Thoughts on Beach Riding?

[PCeBiker]

Rotors ruined?
Bedded in I'd say

I agree.
My rotors are Pretty Groovy, but I just replaced the pads so the brake lever doesn't hit the handlebars,..

The lip on the edge of the rotor is only a mm or so on each side.
Lots of meat left.

 

[Chargeride]

Ah the good old anti wheel dropout lip for then you forget to tighten the axle.

 

[PCeBiker]

A sloppy rinse once ended with water running down to my bottom bracket on the inside. The bottom bracket bearings went on to fail at only 1,500 miles.

I drilled a hole through my bottom bracket on both my ebikes to drain any water,..

When I spray oil down the seatpost tube, it drains out the weep hole.

All the frame tubing drains into the bottom bracket.
Even condensation can accumulate over time and drain into the bottom bracket.

The sealed bearings don't stand a chance when they are submerged.
The heating and cooling of the BB sucks the water past the seals.

Ah the good old anti wheel dropout lip for then you forget to tighten the axle.

Ohh,!?!
That's what they're for!!

I've got through axles on my new ebike so I don't have the QR Lawyer Lips on my forks anymore.

It's good to know that my wheel won't fall off if my through axle falls out.

 

[PCeBiker]

The BB is a pretty tight fit, and I ended up drilling into the BB,..

Ohh well, I'd rather have a hole in it than have it half full of water.
I can use the hole to squirt oil up in there.

 

[rpr]

Wow, I somehow missed all these replies to this thread, old and new. Thanks for all the feedback.

I ended up not taking any of my e-bikes on the 2023 trip. But…I did pickup a fat tire e-bike specifically for beach trips in 2025 and it worked phenomenally well.

I’m generally not a fan of Rambo e-bikes, nor am I a fan of cadence sensor bikes, but if you want a beast that will power through the deepest softest sand (with a bit of driver skill involved), look no further than the Rambo Hellcat 2.0.

AWD 4” fat tire e-bike, 1,000W hub motor on front and 1,000W hub motor on rear, with a full suspension. I got the step through model, much easier on and off access on uncertain beach terrain.

Worked amazing. I spent a lot of time rigging up a beach cart to pull with it but I didn’t need it, I was able to carry everything I needed on the bike.

Damn you guys…now I’m craving the beach!

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Rotors ruined?
Bedded in I'd say

Ha, I knew you'd say that! I've seen enough of your beach ride videos to know that you've ridden a lot of wet sand, seemingly with abandon.

Q1. How's that gone for your bikes?

Q2. Do you have a dedicated beater for that purpose?

 

[harryS]

New rotors and pads for the Aries Tektro are maybe $30-40 on amazon for us pioneers who can't afford to go to bike shops.

However, it costs me about $300 to take my buddy out to eat when he invites us up to his place on the Lake Michigan shore, which is the only time we get access to ride beachfront, Evens out,

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Wow, I somehow missed all these replies to this thread, old and new. Thanks for all the feedback.

So you asked the question and never came back to see if anyone had put in the time and effort to help you?

 

[PCeBiker]

So you asked the question and never came back to see if anyone had put in the time and effort to help you?

This thread was dead for 2½ years until you posted yesterday.

It took @rpr 2½ hours to respond after your post.

What more do you want?

Don't be a Stephan.

 

[rpr]

I have an AT&T email address and AT&T’s servers sometimes reject forum notifications. They don’t show up in SPAM, they just don’t show up.

 

[PCeBiker]

I have an AT&T email address and AT&T’s servers sometimes reject forum notifications. They don’t show up in SPAM, they just don’t show up.

So in an effort to elaborate on @Jeremy McCreary 's rotor issues,

@rpr ,..
How have your brakes been?
Do they need frequent replacement?

 

[Chargeride]

Is your local sand abrasive volcanic glass?

 

[rpr]

I haven’t researched different types of sands, I rode on Cape San Blas in the panhandle.

I’ve barely used the bike since the late 2025 trip but I have no significant issues at this moment.

I just rinsed it well after each use.

 

[PCeBiker]

I ride on Really Dusty gravel roads that have anti-dust treatments sprayed on them annually.
It's a super rich brine solution made up of Sodium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Chloride, and they've even used waste from the local sugar factories that make sugar from sugar beets.

That brine makes the dust anhydrous so the dust stays damp and is less inclined to make 's of dust behind moving vehicles.

So I've got salty damp dust all over my ebike.

I'm almost positive that I can never "seat" my brakes properly to get that thin layer of brake material on the rotors, because it constantly gets sanded off?

My brakes always work fine, and I can throw myself over the handlebars easily with one finger on the front brake.

My brakes work good enough for me, even if they never get properly glazed.

 

[PCeBiker]

I was out for a ride two summers ago on a cloudy day with a 25% chance of rain.

I got to a section of road where a storm had just been through and the road was Soaking Wet.
I don't have fenders and the slop was flinging everywhere.
It got on my googles, I tried to wipe it off, and it just smeared.

Then I got the slop on my face, and it tasted like Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips. WTF ???

It didn't taste like regular salt and it didn't taste like vinegar.
It tasted like Salt & Vinegar Chips!!???

Then I passed a Huge farm tractor towing two Full Size (tractor trailer size) plastic tanks of brine solution, complete with the muli-nozzelled spray wand reaching across the entire road.

 

[rpr]

That sounds almost as bad as riding on a beach in the midst of a red tide bloom. Which of course was what happened during my 2025 trip. Still a blast though.

 

[PCeBiker]

My experience was a lot more strange than it was unpleasant.
(I like salt and vinegar chip.)

I couldn't figure out why it tasted like Salt & Vinegar Chips, so I did some research when I got home.
I knew that Salt & Vinegar Chips don't really taste like vinegar, so I wanted to know how they make Salt & Vinegar Chips.

 

[Chargeride]

The trick is having tyres so wide they claim all the sand.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Is your local sand abrasive volcanic glass?

Excellent question! Short answer: Little if any here in San Diego County, but plenty of other sand components (especially quartz but also magnetite and hornblende) capable of scratching at least mild steel.

Ability to scratch a hardened stainless brake rotor is the real question here. LBS said I still had pad left on all pistons, so there was no metal-on-metal action. Something in the sand itself did my rotor damage, but it probably wasn't volcanic glass.

Implication: Worldwide, quartz grains dominate light-colored beach sands. Assume that your beach sand's capable of scratching your rotors until proven otherwise. Ride on it only when you're sure that you can keep it out of your brakes.

In my case, that happened only once in dozens of beach rides, and never on sand that was damp but not wet.

 

[Chargeride]

I was inspecting the rotors on the Haibike and found this instead, snipped most of it off and left the thorn in the tyre, job done.