Nice bike mate  I've started building up an xc bike out of old bits ive got lying around (four year old hardtail gt avalanche frame with undamped 04 boxxer races  ) so i can ride to work and do a few loops around local hills every day so I can get quicker and pedal all the way to the finish. All i'm gonna concentrate on for now is beating my mates and having fun, and see where that leads me.

ya if you try you can and you are quiting one of your jobs so you are determined i hope to see you in the top 10 by 2007

Youl well have it by the sounds of things

If you are really serious then you need to get yourself some proper coaching. 
The BC website will list coaches in your area so try and get one of them to take you on.

Doing the proper training will make even more difference than just doing your own thing.

If you want it bad enough yourll get it in the end

One thing that I don't think will ever happen is that I'll stop enjoying riding. SO many of my friends have said that they loved downhilling and their lives revolved around it, only to sell their bikes for cars when they turned seventeen, or to pay for a new wardrobe so they can go out at weekends and get pi**ed and cop rejections off fat chicks in chav nightclubs, and it totally bewilders me. Riding makes me forget about all the sh!t thats going on at home, financial problems and troubles and while im on my bike i just dont care about anything else. Like many people on this forum I guess I work my boring nine to five job during the week, just so i can get out in the mud and the wind and the rain at weekends.
I'm not sure about the bc coaching, with the rise of the nps open prices im going to be getting myself a junior race license this year, and i think thats as far as im going to go in that direction.
 Also I can see what you mean by getting sucked into the training and the race times and the competition so much that you forget why you're actually doing it, just because we love having fun on our bikes, and for me that is the fundamental element of the whole thing, one which I'm never going to forget.

Well I'm never goint to get engaged, fair enough for some people but I dont want to attach myself to a whining temperemental unstable bag of hormones for the rest of my life, Id prefer to live without having to duck and hide behind furniture once a month because my other half doesnt see the benefit of changing tyres in the living room. I plan on living with my parents until im about thirty. Do you think Steve Peat has time to worry about doing his own laundry and cooking food in his hectic training regime? Nope, and neither do I. I'd like my own place and all, But you've gotta make some sacrifices if youre heading for the top