Life is a Beach
Neil Waugh shares his excitement about the Malle Margate beach race
Courtesy of Kevin Bennett and Malle London
When I heard of Martin's day at the Malle Margate beach race and saw the great pictures, I made a mental note in upper case: GO AND DO IT NEXT YEAR! It reminded me of the Mablethorpe beach races that I used to do with young people from Archway Youth Project quite a few years back and Redcar Sand races a lot longer ago.
Courtesy of Kevin Bennett and Malle London
The great thing about the hipster bike scene is that organisations like
Malle and
Bike Shed know their market, know how fun it can be racing motorcycles in all sort of locations and help make it happen! I did my first track day a year ago at a Bike Shed event at Brands Hatch. Aged 65, I have done five more on my road bike. It inspired me to build a dedicated track bike, which is nearing completion and I'll be out again next year.
Maybe I could do Margate on it with knobbly tyres. It is a case of "run what you brung" and that is the joy, you just need a bike, some protective gear, few quid and you can have a little race.
Courtesy of Kevin Bennett and Malle London
Martin took his 76 500 Weslake speedway bike along in his Peugeot Caddy. He's been racing a bit of speedway recently, but fancied a sprint on the sand. The bike runs on methanol, has 16 to 1 compression, one gear and no brakes. That's well hard, but at least no fear of the high side in a sprint. He high sided at Leicester a year ago and it took six months to recover. The trick of course when you feel it going, is to power on. I don't have the courage or reactions, so I'll stick to Brands and hope for the low side if I ever overdo it.
Courtesy of Kevin Bennett and Malle London
Bump starting the Weslake was relatively easy apparently, provided he could recruit two pushers. The sand is quite hard, but soft enough to help stopping when you power off.
The pictures show the varied assortment of machines that entered the knock out sprint.
Courtesy of Kevin Bennett and Malle London
What a great event and many thanks to Neil and Martin for the story.
Malle Margate race photos all done by
Kevin Bennett.
Have you participated in any Malle events or something similar? Have we enticed you to take part in the future? Let us know at
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