Join me at the summit of Bardon Hill, the highest peak in Leicestershire! In this video, I share my plans for my favorite annual cycling event, the ‘Battle on the Beach’ at Pembrey Sands in South Wales. I’ll also talk you through my Specialized Crux race bike, including the custom modifications I’ve made to prepare it for the challenge. Don’t miss out!
Camelchops bar bag – https://www.camelchopsgear.co.uk/
Hey, this is Bon Hill. It’s the highest mountain hill in Leicester this year at just over 900 ft, which is about three and a half times less than the height of Snowden. And I’ve just ridden up here and I want to do a video about an upcoming event that I’ve got. It’s called Battle on the Beach. Yeah. So, Battle on the Beach is this um absolutely crazy sort of gravel/mount bike cycle crossross race in South Wales at Pem Country Park on a beach that I can’t pronounce its name. Put it on the screen now. If you’re Welsh, you can pronounce it for me. I’m not even going to try. But it’s a beautiful beach. It’s kind of a mixture of a long, hard, fast beach section where, you know, people on cycle cross bikes and gravel bikes can get some speed up and uh take advantage of that arrow advantage that they’ve got with the drop bars. And then um it goes into some double track where maybe the mountain bike is a little bit more useful. Steel gravel bike, you know, quite good on that. And then we go off into some single track where the mountain bike comes into its own, I suppose. So, I’ve done it four or five times before, I think, and it’s just like one of my favorite events of the year. So, I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve sort of been training a little bit for it. That’s one of the reasons why I went out to Spain to ride for a couple of weeks to get uh my fitness up cuz I haven’t ridden much over the winter. I’m not going to be winning. I like to race pretty hard there. It’s good fun. One of the best things that I love about the event is the just the sheer variety of bikes. You’ve got like cycle cross bikes, gravel bikes, mountain bikes, fat bikes, tandemss, you know, you name it. People race it there and um it’s quite a competitive event, but there’s hundreds of people that take part and it’s just it’s just an amazing event. It’s just got a great atmosphere. It’s a great location and yeah, I just absolutely love it. So, I’m really looking forward to that. So, that’s in two weeks. So, I’m going to go through the bike that I rode last night and I’ve ridden here today. So, I went out for a bit of a ride last night, a bit of a shakeddown run to see how it got on. So, I’ll include some of that in this video. And it’s all set up. I did have some issues with the setting up the tubeless tires. After like four four or five attempts at getting the the tires seated, I’ve finally done it. So, yeah, let’s go through the bike. So, this is my Specialized Crux. It’s a comp model. I’ve had it for about a year now. I’ve made some upgrades on it, and I’ll go through what they are. I’m going to be using Schwab G1 Ultraike tires, and they are on my light bicycles wheels, which are incredibly light. I didn’t go for the lightest ones that they make cuz I didn’t want to spend that much money, but this probably the second lightest set of uh wheels that they make. Can’t actually remember the model. Uh they don’t have anything written on them, so I can’t read it out and tell you, but they’ve got DT Swiss 350 hubs. Trying to go for sort of the best type of hub without spending a whole load of money. We’re running the GRX group set, which came with the bike. Never had any problems with that. I really like it. runs really nicely. I do need to clean that cassette though. We got the Specialized Comp power saddle which I quite like. And the Roal Terra carbon seat post, which does a good job. It irons out the bumps a little bit. Oh yeah, in the seat post I’ve actually got a a pump inside there. I’ve got to peak pump cuz I wanted to try and store all the part all my tools on the bike somehow. It doesn’t come with inframe storage and I wanted to store all the stuff on here so I didn’t have to carry it all. Um, so yes, so there’s a pump in there. Up front we’ve got this DA Super Leggera gravel handlebars in I think they’re 42 cm, so fairly normal width. And then we’ve just got the standard Specialized stem that comes with it. And up the front we’ve got this granite design stash tool kit which is really good. Uh the only thing that is missing really is a chain breaker which I have got in my bar bag. I say uh I I’ve try and store all the tools in the frame and then I I’m carrying a bar bag. But I can actually store all the tools on the frame. It’s just the bar bag’s just quick and convenient for for riding. So yeah, let’s go through the bar bag. So I got this Camel Chops bar bag, which is a really cool bag. I really love it. I love you. I’ve customized the colors on it. Went for like a ‘ 90s retro color scheme, which I thought was cool. Um, unfortunately, the guy who makes them is closing down. I don’t if he’s already closed down or he is going to be closing down soon. So you might still be able to get a bag. Maybe not. But if you can definitely get one. It’s fantastic. Um, fantastic quality and I love the customization options. I won’t be racing with the bar bag on. I’ll probably have all the tools on me or on the bike. That’s the bike for the battle on the beach and I’m going to be doing that in a few weeks and I’m really looking forward to it. So, if you really want to see the footage from the race of me doing incredibly poorly but having a good time, then uh subscribe and I’ll see you next time. Bye-bye. Come on, babe.