Randy are you doing the Kona + St. George 70.3 WC next Oct. Oct 28-29 in Utah sounds like about the time there could be really really bad weather for a tri. I wonder why they went with that date? I assume local limitations?

It was very dangerous! I was in the first AG wave and we turned out of Snow Canyon for the descent and there were constant 40mph side winds, hail, freezing rain. Guys in front of me were on their base bars and veering into oncoming traffic because they were like sails, so i went past them and let them know that it’s safer in the aerobars, and then went past half a dozen or so guys who looked like they were shatting themselves (because they only ride Zwift? Kidding but not really). I just told myself it was like any day coming down S St Vrain road and let it rip. Heard a guy with a disc wheel had his wheels taken out from under him. I felt mine would go at times, and I avoid those painted lines!!! Pretty scary.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

I was on the bike on red hills parkway (mile 35) when it hit me. For the last 5 min a guy next to me was asking every spectator we passed when the rain was coming. I was like uhh buddy look at that dark sky, we are f”d in like 5 minutes! The descent of that parkway to under the canyon descent was terrifying.

It started off light…no too bad I said…then picked up…dust swirling everywhere…huge flash of lightning off to the left…incredibly dark….booom of thunder!….starting feeling I was being pelted and that’s when I heard a volunteer on the run course say “omg its hailing!”. Sure it enough it was, pea sized. I thanked the gods I had my helmet and sunglasses but it stung my forearms for about 10 min. I kept telling myself to suck it up this is the WC!

I was sure they would pull us from the course but they never did.

I was having issues keeping up and felt my bike lose traction. I saw a guy in front of me slow to a roll so I decided to do the same (this is my B race for IMTX in a few weeks so I wasn’t going for time). Still guys were FLYING by me like there was no weather at all.

After the descent the approach climb to snow canyon started and the hail stopped. Climbing in it was no problem and it stopped before we entered the park for the climb of snow canyon. Final descent was wet but fine otherwise, no issues going fast but I did dial it back some to avoid a fall in the last few miles

Sounds nuts! Were you riding carbon rims or disc brakes or alloy brakes? I've learned the hard way that carbon rims are freaking scary if it's wet. I race in Norcal where it's almost always dry, but I did a coastal race where it was lightly drizzling and I was horrified at how poor my brakes were - on a technical course, too. It was scary enough that I'm seriously considering buying HED Jet Black wheels to get alloy rim braking power back, as it was definitely the most dangerous situation I've been on a bike - and that includes mtn biking!

I could venture that some folks with good disc brakes that they were confident of even in rain, would take advantage of the situation and hammer it while everyone else with lesser braking had to slow it down.

Yes the weather changed very quickly, and was pretty scary.
The rain started on me climbing up SR 9, you could see a Brown Sotrm Cloud brewing as you looked West towards town.
I was thinking just wind, then it started raining. Just as I was starting to pickup speed descending Telegraph the hail hit!

Needless to say brakes were ridden and checked often, and I stayed off of any paint on the road. The sidewind was blowing the front wheel as well.

After that first deluge, everything else was just being cautious. But the whole way down 18, I was worried about cross winds that never happened.

Then Diagonal was scary a shit, but that had nothing to do with the weather, but shitty roads and people riding way to fast or too slow.

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2017 Cervelo P2
2017 Cervelo S2
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I was in the first wave so I was climbing and descending snow canyon. I only ride zwift and I didn’t think it was that scary. I passed a lot of people. 2016 in st George was colder and worse. I think because it’s race day any weather gets a lot of hype. Definitely strong gusts though. But it’s not like you didn’t know they were coming. Better than a hot day for sure. I think the ones that got it the worst were the swimmers.

It was really harrowing for me when it hit. We weren't to snow canyon yet. When the wind whipped up and the storm hit, it was a dangerous, gusting crosswind for us.

Saw a guy in front of me probably about 165 lbs (just like me) on a gentle, descending, sweeping right hander get moved from the right shoulder across 2 traffic lanes right to left into the left turn lane in the course of about 1-2 seconds. We were going about 35 mph, he unclipped, counterbalanced, and managed to keep upright and not end up in the median and made the turn, apexing about as late as you possibly could. We rode on the bull horns the rest of the way.

I had 60 wheels front and back so i didn't get tossed around quite as bad as he did with the rear disk. I also was cue'ing off of his movement and line to get a sense of where the gusts were cutting through rock lines and gaps in the buildings so it didn't catch me by surprise.

But then once we turned right onto red river pkwy, it went from being a dangerous crosswind into just a straight up frustrating headwind for the climb and then headwind up into snow canyon. Made it slow going. And I think the wind, depending on your timing, changed the course such that it really rode differently for the later age groups and especially the women.

Incredible course, venue, support. The storm made that run manageable. If it were 95* and exposed, that would have been unbearable.

I am 66 and have doing tris for 40 years. Lots of cycling background. Wave 5. Storm hit about mile 28 for me.
Tough crosswind first and it was moving me around a bit. Not real scary, but I could see a few were nervous. Then heavy rain. I was lucky to only have the section down RedHills under Bluff where the winds and a slight turn had me touch the brakes. Shoes were soaked.
Then around mile 8.5 of run it poured again. Lots of water streaming across road. Soaked sloshy running shoes. Not a problem though.
I guess where you were when the wind hit was a big factor on how bad it was.

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Team Zoot So Cal

The women got hit multiple times with it, I was in the third to last wave (F50-54) and the wind hit in the 30 seconds from my swim exit to sitting down in transition. All hell broke loose, with racks and fencing blowing down, the announcer telling spectators to get in the buses because of lightning, and as I rode out of transition the hail and rain started. Gusts were blowing me sideways 2-3 feet repeatedly and no way I could go aero for the first few miles (90 front wheel was super twitchy). I was so close to just pulling over and calling it a day, it felt crazy dangerous.

The rain hit us again mid ride, and then just started pouring and pelting as I started the Snow Canyon descent. The wind wasn’t as bad as the first but there were sections of inch deep water. I couldn’t feel my fingers by the bottom from the death grip I had. I was a couple minutes slower on the descent than in May.

And I think the last wave (F40-45) had it worse, the wind came up mid swim for them, and I heard tons of swimmers pulled, plus at least one jet ski capsizing.

Then the sun came out for most of the run, to heat things up for good measure.

A teammate posted a bunch of videos that were taken by her husband...no way that this race doesn't get shut down if it wasn't a Championship race. Looked awful.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I also saw some crazy HR charts from women in the last waves when the storm hit- cruising along at 130-140 and then BOOM 170 bpm for the rest of the swim. Yikes.

Sounds crazy!

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Very sketchy winds.

I was at about mile 23 when it started.
Crosswinds with a lots of turns.
Triathletes are bad cyclists.
And I had a disk.

Also snow canyon had a 25 mph head wind.

It was fun…ish in retrospect. If that happened in a local race i would have thought “fuk this”, taken shelter and called my wife to come pick my dumb ass up. It hit just before i started Snow Canyon so when i was getting the crosswinds i was on a slight climb so not super scary. I did think the race was going to get canceled but i kept on going in case the storm passed quickly. Scariest thing for me was the lightning and rolling thunder echoing in the canyon, it was pretty epic and not something I’ll soon forget. Decent down was okish as the wind had died down. As mentioned by another poster, the worst part of the decent was Diagonal Rd because of shitty road surface plus for me at that point i started shivering uncontrollably. I was really happy to get to the run unscathed:)

It’s pretty normal weather for us here in Northern Europe, but it is clear to see why it causes problems, especially for those living in warmer climes who train/race all the time in good weather, or even indoors.

It’s really hard to prepare for changeable mountain weather. Was the rain/wind expected? We’ve had races in august here with temps that vary from minus degrees in the wind chill up to mid twenties Celsius when you get out of the Mountains. People dropping out of races because they are freezing and cannot continue, in the middle of summer, is nuts.

Context: former flatlander (Florida) and moved to Colorado a few years ago. I knew this course had quite a bit of elevation gain/loss, so once I qualified in May, I made a point to do *quite* a bit of work climbing/descending on my triathlon bike. Therefore, I am a very confident descender on my tri bike.

But, Saturday's weather was terrifying at parts. I was the 6th wave to go off, and I noticed the storm clouds around mile 15 or 20. They kept getting worse, but we all charged on. It finally hit us around mile 30 on the bike. It started with light rain and then just ripped right open and we got pummeled by hail. The whole storm lasted 20ish minutes and the winds were pretty strong after that. I scrubbed of a lot of time because I would rather live to see another race. By the time we got to the base of snow canyon, the sun started to peak out. By the time we got to the top of snow canyon, it was cloudy again and sprinkling, but I ended up hitting 57 mph on the way down, so it was dry enough for me to feel comfortable enough for that.

Overall, the weather was something I was not expecting at all. I was expecting sweltering heat. What we got made the course equally (if not more) difficult.

Descending under that overpass on snow canyon blvd (or whatever the road was) where there was a lot of standing water was probably the scariest 20 seconds I've had on a bike.

Looking forward to getting some vengeance on this course.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

I was there in wave 4 around 55km in. Thankful to be on a road bike, without super deep wheels, on an uphill section -- when the worst of it hit.

Didn't eat or drink for a good 20min as I was terrified to take a hand off the bars in case a gust came through.

Can anyone link good videos that capture the intensity?

The worst of it hit me on the top third of the descent back into town. I've been describing it as a sleet tornado. I basically had to coast on the basebar for a while, just concentrating on staying upright. The rest of the race was awesome.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Ditto everyone above. I started the swim around 8:15 AM MDT and the storm hit me at about 20 miles on the bike. From that point forward, my power was probably down 20-30 W from plan on anything remotely fast-ish. I was death-gripping my base bar to keep from getting blown around. I experimented with position in the extensions & base bar, and base bar was definitely better for me. My average speed overall was probably a couple MPH slower than expected. I think the storm cost me about 10 minutes on the bike.

Turning during the strong winds was super squirrely. My sphincter has never been tighter.

My takeaway: That will probably be the worst cross wind I will ever experience on a 90/disc wheelset, and it did not end me. So, I am all-in for the speedy wheels going forward.

Definitely a crazy experience with the storm rolling in. I just got to the top of Snow Canyon when the storm hit. Descent was the scariest time I think I've ever had on a bike. I'd guess there were gusts of wind in the 30-40 mph range coming from the right side on the downhill back into town with driving rain and a bit of hail. I wanted to stay in the aero bars, but at times was on the base bars, still trying to be as aero as possible. I was thrown sideways several times 3-4 feet with the gusts. I have a disc in the rear and a 90mm front. I had to slow many times as the front wheel began to wobble. As I finally got back near town the wind abated and the rain lessened. I guess most folks lost time with the weather, wherever they were on the course. The temp dropped down near 60 during the storm, which was nice. Just some drizzle and of and on rain the rest of the bike and run.

Overall, it was an awesome race. I did manage to waste 2-3 minutes getting lost in transition before finding my bike (I was reassigned a number, but no excuses for that happening) and also dropped my chain twice, costing more time. No complaints, though from me. It was great to hear the pro press conference afterwards as I had some food. I'm trying to get my wife onboard for returning next year - it's a work in progress.

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Agree on this. I’m 30-34 and was between mile 36-42 when it hit. It was windy and some pretty strong gusts but manageable. Also very short. Lots of people were sitting up out of aero because they got nervous.

I WAS glad I wasn’t going down snow canyon at the time.

Snow canyon descent was wet but not windy. There aren’t really any turns so you could still rip it. I came down the strava segment faster than Sam Long so can’t say weather was a limiter there.

Triathletes definitely need to practice being better CYCLISTS not just watt producers.

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Mark Saroni
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COACHING | TRAINING PLANS
MS Kinesiology | USAT LII | USAC L3

Great job Saturday -- killer time!

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

The rain and wind for me came probably at the best time, around the 60km mark till close to the top of Snow Canyon. The strong winds definitely slowed me up the climb a little compared to what I was looking to do, but the slower speeds in that section didn't really cause much handling issues or issues with water. It was definitely a strong wind though. It dried up pretty quickly after that too so I can't say it caused any issue on the decent, made a pretty decent time, though it did look like some people were struggling more than others. (In fact, looking at Strava, I was 5 seconds off Longs time, and beat Iden by 16 seonds... must of still been a strong tailwind haha.) Overall, loved the bike course except for the very last bit on diagonal ave.. at those speeds the road was way too rough for me to feel comfortable in the aero bars so just had to tuck with hands on the base bar in that section.

Coming from Calgary and knowing I'd struggle a bit with a 30+ degree run, it was a trade off I actually was pretty pleased with haha.

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Strava

That’s a good point on feeling more secure with disc breaks. I have alloy wheels and rim breaks, no aero wheels.