Battle On The Beach

Ashley Easton Reports:

Saturday 2nd April marked the first day of 2 races that made up the Battle on the Beach 2022 race weekend in Pembrey, South Wales. Waking up Saturday, with the weather looking overcast but dry and the forecast stating this would be maintained all day, plans and bike preparations were all being made in order to maximise the chances of a decent Battle in the Dark TT result.

But as should be expected by any event in the UK, the heavens opened just as members started collecting their race numbers. With people deciding to save their legs and their bikes for the main event on Sunday, the number of Welland Jerseys dropped until only one entered the start of the Nights TT. The 5.9 mile course didn’t incorporate any of the beach section, instead utilized the gravel and singletrack routes that litter the park. The darkness hiding upcoming tunnels and obstacles left over from the parks hidden past, the natures of the dunes ensuring that even with the most powerful of lights any obstacle would remain hidden until the last conceivable moment . Battle in the Dark was won by Seb Herrod of Rotor RT with a time of 22:26. Ashley Easton came in at 27:52 for 54th place out of the 175 participants.

Sunday’s Battle on the Beach was met with decent weather and great vibes. As more WVCC jerseys entered the start line the stage was set for a great race.  . The course consisted of 2 laps of an identical course of approximately 5km of beach section, 5km of singletrack, 5km of gravel section and 100 metres of soft sand (which after the first lap felt like 100kms). With the final lap utilizing a lot of the route previously used for Battle in the Dark. As soon as the race started, the pace on the beach was remarkably high which made for great excitement but also ending some peoples’ race earlier than anticipated. Trying to pick off people in the gravel sections, not getting trapped behind slower riders in the singletrack and trying to get some form of teamwork going on the open beach section made for a really interesting and unique event which I would recommend to any WVCC member. The following are the finishing times of all the WVCC that participated in the BOTB:

Ed: Pembrey Country Park was beautiful, the beach and views across the estuary to the Gower Peninsular were stunning, the event was well organised and the atmosphere was buzzing. We had great fun – I think we’ll be back!