Nick Popham took the trip to wales to race the Battle of the beach , The UK's most unique cycling event - open to all bikes , Each lap is roughly 4km on the beach (all hard sand)
4km singletrack, 4km doubletrack or forest road
http://www.battleonthebeach.co.uk
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| Nick testing the cx bike out on the beach |
So the plan was set , we traveled down on the Saturday morning early after my son Alex kindly gave me cold on the Friday so I knew it would be a challenge and I've done a fair few cross races under the weather so game on still, one thing I try and teach my son Josh is never back down from a event .
Saturday morning the buzz of racing was in the air by 11 am the caravan was set up which was made easy with our transporter , less stress packed with 4 dogs 3 kids and packed with bikes my Cannondale team f29er XTR 1/11 and 1 Cannondale SuperX ultimate Sram CX1 , 3 pm the sun was out what a hot day it was , Josh and I made our way round the course testing our 29er's vs cross which was faster on the beach and the CX seemed good on the woodland trails. And as this race is open to all bikes I had to choose which bike to race on .
The morning of the race was cold and brought frozen landscape but by 10 am it was heating up nicely, josh was racing the 29er at 10.30 , He had a good start to his race and he was flying till he came into the pits with a broken Xtr lever broke , So he took my cross bike !, and won with 2 and a half laps !.
The main race briefing was at 11.15 then it was down to the beach for 12 pm with my cross bike .
The gun went on time and my plan went well from the front line to go out further towards the sea and then turn and go like the wind ! Then before I knew it 599 riders were behind me and some there is some great video on the battle of the beach site of of me in slow motion leading on my cross followed by 100's on there 29ers and cross bikes ! game face was on 6 k later we left the beach behind the main Belgian group.
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| Leading the main pack |
Gravel roadway led to fast single track my group were just behind the front group of riders , going through the arena someone had switched the sign so loads of us took a detour and soon got to the road then the beach again and I was able to get tucked in behind the same guy for laps 2/3 which was great due to horrible head wind .
On the last lap I took a wrong line and managed to do a full 360 buckling my front wheel but I carried on and got 15 in vet , Great event one that I would do again
Nick Popham
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