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Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction
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Received this email regarding LifeTime Temp:

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Dear thestrobro,
Thank you for your support of the Tempe Triathlon. I am writing today to let you know that we have made the decision to discontinue the race. As we review our series of events each year, we make decisions that allow us to concentrate on those with the highest athlete interest and growth. While we are continually looking to add new events, we also occasionally make the decision it’s time to move on from others. We have loved the years of the Tempe Triathlon, but have also seen declining participation and increased congestion in and around the City of Tempe. As a team, we feel it’s time for Tempe Triathlon to come to an end.

We are honored to have been able to host the event the last 12 years, and would like to thank you for your support as well as the City of Tempe, all of our staff, volunteers, and sponsor partners who brought this event to life. Many of you have become close friends and we will cherish lives we have been able to impact in some way.

We understand that this is disappointing news but do hope we have the chance to host you at one of our other events across the country in the future.

Regards,
Kimo

Kimo Seymour | President – Events and Media

I went to the website, and a Series that used to have Ten+ Triathlons nationwide is now down to four races. They stated that participation was declining in the Tempe Race (Above), but I'd say the race was stagnant and not really declining. Also described the congestion, the construction on the street car will be finished before the next Race, but changing the route something different is an easy switch.

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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Got the same email tonight, kind of sad that they pulled the plug, seemed like they were doing okay here? Anyway I wonder what will fill the gap for that weekend?
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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the memorial day race they do in downtown austin tx is awesome. i just signed up for it again for this year.

they seem as professional and have their stuff together like the ironman events ive been in. i hope they can grow in the future.

80/20 Endurance Ambassador
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [damon.lebeouf] [ In reply to ]
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Lifetime is sinking all their money into gravel races, which in my opinion is triathlon of 10 years ago. They all sell out in minutes like ironman used to

Yellowfin Endurance Coaching and Bike Fits
USAT Level 1, USAC Level 3
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [damon.lebeouf] [ In reply to ]
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damon.lebeouf wrote:
the memorial day race they do in downtown austin tx is awesome. i just signed up for it again for this year.

they seem as professional and have their stuff together like the ironman events ive been in. i hope they can grow in the future.

I signed up for the Olympic and booked a room yesterday as well. This is one of the best races I've done and venue is incredible. This race is always sold out.
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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I went to the website, and a Series that used to have Ten+ Triathlons nationwide is now down to four races. They stated that participation was declining in the Tempe Race (Above), but I'd say the race was stagnant and not really declining. Also described the congestion, the construction on the street car will be finished before the next Race, but changing the route something different is an easy switch.


The good news is that the larger decline in triathlon race participation numbers seems to have slowed and depending on who you talk to and regionally where you are talking about, we are seeing a small bit of growth (3 of my larger Clients who I am an Announcer for all had slight increases in participation numbers last year), but the bad news is that those increases are small.

Dealing with the races/events, the bad news carries on as Operational Hard Costs continue to rise - in some cases rapidly and the red-tape and barriers to putting on any sort of race or event on public roads, again are also increasing substantially. I know that in some urban areas now their are full-on moratoriums on ANY kind of event that involves disruption of traffic or road closures!

I can't speak for Life Times - they are not a Client - but, there is NO question that right now there is a buzz with the Gravel Races/Events. What's interesting is the whole of the bike business and market has also been experiencing a decline as well over a similar period as triathlons decline BUT - the bike and the cycling market is SO much bigger than triathlon and with Gravel, they have something that is trendy and hot right now - and, this is REALLY big in cycling, it's getting many very fit cyclists who would never have pinned a bib on for serious bike racing or a road Gran Fondo, to sign up for a Gravel Race/Ride!

If you want to look at a Text Book Launch and a Case Study for a new Endurance Sports Race/Event - then look at the SBT GRVL - https://sbtgrvl.com/ event. I talked to them early on - before they had even gone live with their registration for their first event last year, and I knew right away . . . these folks get it! They did EVERYTHING right last year.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [Fleck] [ In reply to ]
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I'd say that Gravel as far as racing is concerned is a huge bubble. If triathlon was a bubble, so is that. STers are different, but in general, how many people have the spare cash to own four different bikes. Looking at the Leadville race series, it's not just gravel cycling that they're banking on. It's got as many trail running events on their list.

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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I'd say that Gravel as far as racing is concerned is a huge bubble. If triathlon was a bubble, so is that.


In the early going . . . everything has a bubble-like feel to it.

That's where we are at with Gravel right now

Look at Mud & Obstacle Racing/Events. Good grief. NOTHING grew like they grew starting about 10 years ago. The growth was insane! I met and talked to one of the founders for one of the big mud series (Not Spartan - one of the others) at a conference in the early days, and already back then he was telling me that they had to have an, "exit strategy". You know something is NOT sustainable when key people in a business are having those sorts of candid conversations with you!

News came last week that Spartan is buying the Tough Mudder Series. Red Frog Events that owned an ran the Warrior Dash series and a bunch of other events and Music Festivals - ceased operations last August!


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [Fleck] [ In reply to ]
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Lifetime Oceanside one of the best races ever and killed. Maybe they need to look at other venues. HITS lake havasu was pretty damn good, and not too urban for required road closures.

I see mention of increasing popularity in gravel tri, but I have not seen one advertisement for anything near SoCal...
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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TheStroBro wrote:
I'd say that Gravel as far as racing is concerned is a huge bubble. If triathlon was a bubble, so is that. STers are different, but in general, how many people have the spare cash to own four different bikes. Looking at the Leadville race series, it's not just gravel cycling that they're banking on. It's got as many trail running events on their list.

gravel is not a bubble. gravel is a cycling platform. just like road, timed-race, MTB. it's a response to a road surface. the question is whether it's a legitimate response. in my view, it is. its legitimacy would be in question if it was a contrived road surface. something that doesn't exist in very many places. snow cycling. sand cycling. which it kind of fat bike cycling. is that a ubiquitous road surface? i would say no. i'd say it's more like a regional, occasional road surface. gravel expands beyond even the surface, per se. gravel, in practice, means go-anywhere, do-anything and the technical response has been to make bikes that get from here to there faster, with more comfort, less effort. so, gravel is only going to increase.

but for the purpose of this thread, i think the trend in triathlon is to reverse the roll-up, natl series, natl brand, consolidation model of the last decade. i suspect some of these races are going to go back to their original owners, or to new owners, who know how to grow them, to inject the secret sauce that makes them work. whether small local RDs (david daggett) or big local RDs (delmo, high 5 events, MESP), these local orgs are better at producing races in their local areas almost all the time. the only time a global muscle outlifts the locals is when a very muscular approach to race organization is needed (it's easier for ironman to get a course and produce a race of that magnitude).

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman wrote:
gravel is not a bubble. gravel is a cycling platform. just like road, timed-race, MTB. it's a response to a road surface. the question is whether it's a legitimate response. in my view, it is. its legitimacy would be in question if it was a contrived road surface. something that doesn't exist in very many places. snow cycling. sand cycling. which it kind of fat bike cycling. is that a ubiquitous road surface? i would say no. i'd say it's more like a regional, occasional road surface. gravel expands beyond even the surface, per se. gravel, in practice, means go-anywhere, do-anything and the technical response has been to make bikes that get from here to there faster, with more comfort, less effort. so, gravel is only going to increase.

but for the purpose of this thread, i think the trend in triathlon is to reverse the roll-up, natl series, natl brand, consolidation model of the last decade. i suspect some of these races are going to go back to their original owners, or to new owners, who know how to grow them, to inject the secret sauce that makes them work. whether small local RDs (david daggett) or big local RDs (delmo, high 5 events, MESP), these local orgs are better at producing races in their local areas almost all the time. the only time a global muscle outlifts the locals is when a very muscular approach to race organization is needed (it's easier for ironman to get a course and produce a race of that magnitude).


Gravel racing as the bubble. I think that gravel bikes probably become the most popular platform, especially with disc wheels making so you have real easy interchange for purpose and can take the gravel bike on the road easy. I bought my Krypton specifically to buy another wheelset and take it out on the gravel. I'm just looking at this weirdly where you just cut your entire series by 50-60% and then increase your gravel series by 100% makes little sense to me, it's a massive pendulum swing in hopes of long term gain. Not sure that is there overall, maybe it is. I'm more of a layman in this world, but when LifeTime chose not to be USAT Sanctioned as a promoter, I didn't register for their race. Now, how this affects me, I was hoping this race was still going to be here this season because it would have been a part of my IMAZ plan.

Fleck wrote:


In the early going . . . everything has a bubble-like feel to it.

That's where we are at with Gravel right now

Look at Mud & Obstacle Racing/Events. Good grief. NOTHING grew like they grew starting about 10 years ago. The growth was insane! I met and talked to one of the founders for one of the big mud series (Not Spartan - one of the others) at a conference in the early days, and already back then he was telling me that they had to have an, "exit strategy". You know something is NOT sustainable when key people in a business are having those sorts of candid conversations with you!

News came last week that Spartan is buying the Tough Mudder Series. Red Frog Events that owned an ran the Warrior Dash series and a bunch of other events and Music Festivals - ceased operations last August!

There was a huge OCR promoter that went belly up the year after they Sponsored the Fiesta Bowl. I can tell you for a fact they actually didn't spend what that sponsorship was worth, but it was way more than they had. Battle Frog had a national collegiate series and championship televised on ESPN. Where are they now?

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.
Last edited by: TheStroBro: Jan 3, 20 10:06
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Before they were called gravel grinders, they were usually called "xxx-Roubaix" where xxx was the local town or region.
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Re: Life Time Triathlon Series Contraction [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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Super bummed about the Tempe race. Not going to lie though when I was doing Tempe 70.3 I was thinking "damn these roads are worse than what I ride in Tucson, maybe I'll just skip Tempe 70.3 moving forward".


This past winter I was contracted to help select members for a national cycling & tri team.

The most amazing thing was the number of Cat 1 & 2's who stated they were scaling back their road racing by 50-90% to focus on gravel.

I mean a few of these guys were getting out of their contracts that paid them a salary in order to race gravel instead of road. (granted it wasn't a huge salary but hey someone can pay me $6-12k/yr guaranteed to race...any takers PM me!!)

Some of these people were <26yo and stepping back (IMO anyway) to focus on gravel.

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

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