I'm glad you like festivals and the city of Oakland, but I did the actual triathlon.

Me and around 9 others agreed that it was not put on very well by the organizers. I did the a USA Productions race earlier in the year, @ Half Moon Bay, where the RD failed to put a anyone outside of T2 to point us where to go and 40 of us did the 5k in the wrong direction. At least, though, the RD took responsibility. In Oakland, safety was the main issue not addressed well. 2 cars almost hit me but I was lucky ... a friend of mine rode off the road to dodge a car in an intersection.

Perhaps you should title your post: "Oakland Triathlon- Volunteering was a success! "

I hopeful that things will get better for USA Production races as whole, including Oakland Tri.

This was my first event so don't have much to compare it to and I did the Sprint so others' impressions may be different. Overall I'd say it lived up to my expectations and I enjoyed the weekend but I would note the following issues:

• The swim course was not adequately staffed and most of the last three waves of the Sprint ended up swimming to the right of the buoys, significantly shortening the course and putting those of us who swam it correctly at a pretty large disadvantage.
• The swim exit was pretty dangerous with the large, sharp edged rocks requiring a hand crawl until volunteers could pull you onto the narrow gangway resulting in a pretty large traffic jam for my wave. I ended up cutting my hand and foot a bit and also ended up with a pretty large bruise on my hand when one of the swimmers in front of me kicked one of the aforementioned rocks onto my hand.
• Bike course was really well marked but the Oakland PD at some of the intersections were doing everything they could to move backed up cars through, resulting in one close call for me. I think the run up Broadway was a great idea in concept, but unless the organizers can get the city to commit to completely shut down all of the course intersections it should be scrapped for next year.
• Food/Beverage logistics were pretty horrible both on Saturday and Sunday. Two pans of pasta on Saturday and running out of mason jars for beer 30 minutes in on Sunday is pretty bad.

That stinks, sorry that happened. Anyway, I guess I was motivated to start the thread on not only on my experience of being on-course driving around doing neutral support but speaking to people afterwards as well.

Unless roads are completely closed, which rarely they are, there's always the off chance that something like this can happen. It's not an excuse, just an unfortunate reality. This is greater in an urban setting where there's quite a few more cross streets. Even at an event like Vineman where there tends to be little traffic these things will happen from time to time (I had two close calls myself this year).

I actually expected to hear lots of complaints about the foot bridge to go over the tracks but didn't hear much on that end. I guess people knew what they were in for.

Anyway, I'm a big East Bay homer, so maybe I'm biased and will admit I want to see this race continue to succeed.

I cut my hands and feet pretty bad myself from the rocks by the swim exit.

Also had my worst bike split time, ever.. Lots of pots holes, cranky drivers and pedestrians. Definitely had to ride defensively.

Saw a young girl on the ground (by the cargo ships) with blood all over her face and body after she crashed. Hope she is ok, she wasn't moving at all, but her eyes were open.

It was a decent race, but I probably wouldn't do it again.

I wish you the best in hoping for the race to continue. Based on the comments from the participants in the thread, I am not surprised at the challenges - USA Productions has a spotty record in the events I have done with them. They used to do a HIM-distance in San Jose. I did it the last year they had it - the run was 12.2 miles. They stopped doing the race after that year.

I also did the Pleasanton half marathon in 2013. Not only was the course short - my Garmin, which is usually long, showed under 13 miles, but the mile markers were inaccurate. The pacer I was running with got confused when mile 1 showed up at 0.8 and mile 2 showed up at 2.3 miles by Garmin. They haven't held the race since then.

On the other hand, the Cal International Tri they do in Shadow Cliffs is pretty well established and runs without a hitch.

I agree. The swim was nice with the current but more support was needed to make sure everyone swam around the correct buoys. I saw several swimmers cut and I was in the second wave. The swim exit was also horrible and the carpet wasn't great at covering the rocks. You literally had to swim right up on shore before being told to stand up and the bottleneck was bad (and I imagine only got worse as more waves went off).

The bike course was nice but it was a little tight with the number of riders - especially during the second loop. I thought the route was fairly well marked although there were quite a few that missed some turns. Drafting wasn't a huge issue although there was no enforcement. Lots of flats but its downtown Oakland.

I haven't uploaded the run info from my Garmin but I think the distance was more or less correct. Run was fine with water at the aid stations.

Only thing I would change would be to have more enforcement/monitoring of the swim and a larger transition area.

I did the race and did well. Some complaints from me are the roads, but that's a standard complaint. Atmosphere was well run and organized. Aid stations spacing was interesting, nothing after mile 4 of the run, I think the run may have been short and didn't see a mile marker 5... The OPD did the best they could, it's an urban triathlon in a city that probably has only ever heard of a triathlon once or twice, definite growing pains, but I would like to see them come back. Luckily for me the swim exit was clear I was in the front so had the benefit of being special treated. The long transition 1 run was not ideal, but also ideal because it allowed the train tracks to not have to be crossed multiple times with the potential of train delays. I'd do it again to give it another shot. Volunteer support was good I felt like.

Also, the lady that was crashed out is OK she got 5 stitches and seems to be doing OK, Lindsey something... I know her BF from racing, he said she was adjusting her glasses and hit something and over she went. I rolled through just as the paramedics were arriving.

---

_______________________
Beyond Aero

"Grind it til' you find it..."

I did the race as well, International distance one. I think the swim was ok. I think if they had given a little bit of better direction for people at the start it could have help. At the start someone yelled some instructions but he didnt repeat it, so many were still wondering what he yelled about. I knew about the rocks at the end since I did the course preview and I thought they did the best they could. A little warning would have probably help others. Luckily for me, there wasnt a bottleneck when I got there. I did notice after the bike that I had a cut on my foot but I dont really know where I got it.

The bike course is definitely what you would make of it for an "urban triathlon". I thought OPD did the best they can but there are those people who were clearly frustrated at the traffic. I definitely was on the guard out more than I was in any other races. There were alot of potholes but its in the city so definitely you have to take it as it is. The one thing that really worried me is one time this huge semi-truck just cut into the race line to get to the dock/parking area they needed to get to. So I had to quickly swerve into the open traffic line to avoid it. Someone could have really been injured badly if it happened more often.

The run portion was pretty clean cut. I thought they did a great job on the run portion. The volunteers definitely keep me going and motivated.

I have to say overall the volunteers were awesome. When doing the course preview a few weeks ago, I thought to myself that this race better have some great volunteers since the courses seem sketchy. I think they did a great job. The bridge transition was pretty cool as well. I mean where else can you do that. I think when races have unique things about them then it makes for a more interesting race. The downside is that it was wet on the bridge so people definitely needed to be cautious. The festival afterwards was pretty cool. I've been to many USAP races. The finish line and festival were probably one of the best ones put together. The lines for food suck but there are lines from all the USAP events i've been to. Overall, I think I would do it again. The one thing I would change are some sections of the bike course since some neighborhoods were super sketchy. But I cant complain because it motivates you to have faster bike splits lol.

I had fun at the race and hope that it comes back – local events are great to have as an alternative to always doing WTC events. I also found the urban triathlon aspect to it appealing. But I also agree with most of the criticisms cited here. In particular, I had a few close calls on the bike course, primarily with cars ending up on the race course itself or the cops doing traffic control not realizing how fast I was coming – I'm in M50-54 so was in a later wave, and I'm also relatively quick, which means I was passing tons of riders in both laps of the bike course. Part of the safety issue too were the less-experienced slower riders not knowing to stay right, or suddenly jumping left to avoid a pothole. I had to ride very defensively. Also got held up at the swim exit and even climbing the stairs. All of these would have been less of an issue for those starting in the first wave.

All that said, I still enjoyed the event, and I can't even begin to imagine the logistics the Ryan the RD had to deal with in making it happen in the first place.

I'm surprised by the negative replies because everyone I have talked to post-race loved it. I did a preview of the bike course a week before the race and I was worried that it would be a disaster (pot holes, train tracks, turns, bumps), but for the actual race I had a great time on the bike. I agree with the comments that it was necessary to ride defensively and be super alert, but that didn't slow me down and I found the course to be really fast. The pedestrian bridge made it more interesting and was fine the first time around, but I sure wasn't happy to see it again at mile 5! Having said that though I still wouldn't want them to remove it from the course in the future. I agree that the swim exit needs improvement though. I got stuck behind people crawling to the carpet.
I hope this is just the start and this race grows like they plan it to and is successful. For those who said they wouldn't do it again I hope you reconsider and give them a chance to improve. At least we won't have to worry about the drought impacting the swim like we do with so many races around here.

I agree with you. I did it, loved it, and will do it again!!

Where was the swim?

---

clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

In the estuary. Off Jack London Square.

p3,

Thanks for the message in the thread and sorry to hear you and your friends didn't enjoy the Oakland event. The only way we can create a safer bike course is to hear of these issues so we can pass it along to the police department for future races. Please post to our event survey sent out so we can share these issues with the police and make improvements for next year. As a race organizer, I like to get as much positive/negative feedback as possible so proper adjustments can be made for future years, creating the athlete experience for all.

Half Moon Bay as we all know came together very quickly with the drought we are still in and yes I took responsibility for the misdirection on the run course. We were lucky to be racing that day and I will always do my best to make sure we have an event that is safe with proper police/volunteer/staff support and fun for all. Half Moon Bay will never be a point to point again which will make the experience much better for shorter distances races.

Nothing in life is perfect, we do are best to create outlets for people to stay fit and healthy through our special events which is never a walk in the park by any means. That said, we hope you and your friends continue to race with us as we will only continue to improve with our new locations at Half Moon Bay and Oakland.

Keep smiling!

Thanks for the post and would like to give you insight on improvements for next year.

• The swim course was not adequately staffed and most of the last three waves of the Sprint ended up swimming to the right of the buoys, significantly shortening the course and putting those of us who swam it correctly at a pretty large disadvantage.

Completely agree on course changes and sprint waves were all over the swim course, we had adequate water support but once athletes spread out all over the course we couldn't get them back on track with the distances between the shore and buoy line. Change of the swim course would be the best improvement and moving the buoys closer to the shore so participants could only swim outside the buoys.

• The swim exit was pretty dangerous with the large, sharp edged rocks requiring a hand crawl until volunteers could pull you onto the narrow gangway resulting in a pretty large traffic jam for my wave. I ended up cutting my hand and foot a bit and also ended up with a pretty large bruise on my hand when one of the swimmers in front of me kicked one of the aforementioned rocks onto my hand.

Based on the tide schedule the low tide was suppose to be at 10:30, this was not the case. Changes for next year now that we now all the jurisdictions very well is to put floating docks in the estuary for a swim exit and run up the docks to the gangway at the shoreline.

• Bike course was really well marked but the Oakland PD at some of the intersections were doing everything they could to move backed up cars through, resulting in one close call for me. I think the run up Broadway was a great idea in concept, but unless the organizers can get the city to commit to completely shut down all of the course intersections it should be scrapped for next year.

We are looking at this in depth as we will be rerouting cars so there are now issues on Oak and Broadway

• Food/Beverage logistics were pretty horrible both on Saturday and Sunday. Two pans of pasta on Saturday and running out of mason jars for beer 30 minutes in on Sunday is pretty bad.

Logistics for pasta feed was based on the RSVP list we received online, it was not our intention to not have enough food we were only going off the expected total attending the course preview. Mason jars were only for beer drinkers and reducing waste around a cool jug to drink beer. We ended up finishing 4 kegs of beer and going through all 600 mason jars, this was not expected but a great end to a beautiful day in the sun. Next year all participants will get a mason jar drinking beer or not.