Gritty Beers shines in the dust and dirt

Multi-skilled cyclist Matt Beers has broken more bones in his body than he cares to remember, but last weekend saw him breaking new ground for SA.

Well, gravel to be more correct, as Beers was the highest-placed South African elite men’s rider at the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships in Veneto, Italy.

The 28-year-old Capetonian placed 17th in a field of more than 100 — six minutes and some change behind winner Gianni Vermeersch of Belgium after 190km of cycling.

Mind you, Beers is no stranger to SA cycling success, as the only SA winner (with Burry Stander back in 2012) of the gruelling Cape Epic multi-stage off-road event in 2021.

But he’s had his eyes on the gravel bike scene for some time now.

“Winning the Epic with France’s Jordan Sarrou was a huge achievement for me but I had started watching gravel bike racing in the US from before the Covid-19 pandemic and so badly wanted to jump on to that scene,” he said as he prepared to return to SA from Italy this week.

“I got onto a gravel bike before it was so massive and I just loved it. It gives you the opportunity to mesh the power and skills from mountain biking with all the tactics of road racing.

“When Toyota came on board as a sponsor this year I went over to the States and just picked up so much exposure, connections and so on.”

Homing in on his Italian job this past weekend, Beers said he’s got mixed feelings about his world champs debut. “I didn’t fully know what to expect ... there were lots of top road riders which is good and it ups the level. It’s also a new bridge for our SA riders to get attention and hopefully we’ll see more South Africans coming into the World Tour from gravel racing.

“As for the race itself, the course was very narrow and there was much fighting for position. I know I had a better result in my legs and there was a chance of top-10 for me but it’s just a question of knowing where to be at the right time, so it’s going to only be onwards and upwards for me from here on.”

He may have broken new ground in Italy but as a child, Beers had the perfect grounding.

“I grew up in Karatara near Sedgefield [on the Garden Route] and my family had a 100ha farm, which was just a massive playground for us as kids.

“We were so active there, building jumps, getting dirty, making the big jumps, crashing, crying, getting tough — the best way to grow up and like kids used to think was just the normal thing to do.”

His dad, Luke, got him into the motorbike scene and he raced motocross between the age of 13 and 20 and also competed in the US for a few years. “SA has got some great MotoX riders but the US is just so far ahead, much like the European scene for SA cyclists.”

Then, a nasty crash saw him smash his foot so badly that he wasn’t able to walk or do gym work, let alone race motorbikes. This is over and above “previously breaking arms, legs, my back — a whole bunch of my stuff”.

“But I could still cycle, so that just became my predominant sport and one thing led to another.

“I’ve always been naturally strong since a kid and that has helped my cycling.”

Standing 1.96m tall and tipping the scales at just over 80kg, Beer could hardly be described as a “mommy’s boy”.

But nothing would make him prouder than to wear that label. You see, he lost his mom, Astrid, taken by the cruel tentacles of cancer, when he was just 21.

“She got cancer of the lymph nodes and it just spiralled out of control,” he says. “It was such a massive blow.

“It’s hard to explain the relationship I had with my mom. She was my biggest supporter [of course my dad was too] but she was more than a mom. She was also my best friend and even sometimes like an annoying sister at times.”

His loss inspired Beer to strive to better himself, remorselessly.

“It kind of flipped a switch in my head to constantly improve and do it for her and always show her what I can do. 

“I know she’d be pretty proud of me now but I think she knew the trajectory I was on before she left us.”

Beer is still left with a huge support structure on the local scene where he lives in Lakeside, home to so many of the city’s multi-code sports aces.

“My dad and sister still play a huge role in my everyday life as does my girlfriend. Kayleigh.

“Kayleigh and I have been together for about five years, before I even started making a name for ourselves. She doesn’t bike as much as I do — she prefers surfing, but we’re always active.

“We just love going swimming in tidal pools, hiking, exploring all parts of SA and then coming home to our cat-children.”

Biker Beer is a great advocate of keeping things simple and just enjoying the process of life and keeping his feet on the ground when he’s not in all-out race mode for his Toyota-Specialized team.

“What I’m privileged to do is pretty special and I’m never ungrateful. I have to pinch myself, often, when I think that I get paid to race my bike and travel around the world. I don’t ever want to lose sight of that.”

The other thing he’s not going to lose sight of is the next finish line, in whichever discipline he’s racing — secure in the knowledge that mom Astrid is always looking down from above.