184 – Resigning with The Chain Reaction Cycles Belfast Race Team Part 4 – We Chat with Beefy Mullan

by Gareth Beckett April 25, 2023

Today’s Guest:

The speed, experience and mentor behind the Chain Reaction Cycles Belfast Race Team, Philip ‘Beefy’ Mullan

On episode #184 we are chatting with Beefy Mullan about how he got into mountain biking, what his home trails are like, why racing plays such a large part in his love for MTB, how he felt getting a call from Chain Reaction Cycles Belfast to resign with the team, and how he is passing his skills down to the next racing generation with his MTB coaching business, Race Fit MTB.

It was great to get Beefy on the show. He is a well known and liked character in the Irish mountain bike scene, not just for being part of the Chain Reaction Cycles Belfast race squad, or for being unbelievably fast and standing on most podiums going, but for helping other riders advance, get better on and off the bike, and enjoy this awesome pastime we all love so much.

Beefy has taken this a step further and started his own MTB coaching business called Race Fit MTB. We chat about why he decided to start coaching and how it has advanced into a part time business, helping new young riders, to families, to us weekend warriors, just wanting to get closer to the top of that leaderboard. Beefy has found a real passion for passing his skill and race knowledge down to young riders wanting to build on their technique, speed and general enjoyment of mountain biking. And chatting about the number of people Beefy is receiving, I think he is doing an amazing job.

Join us as we chat about the new 2021 race season, how Beefy got so fast on a bike, what his training schedule is like and why Wales is a must visit.

Thanks for tuning in and for being here!

Find Out:

How Beefy got started in mountain biking
Why he fell in love with racing
What his local scene is like
Why after 2017 he seemed to be standing on most podiums
His 2021 race plans
Why Beefy thinks being a member of a bike club is important and the advantages that come with this
Why he was surprised to get the call from CRC about staying on with the team
How Beefy loves being a part of the CRC team and why he still can’t really believe it
The support he receives from Chain Reaction Cycles Belfast
What he thinks of the new Nukeproof Mega
Why he decided to stick with a 27.5 wheel size
Why Beefy loves the bike parks in Wales so much after a visit last year
How Beefy has been keeping motivated with training over this Covid period
His race goals for the 2021 season
How to follow and keep up to date with Beefy

When you look at Beefy’s race results something interesting starts to appear. Up until 2017 Beefy’s results were good by anybody’s standards (if only I was that fast), but those first place and podium results were missing. But after a Vitus First Track Enduro Cup race in 2017 at Bigwood something changed. Beefy placed 3rd at that race which was a great result, but then things started to happen and Beefy placed 1st in his next two races. That was not the end of Beefy’s winning streak. You can count another eleven 1st place results since then and that is not mentioning the other 2nd and 3rd place results he had achieved, basically he has very rarely been off the podium since that 2017 race at Bigwood. But why?

Well, Beefy puts it down to consistency, attending more racing and basically riding his bike more. As Beefy puts it, the best training for racing is racing and if you look at the race events Beefy attended since that 2017 period it is plain to see that he was racing lots more, attending more events and maybe just taking things a little more seriously. Beefy attended sixteen race events in 2018 and that is only the ones I know about.

So it just goes to show you, you can have all the skills, speed and fitness of the next man, but you still need to get on the road, visit and compete at the events to see a real improvement in your ability, how fast you can really ride and what your true potential is. And that goes for all of us. If we got out of our comfort zones, attended more races throughout the year and made more effort, we would become much better riders, just from racing with our mates in the race environment, having fun and making a day or weekend out of it.

I know time and money can be a massive issue for a lot of people to do this and yes, without the support of a team behind you, this may not be possible. But maybe what we should aim for is to race one or possibly two extra races each year from what we did the previous year, ultimately giving us what we all want, good times on the bike, racing our friends, getting mucky and getting faster!

So chill out for an hour, put your feet up and tune in as we chat riding, racing, CRC support, MTB clubs, coaching the next generation and much much more.

Enjoy the show!

To Connect with Beefy:

Instagram: beefy_mullan

Facebook: beefy.mullan

Beefy’s Sponsors:

Chain Reaction Cycles Belfast: CRCBelfast

Chain Reaction Cycles: www.chainreactioncycles.com

Nukeproof Bikes: nukeproof.com

Spin11 Custom Clothing: www.spin11.com

Leatt: www.leatt.com

Resources in this Episode:

Beefy’s MTB Coaching: