but other than that the whole track’s pretty pinned gas it off that this car is good little yeah this one that’s getting
A bit greasy I thought no I on this One Just finished practice track’s running sick been cutting a lot more since this morning um as you can see very very wet um yeah getting the bik CLE now now get some scre get some rest and ready for tomorrow you reckon you’re going to pull Podium for us you hopefully yeah feeling
On the bike yeah good six runs we’ve done today um I’ve just done a run with Theo he wanted me to follow him at the end so we found some some points where he can improve uh wrong gear in places so his legs are spinning too fast um couple of Corners
Is being too nice to an over breaking and then at the bottom he’s uh he’s not opening up Corners early enough so he’s losing just Corner speed so I set a time for the boys earlier and then the boys have done some runs and got a bit of an
Idea on where they are top and bottom split so we can watch them GoPros later and uh work into tomorrow going to rain tomorrow so going to be a little bit different I think I think the hardest thing is going to be Vision yeah keeping warm at the top before dropping in and
Vision is going to be the tricky part so but overall racing bikes it’s good um season is going so let’s do itol what’s happening right now bro going up the hill it’s um windy where that truck’s barely [Â __Â ] making it fun what today is it what we doing
Details I be like this is going to be this is set the T for the day so the bad tried to fly and die it’s going to be a [Â __Â ] mid one can’t sh everything’s already happened let’s get it finals time how are you feeling time indeed uh
Good to be fair apart from the weather uh pretty St for finals see what can we do yeah nice good running the last one yeah it was to be fair I caught um one person up couple of hours I can clean up but nice and how do you feel excited nervous yeah bit
Both flat [Â __Â ] where’ you get it 341 we flat dude all right so how was the race yesterday um yeah race was pretty good to be fair obviously had a bit of changing weather conditions but made it pretty tricky to ride the track but managed to take some positives out of it
And did manag Tojo myself and I was riding really good so yeah com to Sunday race day they were going to say about canceling the race so then Jack was having a few discussions with v rides and see see what they’re going to do with wether and stuff like that uh so
Coming to my quality run it was running really good halfway on track until I got flat uh rear tire I had to just roll down the track go down to the Finish had a really bad time was hoping to get it all fixed and ready for race run
Unfortunately they cancel the race and I can get a full running with a proper running bikes wasn’t ideal R was sick man right obviously the conditions are pretty narly but but really happy to come away with the third place in the under 19 SK so it’s pretty sick okay
Okay space to improve yeah over took someone but uh pretty smooth overall yes F yeah didn’t know really how to feel about the track it was uh fast but also a bit bit [Â __Â ] from uh being quite honest with it but the race overall I enjoyed it Weather Caught Us out a
Little bit but it was fun came ninth just what where I want to be at the start of the Season didn’t know how I was going to step up against people so it’s nice to find out where it be at the beginning is a decent result good week
Of uh training up to it Jack obviously and then yeah enjoyed it yeah the El got flat oh halfway down 341 he’s got how did the get 315 good l for you dude what’s that 258 you’re in first holy [Â __Â ] that was wild that was crazy like wind was predominantly behind but the
Spray um roll officer in the UK who needs him in Portugal right so I one tear off pick my moment for that like quite low down so did what I put in the conditions let’s see how Nuno gets on [Applause] understand just be Mega R like the first race of the Season shocked to be on Podium um and just all positive move Bo awesome that should be good [Â __Â ] don’t send someone else in race was good did some really good work with Theo did a room with him at
The end of practice on Saturday and coached him on some some points that he was struggling with he came third which is amazing for his first International Junior race so we’re really pleased with that and excited to see where that goes we we’ll dig deeper into the in the next
Episode and then Oscar was really lucky at a putcher um that was a shame he was on here um ruin did well top 10 first GCI points for him and Ninth um Nudo solid ride fifth um and then off ship myself I was pretty surprised to sa the
Win um should have retired years ago it feels a lot easier now so so yeah it was Oscar’s spure it was good Oscar is starting to ride a lot faster and he’s wrecking a lot of wheels so for him it’s going to be bike set up and making sure
He’s run in the right tire pressure his riding is is going really well we just need to make sure he’s getting the bike set up so that it doesn’t light him down have you got just anything else that you think could Su up the week that we’ve
Had here or yeah aming c one uh ventil gravit Park provided all the goods we needed for the coaching and training at the start of the week everybody did really well worked through their race process it was it’s a great venue for me to coach the track has every single kind
Of terrain that we need and then we moved on and had a great first race of the season for the team and obviously John was with us so yeah count one’s been amazing um season’s off and uh we’re all excited for the next one and two weeks