Adrian Beale picked up another British title when he took the over-55 class of the National Solo 24-hour Mountain Bike Championships in the north of Scotland recently.

The Higher Foxdale man contested the Strathpuffer event, 20 miles north-west of Inverness, which involved multiple laps of a 12.5km (7.5 mile) course. It involved 17 hours of darkness and most of the event took place in sub-zero temperatures with showers of snow.

Understandably delighted with his performance, Beale dominated his age group, and had enough laps in the bag to stop at 21 hours and still win by two laps.

‘A top-10 finish overall was in the offing, but Westy [Andrew Westmorland] was the voice of reason and said to me - “You got what you came for, that’s enough. . . . etc etc”.

‘It was starting to snow heavier at the time, so it was the right call. I still finished 17th overall so I was really happy with it.’

Last November Beale was runner-up in his age group of the World 24-hour MTB Championships in Australia, only missing out on the win by 16 minutes.

In 2022 he was third in his age category of the Worlds and European age category champion in 2019, as well as finishing runner-up in his class of the British championships.

There had been another age group category silver medal in 2018 and a category success at national level in 2015. In the past he was a regular podium finisher in the local Longest Day, Longest Ride event, including several second places.

Summing the event up, he said: ‘Strathpuffer is notorious for its extreme weather, but we were relatively lucky despite sub-zero temperatures, ice, snow and rain.

‘I rode essentially super solo, without permanent pit crew, a risk in that any problems left me vulnerable and it takes concentration to not make mistakes in the pit; so any mistakes would be my own fault.

‘I was lucky that Westy was available to keep me posted on positions and, as I said earlier, the voice of reason to convince me to stop when I had plenty of laps in hand to keep the win and not risk riding any more.’

Westy had wrestled his Fat Bike round for an amazing eight laps – attracting a lot of attention.

l Adrian wishes to thank Bikestyle, Matrix Engineering, TORM Cycle Clothing, Active Root, Loaghtan Loaded MTB and his own family for the support.