Beastway South Winter MTB Series

We have a 2018 Winter Series! In London! 3 rounds! December, January and February!!!

Online pre-entry is now closed but there is entry on the day! See you there.

Recent pics from course creation and clearing. 

We’ve made over 2km of brand new wooded singletrack in Beckenham Place Park.

Bruce and Jarvis on a recce over a year ago with Jason and Luke from BC SE region.

Beckenham Place Park BR3 1SY (or SE6 3PU on some older satnavs) is between Catford and Bromley, next to Beckenham. It’s South London’s largest park and it used to be a golf club. It’s just over a year since our first meeting with Lewisham Council, three days after the golf closed. Alongside running a couple of cyclocross events, we’ve been working with them to put in place some temporary trails as park redevelopment goes on. A deal of work has now been done on risk assessments and method statements, taking ecological and park user considerations into account.  We are ready to begin some clearing to make a few existing trails and thicket into a course.

The work will be worth it because the park is in London and easily reached by train on the Thameslink network out to Bedford, Blackfriars, Sutton and Sevenoaks. It has proper hills, valleys and woodland. The course as planned is around 3.7km long with 60m climbing per lap. We’re putting in new singletrack without using any kitty-litter and making use of some unofficial paths already there.

The woodland ecology means we can’t race in spring or summer – when we’re busy anyhow. There’s a dearth of racing in the South East and none in winter.  So here goes. Come and join us!

Saturdays 30 Dec, 27 Jan & 17 Feb.

We’re sticking with the proven Beastway format, pretty much exactly as it runs at our evening series the last three years. Difference here is that we’re in a public park and daylight hours are very limited.

10:45 u12 short course 15mins
10:50 u10 short course 10mins
11:00 u10/u12 finish
11:15 Seniors start 60mins
11:40 Youth & Juveniles join with seniors
12:15 Finish
12:30 last finisher home

Fees  – Are we too cheap?
u10/u12 £3 adv £5 eol £8 series
youth/juv £5 adv £8 eol £13 series
Seniors £15 adv £20 eol £41 series
juniors £10 adv £13 eol £27 series

ENTRIES: Pre-entries close on Tuesdays before but there is also entry on the day. Online entry and BC calendar info here (new tab opens)

Our seniors’ race will be started in waves according to rider category. – Elite, expert, sport, vet, gvet, svet, juniors – men and women. We don’t send women to the back and we don’t expect old people to be faster than young riders. What we try to do is give you a good race on a proper course at great value in friendly surroundings. We give results in rider category, so it’s only fair to start you with your peers. Let’s hope for a good turnout and then we will see about the best way to start you off.

Youth and Juvenile riders start once the seniors have spread out around the course. This gives them a race duration suitable for their age range, whilst also giving them a lot more race experience.

Our series runs over the New Year so please make sure you select your age category based on the 2018 racing year (…otherwise you will not be able to race round 2 & 3 within the same category and your series points will be lost. )

Beckenham Place Park is a public park with limited public rights of way. We have hired the park with the landowner’s permission for our race which is properly insured. There are two crossings of a public right of way and other open areas where you can expect to see other park users. The course is taped for clarity and we ask you not to challenge the lines by riding at the pins or tape, since the milliseconds you might save are nothing on a lap time.

Beastway has pioneered white label chip timing. Our tech is now being used at other race series and we have more developments on the way. You can expect to get lap times and splits plus some pretty graphics of how you’ve done in each race. We will be keeping a web-based series standings and hope to base a modest prize structure on this.

The Mansion Cafe is where to find the sign on. There are toilets outside to the L of the main building.

Please park tidily in marked spaces or to the L of the driveway in, and -please- not on the grass. There is lots of unrestricted parking on Beckenham Hill, SE6 3PU.

Thameslink trains from Blackfriars or Sevenoaks link with services from Bedford or Sutton direction. Their cycle policy says you can bring bikes on a Saturday.

Let’s go racing!                                                                             

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