Battle On The Beach 2018

Here we go again, a trip down to South Wales for some Fatbike action. A day at Bike Park Wales followed by an epic race with the modest title of“Battle on The Beach” at Pembrey.

BOTB is a chilled out affair consisting of over a 1,000 riders and 100 fatbikes all ready for some fun, along with a handful of serious ones all chasing the coveted title of BOTB champion.

As the final whistle went we were off, most of us pushing through the sand for the first 100 yards until the congestion cleared. There were hundreds of riders in front on fast bikes and then there wasme on my Sonder Vir Fortis Fatbike. I knew that on lap one I would get stuck in the congestion as we left the beach and it turned into sandy singletrack. Not only did I stop, but I even had time to eat and hand out Swedish fish and take a load of photos too. After what seemed to be around 10 minutes of waiting for riders to get through the narrow track, Ipressed on only being passed by a few, better riders although still not really being passed by many fatbikers. I returned for Lap 2 and now had my own space with the best bit of riding down the beach with a tailwind.  I pedalled hard and felt ok so I kept on riding, determined to improve on last year’s time. Lap 2 was now over and I entered the final lap with some tiredness in the legs, after all with doing the 30DaysofBiking challenge in April it seemed like I hadn’t stopped riding since late March. The love of riding a fatbike on a course like this is hard to explain unless you have done it.  During the final lap the heavens opened and I was pushing hard to achieve my goal of under 2 hours. The rain was heavy and the course was now wet and I was soaked. One more bike passed me on the final stretch, a 5 inch fatbike, (nice one dude) and I could see the finish line. My final time of 2hrs 4mins was where I completed the race.  This was much faster than last year’s time of 2hrs 40mins. I came 28th out of 100 fatbikes so I was happy with that.