Beat the Bastard Event

13 April 2011 / Posted by Brett Phillips

Ok Gravity Bikers, its time to dig deep and have a little fun all in the name of charity! Beat the Bastard is a charity ride organised by the awesome crew in Townsville with proceeds going to support the Leukaemia Foundation. The event is held at Mt Stuart in Townsville Queensland.

Adrian ADO Alderson talks about the history behind Beat the Bastard...

"Beat the Bastard came about from a discussion at breakfast one morning following our regular Sunday morning luge run on Mt Stuart. There had been a lot of discussion on various Australian Gravity Sports websites about the lack of events and races in Oz. Initially we looked at running a race - the Australian National Downhill Championships, however the more we looked into it the more we realised that it would be logistically impossible to run a race with just the 6 of us to organise it, not to mention the need for 8,000 hay bales.

As one of our group had recently had a brush with Prostate Cancer we decided to run a freeride (therefore less logistics and a lot less haybales) and donate any proceeds to Prostate Cancer Research. The inaugral Beat the Bastard was held over the first weekend in May 2009 and was a resounding success. The riders who attended (all 55 of them) had a ball and more runs than they could cope with. The runner vehicles did over 70 trips up the hill over the 2 days and almost all riders had to take rests throughout the weekend.

One of the highlights of BtB 2009 was Katie Champion getting her money's worth and riding almost every run all weekend, she was a machine and will be sorely missed this year, but we hope to see Katie and the new little Champion back for BtB 2011. It was great to see so many riders improve their skills over the course of the weekend and it was a terrific training ground for Newton's Playground and the World Championship.

We ran a very strict Tech Inspection prior to the ride and ensured all riders met IGSA specs. This proved to be invaluable at the Worlds in November when the riders who attended BtB 2009 had a much easier passage through tech at Bathurst. Tech this year will be just as stringent and all riders need to check their gear meets IGSA standards.

We all look forward to seeing everyone on the hill this May and hope that you will all check out our sponsors who are listed at the bottom of this page, visit their sites and support those who support us. In 2009 we raised $5,500.00 for Prostate Cancer. In 2010 we raised $12,500.00 for the Queensland Cancer Council. Beat the Bastard is a FREERIDE - NOT A RACE. Those who attended BtB09 and BtB2010 will tell you what a great weekend of riding it was."

So get your registration in (entries close this Friday 15th April) and come along and raise more for the Leukaemia Foundation!

Register to Beat the Bastard here!

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