Hopefully all the crash victims are OK and will be able to ride their bikes, swim, and run again soon.

I didn't see much evidence of it at the time - on my second loop i saw a few scattered bikes on the side of the road and thought they were probably from people taking a bathroom break in the woods though it seemed off there were so many. When I saw the race director in the middle of the road telling people to slow down at first I thought it was a crazy person but when I saw he had a radio I guessed he must have been part of the race organization and probably there for a good reason like a bad crash that must have happened. I appreciated what he was doing and on my way back when yelling at me to go slow I nodded my head to acknowledge the message and he gave me a thumbs up.

Overall I think this is one of the safest courses I've ever ridden on - there is plenty of space and we were really shielded from vehicular traffic. There was plenty of room to pass other riders including in the aid station areas. I agree that the hilly section was the biggest risk but I wouldn't call it technical or unsafe at all. It was more the combination of heavy rain, lack of braking power with carbon wheels, and poor athlete decisions that increases the chance of bad things to happen. Personally I prefer to ride with aluminum brake tracks on my wheels, and reduce speed going into blind corners, to minimize my own risks.

Alexander - since you're wondering if you hit anybody as you slid across the road....well, that answer is yes, just a bit. I was riding in the right lane coming up the hill at that corner at the exact time of your crash and a bike slid across the road and hit my front wheel. I got wobbly for a second or two, but managed to stay upright and just kept riding. It all happened so fast, so it may have been someone else, but from the corner of my eye at the moment of impact, I saw a green fork, so based on your description of your bike, it sounds like it was you. It's all good - no damage to my bike, or (more importantly) to me since I didn't fall over. It was just one big wake up call to be careful.

Sorry to hear about your road rash. How are you healing up? Hope you're well.

Btw, my wife and I met you and your wife at the Ironkids race on Friday morning. I think our two daughters ran in the 9-11 group together.

Small world...

Brian

I was about 50 yards behind the crash starting my ascent when I heard what I thought was a car accident. Anyone who has heard the low thud of crunching metal, plastic and fiberglass when a car hits a tree, pole etc. knows the sound I am talking about. My initial thought was "what the heck is a car doing out here on the bike course?" I thank god that I was heads down looking at the pavement 20 feet in front of me and didn't actually see the crash. Just hearing it and witnessing the immediate aftermath was bad enough. It really rocked me to my core on Sunday. I was on scene about 15 seconds after impact. Two men were laying on the shoulder within a few feet of each other, their bodies badly contorted and tangled with their bikes. Both were unconscious and the guy on the white bike had blood running from the side of his mouth. I literally thought that I has just witnessed a fatality given the sound of the impact and the speed at which cyclists were descending. I can only guess the descending rider was doing about 30-35 mph when they hit and that the other guy never had a chance to take evasive action.

A third cyclist was also involved but not injured nearly as badly. He was calling for help from over the edge of the ravine. I unclipped and walked over to him. He was trying to push his bike back up to the road level but couldn't due to the steep dropoff. I grabbed his stem and pulled the bike up first, then grabbed his hand and helped him back up to the shoulder. He said the descending cyclist couldn't negotiate the turn, crossed the yellow line and slammed head on with the cyclist ahead of me who was starting his ascent. He said the descending cyclist had unclipped before impact- I imagine in a reactive move knowing he was going to be off his cycle momentarily- and not in a good way. I couldn't tell if this third cyclist was also ascending and had driven off the road in a desperate move to escape impact, or perhaps was clipped or pushed off the road while he was descending. That part of the ascent isn't very fast so its hard to imagine he'd drive that far off the road and down a ravine if he was ascending. Either way, he was pretty shaken (and ticked off to be honest) and scraped up but looked good compared to the other poor guys. I really hope they are going to be OK.

I'll let all the others weigh in on whether that route is safe, rain factor, unskilled riders, mass starts etc. All I will tell you is that with all the asphalt in that resort town, you have to question the logic of having cyclists (and known first timers) in aero position doing 30-40 mph around curves on wet pavement literally inches from other cyclists heading in the opposite direction. Lake Placid has a couple out-and-backs with riders opposing each other, but they are relatively flat, straight and not terribly fast. Everywhere else in LP (including that big fast descent out of town) has riders all moving in the same direction. To me that makes sense.

Prayers go out to the victims and if friends could keep us posted on their recovery, that would be appreciated.

Small world indeed, I remember! Nice to 'see you again' and Oh MY GOD.... I'm glad you are okay. I really have no idea what happened to my bike right when I fell. I went in the right gravel shoulder and my bike went... somewhere. I'm very relieved that you are okay, undamaged and was able to continue. By the time I stood up, someone had moved my bike to the ascending side on the dirt.

Maybe I am biased because we are part of the organizing committee but I have to agree with this one, sometimes POOR athlete decisions cause most of these. What do we need to do, put more signs, get a speed limit system in place with wires at the top and bottom and we DQ anyone going over a certain average like what is done at Oceanside? One of the athlete describing the accident, she got it going up mentioned that the cyclist coming down was going 60-70km/hr and completely lost control and caused this... There is only so much we can but we will take the feedback for sure!

Disallow aerobar position ln th descent - or even partial, as described by one postet.
Have a speed limig.
These 2 things.

I think signs or markings on the road would be useful in certain spots. Corners are obvious, but put thought to places with a descent -> crest -> more descent. A slight rise like that makes it tough to see all the way ahead and then combined with the poor braking, it could cause problems.

I do think the course was VERY well designed with regard to separating cars and bikes.

I am back home and this is the first time I have ever posted anything on this forum. Thank you very, very much tonsetrider. I was the rider you helped out of the ditch. I was also the first person in a line of a few cyclists that had started up one of the climbs on Duplessis when we were struck by another rider coming down the hill. We were on the far right side of the paved shoulder when a cyclist that was coming down at a great speed of what I would estimate was easily over 70k an hour in that downpour passing people, lost control of his bike and crossed over his lane, our lane, the shoulder and hit us. Luckily I was looking up and not down or to one side as I had less than a second to turn my head and bars inwards towards the gravel shoulder and was grazed by the descending cyclist and launched into the gully. I rolled down and was saved by bushes, again lucky that it was not rocks and that I was not knocked out as I was not visible form the edge of the road. I could not get back up until you pulled me out. I am so lucky that I came out of it but with some abrasions, a sore neck with soft tissue damage and a pinched nerve and damage to my bike, helmet and kit. No broken bones and physio and acupuncture have already started.

The cyclist behind me however was not so lucky and was hit basically head on and it was devastating. The impact noise was horrific. As an avid life long cyclist and I have seen a lot of accidents, this was the worst bike accident I have ever seen. We were fortunate that a doctor who was competing stopped to help. I was in shock and pretty rattled and have been thinking a lot about the accident and those poor people replaying it in my head. All that work, time and health built, gone in a blink.

I am familiar with the course on Duplessis, it was my second IM in Tremblant, I have also done the 70.3 twice and the 5i50 there as well as a few weekends of practice and familiarity. I love the course but common sense must prevail and attention given to the conditions of the day, such as rain, several slower riders in the descending lane all going different speeds and lot of oncoming climbing riders that must be taken into consideration. Thought should be given to pre positioning an ambulance at the top of the turn around to expedite response time for the future.

I have done many other events internationally that are not IM branded and am convinced that one of the best organized events with the best volunteers and best venue in the world are to be found at Mount Tremblant. I am already registered for next year’s 70.3 at Tremblant and was waiting to see what my results would be in this event before registering for the full. So I will be back.

Finally, I was transported to the Village clinic and really can't say enough about the Medical team on site. Amazing, fast, caring, thorough professionals from the second I was wheeled in. Super impressive, even more so when you think they are all donating their time. I am available should the others involved wish to reach out, compassion is in order in our comments about our fellow athletes. Some may never be the same again, just because we do Ironman doesn't mean we have to have Iron hearts. I hope and pray that the others that are badly injured can have a full recovery and normal life.

I know where the crash was, and it's not really surprising for that course that a crash would happen there. It's a big sweeping right-hand turn going downhill that you could easily carry a LOT of speed into. And it was raining REALLY hard. I came upon the aftermath of the crash; probably not more than 30min after it happened. So the conditions I faced would have been the same as what it was when the crash happened.

I rode the Duplessis descent probably about 50% slower than I did last year. And, doing that, I had no issues. I never felt like my tires were going to slide out.

I'd say excess speed was a likely cause - the roads there are SUPER clean; no debris of any kind before the race and the roads are built so almost nothing washes onto the road. If you were on tires that are a harder compound that aren't good in the wet and/or if your breaks weren't sufficiently tight and/or if you were riding carbon rims (and you are used to riding aluminum) and/or if you aren't used to riding in the rain, any of those things could have contributed to carrying too much speed.

But there's nothing about that section of road that precludes staying in control. It's not that steep. The corner is not off-camber. The turn is pretty consistent in terms of how sharp it is; etc. I just want to add my thoughts that there is nothing about this course that makes it unsafe, regardless of conditions.

All that said, nobody deserves to crash. I wish your friend nothing but the best for a full and smooth and speedy recovery.

---

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Hey guys, just a quick update on one of the crash victims. Things are looking really good, the jolly giant as we call him is conscious , responsive and looks like the head trauma issue is going to be ok. Just broken bones which should heal up in time.
Cheers

Very well written.

Lighting a candle or two is in order (or doing whatever your faith is calling for).

This is horrible in so many ways. I really have a hard time comprehending people who in races drop common sense, rhyme and reason just for a few seconds (similar to those driving/riding dangerously on their before or after work commute).

But it is what it is, and we have to deal with the consequences of people making poor decisions.
In a race this is much harder to understand, as there is no life-threatening emergency or job-threatening meeting to get to.

But we still need to be able to forgive.

Which is human, and makes us not lose faith in humanity.

This is really good to hear, thanks for updating us.

The officials did a great job afterwards. For the second loop they had two men with vehicles planted well above the curve signaling folks to slow down a bit.

Good to hear. The image of the guy laying on the ground unconscious with a bloody face stuck with me for most of the ride after going by.

One of which was the RD personally standing in the middle of the road. I appreciate that he did that rather than delegate it to someone else.

Is that the guy from Newfoundland?

There's a lot of factors that cause crashes in races:
-people not being aware of their surroundings
-people overestimiating their bike handling skills
-people not understanding rules and ettiquette of how to ride and things luke how to hold your line through a curve
-people taking unnecesary risks to save a few seconds while risking their entire race as well as their health and that of others.

In the CDA 70.3 in June I saw a guy cause a crash. He was coming back through town after the first small out and back, coming down Lakeshore taking the sharp right hander onto Northwest to head out for the long out and back in the interstate. This is a down hill turn where you can carry some speed. There are signs warning you to slow down and volunteers waving at riders to slow down as well. One rider carried too much speed, couldnt make the turn, took it wide and rode into people at the mount line on the other side of the rode. He took out a couple of people just about to start their ride. The other riders were able to continue after some assistance but the guy who caused the crash was done. Looked like his face hit the curb after he slid across the road. So to save at most a few seconds by not slowing down this guy ended his race, busted up his bike and helmet, likely needed medical and dental visits, and negatively impacted the day of others.

IMCDA last weekend had a short section with signs that stated no aerobars.
I have done many IMs and this was the 1st no aero bar sign I have come across.

I'm of the view that a large % (maybe 1/5?) of an IM field should not be riding an IM to begin with, let alone on a TT bike. I mean just by looking at 1/2 the fits, people would be better-served by riding road bikes - why ride a TT bike when your areobars are the same stack as your saddle?

There should be no such thing as a first time Ironman competitor coupled with a firs time triathlon competitor. This whole concept of a compete to finish 'one-and-done' mentality is BS. But whatever brings Chairman Mao more $, right?

The IMMT bike course was mundane from a technical perspective and assuming all competitors had significant experience riding a TT bike (including in wet conditions) there shouldn't have been any issues (with the obvious caveat of mechanicals, etc). I've seen multiple instances of incompetent riders crashing or causing others to crash due to lack of experience. Most recently at St. George this year where a female cyclist couldn't properly control her bike & grab a bottle, so she plowed into an aid station / multiple volunteers. This should NOT happen. Ever.

It's in peoples' nature to avoid blame by saying "unavoidable," but in my experience that's just not the case. Outside of the triathlon world I have witnessed numerous instances where people involved in crashes have said "[xyz crash] was unavoidable." In reality, they were sub-par cyclists (even if they thought otherwise). When an accident isn't avoidable, it's usually because an outside circumstance resulted in the situation -- in IM racing more often than not, that outside factor is incompetence!

Just interested - why not a first time ironman / first time triathlon ?

WD :-)

Curious as to whether WTC has a full-time risk management person/department who focuses on analyzing courses and accidents such as this one.

My best wishes for a full recovery to everyone injured at IMMT (and all triathlons).

I hope that all the athletes recover well from their injuries. Sounds absolutely horrible.

I did IMMT in 2013 and the conditions were pretty much optimal. However, I did think to myself how dangerous the descent was on Duplessis, being fairly tight for the bidirectional traffic. And that one sweeping right turn, descending close together at really high speeds...with rainy conditions, makes it a magnitude more scary.

It's a beautifully paved road. Spotless in fact. With a very wide shoulder. And not technical.

You must be one of the above-referenced self proclaimed "good riders".

i think you are confusing Hwy 117 with Duplessis where the accident occurred.

Another one that shouldn't be riding an IM / TT bike.

Sorry for the delay in response. Yes it was.