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Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying?
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Friend told me a statistic yesterday that I had to look up to believe


LA Triathlon was recently moved from a Venice Beach to downtown LA course to Torrance, small south bay town. Ocean swim, hilly bike with several loops on narrow residential streets (about as many vertical feet as Wildflower Oly) and a run with a substantial sand portion. It's a tough course that some people seem to really like. Has always had a September race date

In 2013 on the old course (which was also fairly dumbed down IMO races hosted 830 athletes between oly/sprint

In 2014, first year of the move the race had about 685 entrants between Oly (300) sprint (300) and super sprint (85). They also had a 5K on the run course with 900 entrants (it's near my house but i didn't do it, having all those runners on the course looked like a cluster to me....)

In 2015, total number of participants was nearly half that, 364 (133, 165 and 66), 630 in the 5K.

I am of the opinion that if a triathlon is going to be hosted by (or at least associated with) a major city it has to bring it. I wonder how long "LA Triathlon" can survive with this type of course / attendance
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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Chris, in my view it is very dead. This course is 10 miles away from any part of Los Angeles (annexed San Pedro or the unincorporated strip along the 110 freeway between Torrance and Carson). The old triathlon used to be a Los Angeles event, with the mayor and police chiefs acting as "official" starters. Riding on Hollywood Blvd, swimming in Venice beach, and running by the Disney concert hall. All main sites of Los Angeles. The current la tri should be called Torrance or the south bay triathlon. Btw, the Sunset Blvd section through Silver lake is the most fun I have ever had on a bike in a race.

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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [gymrat] [ In reply to ]
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gymrat wrote:
Chris, in my view it is very dead. This course is 10 miles away from any part of Los Angeles (annexed San Pedro or the unincorporated strip along the 110 freeway between Torrance and Carson). The old triathlon used to be a Los Angeles event, with the mayor and police chiefs acting as "official" starters. Riding on Hollywood Blvd, swimming in Venice beach, and running by the Disney concert hall. All main sites of Los Angeles. The current la tri should be called Torrance or the south bay triathlon. Btw, the Sunset Blvd section through Silver lake is the most fun I have ever had on a bike in a race.


Yeah, I did it in 200X when it went up Fairfax, along Hollywood/Sunset Blvds., the run out to the 6th street bridge. It was a cool race. Then they changed it to loops on Olympic and loops up Grand (?).

I live literally a 10 minute walk from the new venue and you couldn't pay me to do it.

When they were marketing the move the message was they wanted an ITU style loop course that's spectator friendly like Hyde Park in London. Not sure they could have screwed this one up any better

I just didn't realize there was a 50% drop off in attendance between 2014 and 2015. That's huge
Last edited by: ChrisM: Feb 12, 16 11:24
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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My most memorable LA Triathlon experience was racking my tiny bike next to gymrat and then starting with the clydesdales. Who thought it was a good idea to send 100-lb women over 40 and clydesdales together in a wave?
Anyway, just this morning I was talking with someone about the race, and he said he thinks that it's not on the RD schedule for the year, at least now.
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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That would require the race to still be run by that RD. Maybe... maybe not.... ETA it's on their website though for 9/11/16

My understanding is the RD insists that they own the name and it cannot be used by any other entity. This may or may not be accurate, just what I've heard
Last edited by: ChrisM: Feb 12, 16 11:40
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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It is not just the LA triathlon - all of the sprints and Olympics are drying up all over the country. Numbers have been going down everywhere in registrations for smaller races.

Bicycle Retailer and Industry news reported that dealer and company inventories of tri bikes are over inventoried by one year! There is massive inventory at the dealer and company level. No one is buying - hence the Cannondale price cut.

For whatever reason triathlon is not attracting new blood at all.

I think it is because all of the people who do their one or two big races per year and don't do a lot of little ones.

All I do is the little ones so this is a bummer. I try to race 7-8 times in small races...
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [endosch2] [ In reply to ]
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Just a non-Cali comment but there does seem to be constriction going on in the number of events being staged. Here in Denver we lost at least 2 races from 2015 to 2016 due to changing city regulations and course closure approvals around the Aurora Reservoir. Now you have Boulder events, one in Evergreen and a couple indoor events in the Springs or Ft. Collins but that is sort of it for the front range. Lack of close events combined with small kids means I may not race any triathlons this year, which only serves to reinforce the lack of participation. Not a great spiral, but also not sure how to turn it around since I am not signing up to actually put on any races myself.
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [endosch2] [ In reply to ]
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Two local Seattle races that have been around seemingly forever are no more for 2016. 70.3 Lake Stevens gone too, but that's a different story. All my races are in Canada this year except for B2B/IMNC and a 70.3 in Europe.
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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Ummm Gail,
We may have started together, but as I recall it took me 10 or 15 miles on the bike to catch up.
You swam with Chris M maybe but you probably dropped him as well.
Just saying :>)

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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [Dilbert] [ In reply to ]
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Yes! The race is dead. Not due to the course (which is a bit funky) it's due to the race director and their management company which is pacific sports (www.pacificsportsllc.com)

Pacific Sports the biggest piece of shit management company there is. I won their little sprint tri series last year (which was a clusterfuck bigtime) and as such i was entitled to...
1. New ROKA sports wetsuit
2. $250 giftcard to Trilab (triathlon store in SoCal).

To this point I have not received either prize. The company does not return emails, or phone calls. So I'm pretty much SOL on this one.

But I WILL NOT do any of their races ever again. And will avidly tell any of the local community to do so.
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [gymrat] [ In reply to ]
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Chris can still totally kick my ass in the ocean, but I got a new swim coach this year, so we'll see how long he can stay in front of me!
And I will see YOU this year on our PowerTap challenge. As long as it's about power to weight and not absolute. :)
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [endosch2] [ In reply to ]
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I think you're not quite correct that sprint and olympic races are dying all over the country, but I do think it might be a regional phenomenon, and part of it may be the desire for everyone to skip right by the local races and go straight to the Ironman branded races based on the power of the marketing.

Several months ago we had a discussion all over this board about what happens when everyone stops supporting the local races -- they can't survive and your only choice would be to go to long course racing at inflated prices.

As a race producer I've been very fortunate that our main triathlon, Tri Santa Cruz, has posted growth every year for the past 9 years and is on track to grow again for our 10th anniversary this year. However, there's a lot of really small local races that can't survive, and there's probably as many reasons as there are races. Maybe there might be too many of them popping up and not being able to sustain their growth, inexperienced race directors, poor venues, increasing municipal pressure and permit costs, etc. Lots of reasons. Sometimes an event is forced into a venue change by circumstances beyond their control.

The bottom line is that it is really important for everyone to get out and support the grassroots races. Sure you might not get everything you get from a bigger event, but you'll get what you put into it too. If you go with expectations to have a great day, a fun race and enjoy yourself with friends, family and club, chances are that's what you'll get - a good time and a fun race. If you go with the mindset of comparing your local sprint to Roth then you are likely going to be disappointed.
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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I have only raced it once in 2014. It was my tri ever and my first sprint distance race. I didnt particularly like the course. I wasnt prepared for all the hills and so much running on the sand.

A friend of mine did the olympic that year and the start of the 5k happened while people were still on the course. Instead of following the rules like all the triathletes and running up the east side of the road and running down the west side the 5K runners they swarmed up both sides and got in the way of the triathletes still on the course.

I live near by and hoped it would have been better. In 2015 I decided to ride a century instead. I think the Malibu tri was the following weekend and it it was much more fun for me.
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [TurboVette] [ In reply to ]
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But he was just named one of the top 10 most influential persons in triathlon (along with our own Dan)!

;)
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [gymrat] [ In reply to ]
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Different year I think.. and my time was a bit... uhhh.. condition specific (just checked, 28) :)


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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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We had a "Few" of those days!!!

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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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Dang. Gotta learn to duck dive without a board.
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Re: Is Los Angeles Triathlon dead? Dying? [pennib] [ In reply to ]
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I agree that in Northern Calif the Olympic distance seems to be doing just fine. The races I have been doing for over a decade, I am still doing. Guess we might be lucky here compared
to other locations.

Now the half distance, those are dropping like flies.

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