Battle of the Beach 2025

Over the last few years I have really enjoyed exploring different formats of cycling like time trialling, hill climbing and track riding. So when I replaced my commuter bike with a gravel bike last year the next adventure was to take me off road. So I decided to throw myself into the deep end and enter the Battle on the Beach.

This unique event takes place each year on Pembrey Beach just beyond Swansea in South Wales where there is a 5 mile long beach section with hard packed rideable sand next to a forest with varying surface types to challenge riders. The event comprises of two races with the first one on the Saturday called Battle in the Dark before the main event which is held on a Sunday when the tide is lowest around noon to expose the beach.

I found my night adventure scary and exhilarating. The person in front slipped at a corner in front of me, then going into the sand dunes there were lots of riders falling and picking themselves back up. I learned quickly in the dark that riding through sand isn’t one of my strong points as I ended up flying over my handle bars at one point. Bruised and shaken I managed to carry on to the finish with a few more close calls, I had survived.

For the main event on Sunday there were over 1000 riders queuing up at the entrance to the beach, where the sand was particularly soft for about 20 meters. The start horn blasted and full on chaos ensued with some managing to ride over the soft sand and some not, whilst others including myself took the option to run the first section before jumping onto our bikes. We raced into a strong headwind down the beach which was both surreal and enjoyable. The route then cut back inland into the forest and we rode over tarmac, grass, gravel, shingles, mud and single track to name some of the many surfaces encountered to loop back through the start/finish area. I was much more comfortable on all the surfaces, apart from the soft sand, now that I could see properly. Even the mud seemed easier to ride through compared to the sand. In total the event was 45km long and we rode down the beach 3 times with 3 different routes through the forest to keep it interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the 2 hours it took me and I would definitely by keen to do more off road adventuring.