I did it last year with a mate.

Venue as in the race village is well laid out, easy to get to and from and is right by a large mall, the name of which escapes me just now!
Good swag, good rucksack and a huge medal, no t-shirt but finishers do get a rather good down jacket (In Arabia they dish out winter coats!!)

Swim was wetsuit legal, actually the water was cooler that we'd expected, its a one loop swim in a sheltered marina. First 900 odd metres felt tlike they were into a very gentle current?

Bike flat as a witches tit. However be aware of the wind which builds throughout the morning, course is dull and pretty boring to be honest. Also just be aware last year there were cars on the race course in the first mile looking absolutely clueless as to what was going on. The route is on a main highway and you are seperated from traffic by road cones, we saw several bikes underneath lorries and cars on the route. At times I was quite fearful for my life if I'm honest, tapping out the watts in aero to have a shitty truck thunder past you at 90kph hooting it's horn 12 inches away from you.
Drafting is rife, I was at the more pointy end of the race and saw zero officials on course and had to tell several people to either overtake or f**k off. (I've tried but never been able to piss on the bike)

Run, flat and fast, I PB'd the run here. Again the following of rules seems to be for others, locals wearing earbuds, headphones and genrally in a world of their own on the course, officials did absolutely nothing to stop it.

Would i do it again? No way.

Would I reciommend it? Only if you really want a flat PB course, I PB'd here with a 4:27 M50-54, which was nice.

Post race.
Taxis back to hotels were a complete scam, set the fare up front, don't take their bullshit about Ironman tax or insist they put the meter on, it's actually illegal for them not to, threaten with police if they don't.

Post race beers, it's a dry country with alcohol only avaialbale in hotels, it's overpriced, watered down and the hotel bars are full of pissed locals .

Overall Bahrain is pretty much soulless & chuffin' expensive, take plenty of money.

Enjoy.

Edit: In terms of sightseeing pre or post race, nah, can't think of anything other than the souk which was mildly amusing.

taking over this thread again

is the race still like described in this post? did they improve the traffic situation?

I was eyeing it as I am supposed to be in Dubai the week before the COP28 climate summit (you know where all the big wigs go, burn a lot of carbon, talk a lot and mainly no one gets anything useful done lol...but my company actually is, but I digress). I am told by the tridubai club folks that it's a half decent race to go to.

So gotta actually see if I can get in some shape in 5.5 weeks. I have mainly been swimming and not running that much.

Is the start done rolling by age group or by anticipated finish time ?

from the 2022 athlete guide, it looks like self seeding as all the races nowadays

Going to have to call out your bs and lack of knowledge on most of this. Like you say, Taxi's have to use the meters, it's written in about 50 different places on the car. Tell them to use it or move on. The other option is just to use Uber or Careem (the regional version of Uber). Same same.

Bahrain is not a dry country and the alcohol is available outside of hotels. There's entire areas which have an alcohol licence so pretty much every restaurant and bar in that area serves alcohol. There are also a number of bottle shops where you can go and purchase your own (not to mention duty free on your way into the country). As for the pissed locals in the bars.. they're actually mostly pissed tourists from across the border.

As for things to do, again, you clearly lacked the knowledge or desire to do any research. The souq is fine, but pales in comparison to other such markets in the region so I'll give you that. You have Arad Fort and the National Museum if you're interested in the countries history. Get on a boat and go and spend the day at Al Dar island if you want to relax. Go do some Karting near the F1 track or indoor sky diving at Gravity if you're into that shit. Go hit up one of the local restaurants for breakfast and experience the regions food. Also, I can't believe you didn't want to go and experience the wonder of the world that is the Tree of Life. Come on now!

Is it easy to go riding locally on non race day? In other words pre event riding?

Yeah of course. The first and last 25km of the race course is all highway so you won't be able to ride that specific portion but the middle section (excluding the F1 track of course) is perfectly accessible at any time.

It's relatively quiet so not a heap of traffic plus plenty of space to ride. They're also working on cycling specific track in that area so you can already ride roughly 40km if you are super wary of riding in traffic.

Outside of that, we'll usually ride 100-150km on a Friday morning (super quiet roads) going from top to bottom and back through the desert.

my time to shine. i am from Bahrain. Any questions ask away.

As Kingy mentioned you can ride the last half of the bike track any day of the week except the F1 circuit. There are plenty of group rides. If you are coming down, let me know you can go on a ride with us.

@Plissken74, I did the race last year. My first ever HIM. Traffic situation is vastly improved. There are traffic cones on the entire stretch of bike course. Normal traffic is there but on Friday/Saturday early morning during the race there isnt a lot of traffic. I did not feel unsafe for even a minute in last year race on the bike course. You'll have plenty of volunteers making sure you are going the right way. Swim is in the bay https://www.strava.com/activities/8227065407 , not a lot of current. Self seeding start. Bike course is flat https://www.strava.com/activities/8227065608 Run was 4 loops https://www.strava.com/activities/8227065557

I had a very different race experience compared to Pathfinder and I don't know what he is on about sight seeing and going out option.

Anyone planning to come down for the race, let me know. Happy to meet up. Any questions ask away.

Thanks, I have heard some good things about the event, but the posting that someone made above made things sound pretty bad. I am in Dubai for COP28 the week before, so keeping the option open. But I really need to buckle down and commit to training or it will be a long run leg (I'll be fine on swim and bike). Can you recommend not to expensive places to stay where logistics are simple?

The Ramada is right across the from the IM village so that's probably the best and easiest. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it's sold out (or jacked up in price).

There's a couple of other places very close by but are pretty expensive. Le Meridian and Best Westin are both inside City Centre mall, so makes life easy in terms of logistics and are also only 5min walk from the start line.

S Hotel, S Plaza, and Elite Grand are maybe an extra 5 minutes from those above but seem to be far cheaper.

Otherwise look anywhere in Seef for something cheaper. You're still close enough to bike to transition but probably slightly too far to walk here.

Is this the Ramada you are speaking of?

Building 88 Road 351 Block 326, Adliya Bani Otbah Avenue, Manama, 5750

Just finalizing work plans for COP28 in Dubai and trying to decide if I can take the weekend away and get over. Training has been non existent though. I should be OK for swim and bike and If I can run every day for the next 14, I can get thru with a 4 day taper

Nah that one is quite far away. This is the one Ramada by Wyndham Manama City Centre

Join the club on the lack of preparation. I foresee a bit of walking in my future.

Do I need to rent a car, or can I take a taxi to hotel and get around walking if I am in the City Center Mall or thereabouts? I probably need to decide tonight if the logistics can work out. I may end up going to Doha for a Sunday set of meetings and head home on Monday after so it is tight squeeze if I can pull all this off but for whatever reason had an interest in doing this one for last four years.

Nah no need for a car if all you're doing is the race. The mall has absolutely everything you could need and the race village is right there.

Still trying to decide but if I do it I would be in and out in 96 hrs. Need to clear schedule to fly over on Wed afternoon to be there for checkin for Thu, race Fri and out on Sat

Start lists are out. Looks like there'll be good racing in the men's at least.
https://files.constantcontact.com/...809-a86192ee27ab.pdf
Lopez and Brownlee will have serious competition from some short course stars: Schoeman, Stapley, Dixon, Studer, van Riel (others I haven't spotted).
Interesting to see if they have actually practised on a TT bike, how Bahrain enforces the 12m rule, desperately hope the moto doesn't drag the leaders away from the rest.

Buckingham will be way up the road, likely all the way onto the run, that is if she stays on course and doesn't get led off it like Lawrence did last year, losing her the race.
Behind Matthews will have Lee to chase out of T1 but Salthouse, Madsen S and Watkinson will have a say. I can't spot any short course athletes on the list. I wonder why the SC men are more prepared to chance it at a 70.3.

cool! i am staying at Swiss-Belhotel, just few steps away from the start.
to go for a short ride Wed and Thu, i think i go for multi loops in the island in front of the hotel. otherwise i would hit traffic...what do you suggest? another option is to ask a taxi van to bring me to Zallaq but i am not sure if i want to do that.
what do you say?

If you're talking about Reef island, you won't be able to go on there unless you're a resident. Although you could try and talk your way on if you're good with words (tell them you're going to the clubhouse).

Otherwise the entire Seef area is full of traffic from about 7am and doesn't really seem to die down. You could get away with riding some of the back roads - by your hotel and water garden city, possibly going around towards the Ritz Carlton and even as far as going to Bahrain Fort (but that might be a bit of a stretch).

In the other direction you could ride down passed the IM village and cut through by the King Faisal Corniche (this is the run course so may well be inaccessible). From here you can loop the Financial Harbour and back.

then i call a van taxi and go to zallaq. what do you think?

Tri247 article here:
https://www.tri247.com/...an-70-3-bahrain-2023

Thanks for all the info. I cleared my schedule, checked flights, was about to book at LeMerdien, and I actually ran for 10 days in a row and was feeling OK for the run, and went to register on the weekend and general registration was closed!!!

I assume there is no more Dubai 70.3. I have an ongoing contracts with a company in Dubai with my company so I kind of need to be there a few times per year to support my local team. Any thoughts on Oman70.3?

That's a bit annoying.

I did Oman in 2020 (the weekend before the world shut down). I really enjoyed it. Far more hills than Bahrain and got pretty warm on the run course but overall was a great course.

got very good reports from friends. i will be there too.
book Intercontinental Muscat, right at the race venue and great hotel

Thanks guys for the info on Oman. Let's see how work schedule pans out. I'll cheer you on remotely on Bahrain70.3!!! On a plus not because of Bahrain, I put in a 14 and then 17 hrs training week to "get ready", so it forced me to reverse he trend that had me gain 10 lbs since Lahti and now 6 lbs up haha