I'm registered for this event. As for the largest North America non-branded half ironman event, the Door County Triathlon Wisconsin event has been at the 1000 participant "cap" for a number of years. Their sprint event, the day before, usually sells out at the 1000 cap.

Looking forward to your event.

Door County Triathlon finishers:
735 this year
700 in 2016
831 in 2015, last time they had a proper swim, but the final B2B was bigger that year at 882.

Very good chance I'll be at Barrelman next year to tackle my 4th 70.3.

Barrelman, regardless of size, is most certainly the best QUALITY half iron distance race in the east, regardless of brand. And I'm. It hating on Ironman here - in my opinion, they put on a great, well organized race. However, Barrelman is even better - and the course is awesome. Great, great swim (I'm slightly biased because I rowed the same canal in high school), well laid out bike course and the run along the Niagara river can't be beat.

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MS: Exercise Science
Your speed matters a lot, sometimes you need to be very fast, where sometimes you need to breakdown your speed.

Thanks Billy for registering and telling me about the Door County Half. I figured there might be another race or two that was bigger and am glad to hear there is another independent having some success. Please say hello when you race with us.

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John Salt, Founder - MultiSport Canada
Canada's Largest Triathlon Series and Barrelman Niagara Falls
http://www.multisportcanada.com / http://www.niagarafallstriathlon.com
"Discipline Is What You Do When No One Is Watching You"

It will be great to see you in 2018 beast!

I guess we are pretty close to Cook County, although it would seem their no-show rate is high at 735 this year with 1,000 pre-registered. Same holds for 2016 if they had 700 finishers and we had 724, counting relays, with 800 even registered. Still great to see both races with these numbers!

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John Salt, Founder - MultiSport Canada
Canada's Largest Triathlon Series and Barrelman Niagara Falls
http://www.multisportcanada.com / http://www.niagarafallstriathlon.com
"Discipline Is What You Do When No One Is Watching You"

I'm really hoping to race this year but will be travelling for work so it's going to be a game time decision, I fly back Saturday morning.

John any chance there will be race day sign up?

I've done Barrelman, and Muskoka and the nod goes to Barrelman. It's just such an amazing venue and my family loves it because they can hang out around the falls.

We are very lucky to have multi sport Canada here in the east, thanks John and the team, had a blast at Welland this year, and really hope to do Barrelman.

EnderWiggan, thanks for the kudos! There definitely is race day registration both on Saturday, most of the day, and Sunday morning. Please make sure you say hello if you make it. Fingers crossed!

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John Salt, Founder - MultiSport Canada
Canada's Largest Triathlon Series and Barrelman Niagara Falls
http://www.multisportcanada.com / http://www.niagarafallstriathlon.com
"Discipline Is What You Do When No One Is Watching You"

Barrelman is a fantastic race & I cannot say enough about the quality & organization. I spoke with Jessey Elf today at K-Town about putting together a super relay team. He'll swim, & I'll ride. We're trying to convince Reid Coolsaet to run ^__^. Hoping to be there this year.

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Haha Phil you should run, much easier to find an uber biker and your the fastest runner I've raced with.

Barrelman is on my list - the BF has never been to Niagra - glad to hear the good reviews and successes. See you sometime in the future :)

any time a race decreases, changes that trajectory, and begins to increase, that's great news i'll always want to trumpet!

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

any time a race decreases, changes that trajectory, and begins to increase, that's great news i'll always want to trumpet!


Dan,

Barrelman is definitely on the INCREASE. Despite the flat numbers in the sport right now, perhaps even a slight down-turn, this race has been steadily growing each year!

I hear for the first time, that many American triathletes have noticed the event, and have entered. This is great news! Everyone talks about the sport being, "expensive" - well, if you come up to Canada, EVERYTHING is 30% less for our American friends! :)

In the past there have been a few members of the Buffalo Triathlon Club come over to do the race, but that's it!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I participated in the 1st one a few years ago, and like all of John's races it was incredibly well run. If it wasn't for a broken leg this year I would have been looking at it. Best of luck to everyone racing. Enjoy the run, it's amazing!

Very cool! This will be my 3rd Rev3 race this year and we've been very impressed so far! This sounds like it's going to be winning combination!

We're bringing a whole crew from CT - see you then!

Steve is right Dan.

Barrelman has grown incrementally since its inaugural year in 2014, when we had 710 registered. Historically 90% of our athletes have been from Canada and 10% from the US. I believe our high has been 75 US athletes. As some others have commented here and the feedback I have directly received by US athletes at the race, is that Barrelman is one of the best races they have done from race execution, to customer service to course design/impact (running by the Falls twice). Given those reviews I had hoped that at least the exchange rate, which has fluctuated from 20% to 30%, would be a draw to US athletes. That did to seem to be the case.

Barrelman is still a MultiSport Canada race however, this year we partnered with Rev3 in the hopes that we would reach more US based athlete/customers. I can confidently say the catalyst for the influx of US based athletes has been our partnership with Rev3. We are at 260 US athletes today and we are still 5 weeks away from race day. I can tell you that the Rev3 organization has the same focus on customer service as does MSC and that has obviously gone a long way to a loyal athlete database. The other group that has been amazing in getting the word out has been the Rev3 Ambassador athletes and we are very grateful for all they have done. This success story has been because of collaboration and cooperation between MSC and Rev3.

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John Salt, Founder - MultiSport Canada
Canada's Largest Triathlon Series and Barrelman Niagara Falls
http://www.multisportcanada.com / http://www.niagarafallstriathlon.com
"Discipline Is What You Do When No One Is Watching You"

After those kind words I am so tempted to say that you obviously do KnowEverything. Thank you!

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John Salt, Founder - MultiSport Canada
Canada's Largest Triathlon Series and Barrelman Niagara Falls
http://www.multisportcanada.com / http://www.niagarafallstriathlon.com
"Discipline Is What You Do When No One Is Watching You"

Thanks Phil! We try our best at every race. I would love to see that relay team come together.

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John Salt, Founder - MultiSport Canada
Canada's Largest Triathlon Series and Barrelman Niagara Falls
http://www.multisportcanada.com / http://www.niagarafallstriathlon.com
"Discipline Is What You Do When No One Is Watching You"

Congrats and well done growing while WTC has shrunk in any venues or eliminated races. Do you think you have grown in a shrinking overall market as the clientele from early to mid 2000's ages?

The short answer, YES!

Data tells me that the number of households participating in all races in Ontario, the largest market in Canada, had decreased by 30% from 2012 to 2016. I have spoken to many RD's in the US who say they see the same numbers. We contracted our series from 10 to 7 races this year and are up in each of those races year/year. Some of that is retaining customers who have migrated from one of the canceled races to one of the 7.

Barrelman is a standalone race however, the customers service, atmosphere, always calm swim in the rowing basin (many describe it as a big swimming pool), iconic run by the Falls have all been proven. It was a question of getting more people to hear about it south of the border and to rely on what they have heard and take a chance on a non-Mdot race.

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John Salt, Founder - MultiSport Canada
Canada's Largest Triathlon Series and Barrelman Niagara Falls
http://www.multisportcanada.com / http://www.niagarafallstriathlon.com
"Discipline Is What You Do When No One Is Watching You"

Congrats and we'll done growing while WTC has shrunk in any venues or eliminated races. Do you think you have grown in a shrinking overall market as the clientele from early to mid 2000's ages?


The race would grow even more Dev if you came down from Ottawa, did the Barrelman, and helped spread the good word in the Ottawa Triathlon Community! :) [kidding]

However, on a more serious note, Multisport Canada has already done that, not unlike the work with Rev3, forging a partnership, and relationship with Ian Fraser and the team from Somersault Promotions. The first fruits on this were born this past weekend at the historic K-Town Triathlon in Kingston, where I believe they are starting to get the Ottawa numbers back up to where they had been in the past!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Congrats John on the record registration! I'm sure it will be another huge success.
I have done Barrelman twice and if schedule allows will do AquaBike there this year.
There are many good reasons for ST readers to do the Barrelman Triathlon. The swim is predictably calm and comfortable temperature. The bike is scenic, flat and fast. The final stretch coasting along the upper Niagara River is fantastic. The run speaks for itself but in a word, beautiful.
Food, music, beer, change rooms (!) and a splash pad in the park all make the finish line comfortable for fans and participants. Wine prizes are welcome for those who qualify!
Of course, Niagara area has something (restaurants, accommodations, attractions, recreation, theatre, wineries...) for all the family and significant others for the whole weekend.

Wanted to do that one this year, but not a fan of traveling a long ways to a race, that I do not have people going with me to, and everyone else already had plans around that weekend (most doing Savage Man), but I think myself and a couple others are planning for next year.

So we only have to go .85 mile swim, 39.2 mile ride and 9.2 mile run. That actually sounds like fun.

I'll be coming up from West Virginia.

I did Musselman 70.3 in New York in July and loved it; I am really looking forward to Barrelman this September!