As far as niche cycling disciplines go, beach racing is up there. This is partially because it is necessarily geographically restricted to the coast. However, for those in the know, beach racing is an exhilarating way to pin some numbers on through the winter months.
A recent scroll through Instagram returned a lot of reels from a recent race on the Belgium coast that caught my eye. The race featured a contingent of WorldTour pros from Soudal-Quick Step and Alpecin-Deceuninck, with Soudal’s Tim Merlier racing on a converted drop-bar Specialized Chisel HT. It led me down a rabbit hole where I found that the latest gravel trends aren’t as new as I first thought.
What is beach racing?
As the name suggests, beach racing takes place on beaches, typically around the Dutch or Belgian coast, although other locations are now hosting their own versions of the discipline. The races are often an out-and-back affair that is around 30-40 km in length with high coastal winds often key elements of the race.
The racing is fast with the wet, hardpacked sand acting as a drag strip for racers to get up to speeds in excess of 70 km/h with the help of an Atlantic tailwind. There is a technical element to the racing as riders have to navigate the softer sands to get onto and exit the beach.
Races last between an hour and 90 minutes for the front group depending on conditions, with riders having to battle not only with each other but extreme wind, cold, and a barrage of icy sea spray.
How is a beach race bike defined?
Racing takes part mostly on a wide-open sandy beach and sees a whole manner of bikes line up at the start; from full-suspension mountain bikes to cyclocross bikes there is clearly an open debate about just what is the right setup for beach racing.
If this sounds familiar that’s because it is. Gravel is also in a spirited exploration of what is the best tool for the job, a definition that continues to evolve as the sport does. The jury is still out on a lot of aspects of gravel setup, like suspension forks, optimal tyre width, where drop-bar mountain bikes fit, to name three hotly debated topics.
In this respect beach racing may have been offering answers for years; we just didn’t know to look under that rock. With fast racing taking place over varied terrain it has the trademarks of a gravel race. The variability of the sand surface, depending on the conditions, requires beach racers to have an intimate understanding of tyre selection and pressure to maximise efficiency.
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy to beach racing. Much like gravel, you can have a great time on a range of bikes. For those looking to be at the pointy end of the race, however, there is some general consensus on what the right bike looks like.
Back in 2017 clothing brand Assos covered the Egmond-Pier-Egmond beach race in the Nerthlands. At the time they struggled to define beach racing bikes saying, “It is hard to define what a beach bike really is, unless you’ve seen or ridden one. At their core, they are not too dissimilar to a 29-inch, rigid mountain bike, but they have been adapted to take on racing over soft sand. Slightly longer, volumous [sic] width slick tyres run as low as 0.8 bar, road Q factors (allowing road gears), with either Dutch (moustache) or drop bars and you’ll be getting close.
“A result of the unique demands of this sport, soft sand at the entry and exit to the beach, hard sand by the water’s edge, headwinds (meaning low speeds) and tailwinds (seeing speeds as fast as 75 km/h), all call from something a little different. Think of them sitting in the gap between cyclocross and mountain bike.”
Back in 2017, this would have been a strong definition for this niche, however fast forward seven years and anyone reading that definition would simply assume you were talking about a gravel bike. There are a lot of elements from a classic beach bike that are now commonplace in gravel however there are a few things that the specific beach bike has that most gravel bikes don’t.
What separates a beach bike from a gravel bike?
In most cases, one of the most obvious differences between the two is that the beach bike has clearance for super wide tyres, up to 60 mm in most cases. This extra volume is useful on the softer sand sections, allowing the tyres to float over the surface rather than getting bogged down. The tyres also typically have little to no tread, as this can cause the sand to stick to the tyre, clogging the tread and rendering it useless whilst sand stuck between tread blocks adds a lot of rotational mass to the wheels.
Jasper Ockeloen, a pro rider for the Canyon CLLCTV gravel team, explains that the wider tyres allow for super-low pressures to be run which is beneficial for more than one reason. “The rolling resistance of the tyres … you don’t expect it, but it’s so good,” he says. “The really big tyres have really low rolling resistance and they also have a lot of comfort.
“It’s almost as comfortable as a suspension bike because you have so much comfort from the tyres. That’s the main thing that you can learn from that is that although the tyre looks big and because it is so big and wide you think it’s slow but it’s actually really fast.”
As Ockeloen alludes, the tyre pressure used is incredibly low with his race pressure sitting between 0.5 and 0.7 bar (7.25-10.15 psi). By almost all standards other than fat bikes this pressure at first seems obscenely low but with very little in the way of obstacles on the beach there is no risk of impacting the rim. Aslo given that race speeds can exceed 70 km/h it certainly doesn’t appear to have a negative effect on speed.
The wheel base of beach bikes is also longer than a typical gravel bike; this is in service of making the bike more stable. Everything about beach racing is unpredictable; the surface is constantly changing, as are the winds that so often dictate a race. The longer wheelbase is also useful in some races when strong Atlantic tailwinds can push race speeds up over 70 km/h over the sand.
In recent years the prevalence of the beach race bike niche looks to have been thwarted by the rise of more technically adept gravel bikes. Instead of riders needing a specific bike, for all but the most hardy a gravel bike or converted hardtail mountain bike will do a grand job.
Ockeloen is in a unique position having raced both gravel and beach races at the highest level. Coming from the Netherlands Ockeloen is well acquainted with the demands of beach racing.
Interestingly Ockeleon believes that beach racers tend to use a mountain bike frame over a gravel frame is “purely tyre clearance. I think from an aerodynamic perspective the gravel frame geometry would suit better but it is so important to use 60 mm tyres on the beach. That’s the main reason why most beach bikes are based on mountain bike frames.” (Canyon’s Exceed is a common starting point.)
When asked what the latest breed of wider tyred gravel bikes could mean for beach racing he replied, “That was actually my dream for all the beach racing. I’ve always been looking for frames that have road geometry and aerodynamic specs but with enough tyre clearance for 60 mm. But so far I haven’t found one yet.”
The drop bar mountain bike is hardly new
There has been a lot of hype around the concept of drop-bar mountain bikes in gravel racing. This Frankenbike approach briefly appeared in downhill mountain bike racing decades ago under riders like John Tomac. More recently, it has once again sparked the conversation about what exactly is a gravel bike with the likes of Keegan Swenson and Dylan Johnson bringing the concept back to widespread attention. Fitting drop bars to a mountain bike to put the rider in a more aggressive position with a more comfortable hand position for long races allows the rider to adopt a position similar to that of a gravel bike on a more technically capable chassis with wider tyre clearance. Once you get your head around the aesthetics of it the concept (in some settings) does make a lot of sense.
Hardtail mountain bikes have been a firm favourite inside beach racing circles, as the longer wheelbase and wide tyre compatibility made them an ideal starting point for a beach bike. Beach races are typically non-technical with the undulations of the beach surface not necessitating a suspension fork. To save weight, improve aerodynamics, and prevent sand ingress and salt corrosion that would occur on delicate fork stanchions and seals, rigid forks are preferred.
Is the future of gravel found on the beach?
If you have followed the evolution of gravel over the years you will have seen gravel bikes go from slightly wider tyre road bikes to ultra-capable off-road machines that can fit mountain bike tyres. This gradual progression has happened over around a decade as the discipline has found itself. Meanwhile on the beaches of Belgium and the Netherlands riders have been riding around on custom bikes that have been ahead of this trend all along.
It is hard to know if the gravel tyre debate has finally found its conclusion or if 50 mm tyres are just simply the next steppingstone on the way to something larger. If we look to beach racing for inspiration we are not at the upper limit just yet.
Although sandy beaches might be far through from Kansas the use of 60 mm tyres to provide vibration damping and allow the bike to float over softer surfaces could be something that riders could benefit from on more technically challenging courses. There is not enough data to unequivocally say if a 60 mm (2.4-inch) tyre is any faster or slower than a 45 or 50 mm tyre, however on the beaches with sticky sand they are the racer’s choice.
Something that beach racers are starting to crack that could be valuable in the world of gravel racing is the ability to fit large chainrings even with wider-stance chainstays. As tyre clearance grows so too does the chainstay junction with the bottom bracket. This results in the maximum chainring size being limited by its compatibility with the frame. With beach races having sections that can see riders average over 60 km/h for more than 10 minutes at a time it is imperative that the bikes can be pedaled at this high speed.
“Gearing is also a difficult topic. I’m racing a 48-tooth chain ring in the front but to make that fit on a mountain bike frame is a big challenge. That’s always a challenge that everybody is struggling with,” says Ockeloen. “I had solutions that were ridable but not perfect but now in the end I found the perfect solution. Before I always had a non-centered crank. Now with a wide SRAM AXS mountain bike crank and the right chain ring I made it fit with an aligned crank so that is pretty nice.”
It is fair to say that if, five years ago, you wanted to look to see where the future of gravel was heading, beach racing would have seemed like an extreme perspective. But largely, that discipline’s trends have been adopted by gravel bikes, and with tyre size still growing year on year in gravel we could be looking at 60 mm tyre clearance in the not-too-distant future.
Looking forward another five years I am not sure that gravel bikes will continue their common evolution with the northern European niche of beach racing. Depending on where the tyre size debate takes us I think this commonality has almost run its course. This does however mean, if you want to take to the start of a beach race, you won’t be far away from the local’s choice of a modern gravel bike.
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