I first came across Matt Page during the TransWales MTB stage race a few years ago. I would be shovelling as many calories into my weary body as I could in the canteen tent, and in would stride Matt, looking fresh. Fresh! I was dying a chest-infected slow death-by-climbing, and he had the cheek to look as if he hadn’t seen a bike for weeks. I eventually withdrew from the race after three painful days amid death threats from the occupants of surrounding tents who couldn’t put up with my hacking cough anymore. Matt won the event, almost certainly remaining cheerful and without keeping his neighbours awake all night.
Matt has ridden bikes for as long as he remembers, but started competing when he was a student – mainly mountain bikes, but he also rides and races road and cyclocross, for a bit of winter fun. “The Welsh series is fantastic. You can’t beat it for a bit of winter training,” he says. His fitness improved while he worked as a cycle courier. He then spent around five years as a professional rider, racing around the world in events as diverse as the Crocodile Trophy and Mountain Mayhem. In 2010 and 2011 he was UK and European Solo 24 hour champion.
He set up A Cycling in 2013. “I was unsure what else I could do, so used what skills I have – cycling. In 2013 it was just guiding and coaching, and from 2014 it has moved more towards events and 2015 was almost only events work.”
A Cycling, has made an instant impact on the cycling world with events like Battle on the Beach and Cross Mountain – taking tried and tested formulae and giving them a twist, a bit of spice. For the unaware, Battle on the Beach it is simply a cross country race but without a specified bike. With a beach thrown in. You can turn up on a ‘cross bike, mountain bike or indeed a fat bike. All of them shine on different points of the 8km course. The race was advertised as the UK’s first beach race, and the few kilometres along the beach is the defining feature. Last year, as I raced I watched a bomb disposal unit work on what they thought was WW2 ordnance. I’m sure that Matt didn’t arrange for this to happen, but it just added to weirdness. As did a final sprint against a mountain bike and a fat bike, with me on my Kona Jake.
“Jan 1st 2014, when I released entries for the first event, Battle on the Beach. Watching entries fly out at midnight and sell out in just a few days was incredible. The pressure really started then though, I knew I had to deliver!
When I first asked the local council to use the land, I gave them a 50-75 estimate for rider numbers. I didn’t know if anyone would ‘get it.’ I loved riding around there and knew how fun and easy it was riding on the sand as it is like concrete. I worked hard to get the point across that Cefn Sidan beach would not completely destroy your bike, as many expected. Having 225 riders (the limit) in year one was just fantastic and a huge surprise.”
He has carried on making waves in the cycling world with Epic Cymru, a mountain bike stage race based around the South Wales trail centres, and one that I’m looking forward to riding for the first time, Cross Mountain, a cyclocross sportive, for want of a better description.
“Cross Mountain is all about creating a fun route at a time of year that is not normally associated with events. Although there is some great technical riding around the Llandovery area, I wanted to use some of the less technical, more scenic terrain. By tuning down the technical level just a touch it makes it possible (and fun) to ride on a cyclocross bike. I have tweaked the course this year, hopefully riders will agree that it’s an improvement – although the feedback from last year was great, so that will be tough to beat!”
And what of future events? “Into the future I have lots of plans, some of which I can’t talk about just yet (sorry!). What I can say is that Epic Cymru will be back next year to South Wales. Battle on the Beach is back on March 20th. We have also been successful in bringing a British Mountain Bike Series event to Pembrey in April, which will be the first UCI categorised XC race in South West Wales. There is also a new, extreme Duathlon. The Dragon Duathlon is a coast-to-coast, off-road run and road cycle event. It is happening on June 18th 2016.”
If he is keeping quiet then you know he’s planning something good.
- Cross Mountain 15th November 2015
- Battle on the Beach March 20th 2016