Beach racing is an offshoot of enduro and motocross racing. As the name implies, riders on solo motorcycles, quad bikes, or sidecar combinations compete on a course marked out on a beach, often with man made jumps and sand dunes being constructed to make the course tougher.
Beach races are usually held annually, generally at seaside resorts with large beaches. Typically, beach races follow the format of hare scrambles, with riders competing on a circuit of 1–3 miles (1.5–5 km) in length, usually for a time period of 1–3 hours.
Due to their unique nature, beach races tend to be very popular with riders and spectators, with some of the larger races attracting several hundred riders. However beach racing is known to be very tough on motorcycles, small sand particles can damage wheel bearings, chains and sprockets, and the soft, sandy surface increases the demand on engines and clutches. Experienced beach racers typically follow meticulous bike maintenance prior to the event in order to ensure their bike will not fail.
Beach races are generally held in early spring or late autumn. This is because seasonal tourist trade at seaside resorts is low during these periods, there is more space for riders and competitors to park, and local authorities are more willing to allow their beaches to be closed off and used as a motorcycle course, due to the extra trade brought by riders, families and spectators.
Read more about Beach Racing: Popular Beach Races
Famous quotes containing the words beach and/or racing:
“The seashore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-traveled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)