Based on altitude gain alone I'd expect it's slightly faster than it was. I'm pretty sure I remember it being a bit over 1600m of altitude gain when I did it. The second half of the new route is the same profile as the old one so the first half must be a bit flatter.
I'd have preferred a single loop route myself. I don't like laps for a long race.

Thanks!
I did it in 2017 and loved the event and course. But I also like the idea of one loop course, and if it is a bit faster that would be cool :-)

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Instagram and Strava: @lpstormo

hi, I am a local and I guess the new couse will be 5-10min slower! long climbs combined with some steep downhill sections, some tricky corners....

I've never done it, but have heard that it was a very fast bike course before, if now faster and 1 loop, it has jumped on the to-do list.

A few things usually a one loop course tends to be a bit slower for faster people ( we do see pros speeding up in the 2 nd loop when they start to pass people)
It's not a lot but its there.
I am just guessing and I would say while it would appear a bit flatter it seems to have more corners in the new parts ( as the local poster says and I have cycled a bit of the new course albeit many year ago and would agree with him her
the hills and downhills are not as good as in fast) the new course the old course decent are not technical and not too step mostly etc.
I would say for a faster guy like the Op
Who is usually lapiing loads of people the new course would be likely a couple of min slower.
Of course the other question is which old course when vanhoneacker went the first time sub 8 it was 176 k. I think usually 178.5 k. So it looks like new course is longer ( says 179 k) so I would say from a tiny bit faster for some too 3 min slower for others and most 1-2 min slower.
But race dynamic wind conditions ( drafting etc) will have an bigger impact on speed rather than course change ( I seem to remeber this year's bike times where a good bit slower than last year)

Respect for making it a one loop course it's safer for ironman races.

It wouldn't have been as fast as a much flatter course, but as the descents were mostly gradual, you could make use of the potential energy gained while climbing and recover some of the time lost on the climbs. If the new portion of this single loop route is shallow climbs and steep descents, the opposite will be the case and it may be slower despite the slightly reduced altitude gain. Personally I'm not especially interested in how fast the course is. if you want easy, do an olympic ;)

At the same time what we see all the time is that flatter courses with smaller fields are not really much faster than austria and roth if they are the full 180 k ( many flat course tend to be windy as well) . since most people dont have a bike set up good enough to take advantage of a flat course on their own .
the main reason why flat courses are faster is that packs stay more togheter and people can sit up with less time penalty while saving energy. and we see much more imprpvement of Mopers than the real fopers that cycle on its own, on flat course .
we all know people that have nowhere near the abilty to go sub 5. to go sub 5 on courses barcelona...

or we have seen it time and time again in the early 70,3 world champs in flodida where age group female constantly outsplit female pros cyclingin male packs.

Since I'm in your AG, please let me know if you're doing it so I can stay far away :)

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Strava

I was talking specifically about the effect of course profile on a typical solo rider assuming no impact on road condition/weather/wind exposure. It never even occurred to me to consider the impact on cheating and i don't think it matters much.
If it's true that flat courses are typically no faster than hillier ones, there's something odd going on. Local weather and exposure, strength of field and cheating prevalence may all be factors that screw up the data.

Last year I got 178,3 km. The last loop was not 90 km (more like 87 km), and on the new course it looks like we pass T1 after 93 km, so it should be spot on and maybe not as fast as before... We will see, and it is anyway a great race!

I liked what they did with the fast wave (400 persons) before the rolling start in 2017, but it does not look like they have that anymore.

(and yes sch340, I will probably do it in 2019;-)

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Instagram and Strava: @lpstormo

with 5 weeks to go interested to see how the new course works, i think it will be a lot more honest than the old course with so many people in one space, even without cheating, legally dipping into slower riders draft will give you a benefit, combined with the slightly more technical nature of loop one I guess it will probably be at least 15 minutes slower than last year.

First Ironman since Bolton in 2016 I'm super excited, despite still having 3 weeks of hard training left to do!!

I'm a starter and know the area a bit but do not exactly know about the descents and the corners. Interesting that most posters here estimate it slower than the old loop, although I do not know whether that's because of the longer distance or the more unfavourable profile. At least the motorway for 20 or 25 km should be fast although I could not assess the speed of the tarmac riding it with the car. And at the end of this piece the motorway starts ascending nastily.
Anyway, I think my biggest concern is the 4000 people they want to send on the course.

Curious how you found the new course compared to the old? I did the old course in 2013 and 2015, loved it, and am planning on returning in 2020.

its on my list for 2021 , already sorted 2020

having watched live steam this year looked a better course less drafting ;-)

The new course was nice and probably led to less drafting. But I found the new first loop to be a bit boring and harder than 2x the old loop. I think many were a bit surprised of how hard the first loop was. On paper it looked easy, but I felt it was easy to push too hard the first loop, and then the second loop got really hard. Heard many people say they sufferd the last loop.

But all in all it’s a fantastic bike course (and event), but not super fast. The distances on swim, bike and run was spot on so that was good.

Austria is deffenitely the best IM event I have done (after Kona).

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Instagram and Strava: @lpstormo