Why?


Then why don't you put on a race?

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Strava

Agreed. Xterra Appalachia and Syracuse both went away this year too. I don't like to race in the Spring, so basically the only race within 3 hours of me (Harrisburg, PA) is Xterra EX2 which is mid July, when I'm often on vacation.

Isn't the role of the association to promote the sport? I know the Indiana RD commented how the increase in fees by the association was impacting him (feedback was Increase the race fee).

If the role of the association is not to promote the sport, then why have it? I feel the same way about USAT and USA Cycling.

I saw the RD for Way Over Yonder last weekend. It’s not an Xterra race next year. He said that the fees were too high. So no more Xterra’s in New Jersey.

Which now based on the number of available races is basically the mid atlantic championship (since you'll go head to head with the regional leaders). The timing for way over yonder just sucks for me, usually happening right on my wife's birthday and Charlottesville falling on mother's day.

My race schedule was turned upside down with no syracuse, jersey devil or Appalachia. Coincidence that all three call it quits the same year licensing fees went up?

So does USAT prop it up a bit since it will be the "off road nationals" that will be attended by about 150 racers?

i would guess Yonder pulls in a few more people being nationals, maybe 200, at most 250. Reality is these are niche races and unlikely to see big numbers like a 70.3 etc. So i agree with OP , what is xterra thinking charging so much to use their name? if it was a small fee, like a few dollars per racers then maybe, but i've heard it's much more (i know a specific RD so i could get exact numbers) and also heard that back in 2009 the east coast champ race at sugarbush had a fee so high it put the RD in red by thousands of dollars and the race never happened again. if they were seeing 500+ people per race at these smaller regional events i could see a fee to name your race "xterra whatever" but c'mon most have <100 races and very few of them are actually chasing the point series. this seems like a self destruction policy.

My first Xterra was Jersey Devil. As a MTB newbie, it was a great course for getting an easy taste of off road triathlon.

The race’s website is still there, with an open letter from the RD identifying how the licensing fees made the race unsustainable. He was just looking to be a little in the black so he could donate the profits to the hosting Boy Scout camp.

I didn’t realize WOY ditched the Xterra branding. Same reasoning, I guess.

Cool thing about off road triathlon from an organizational standpoint is that you don’t need lots of road closures and traffic disruption. That’s top of the list in terms of what kills regular triathlon budgets.

It just seems shortsighted for Xterra to put these races out of business with the excessive fees, because it kills the feeders to their bigger events.

Agreed.

We are down to one Xterra branded race in Southern California, Xterra Laguna Beach, which they inconveniently put on the same weekend as the PanAM Champs in Utah, one of the few other Xterra races in driving distance from SoCal. Renegade dropped the Xterra name last year and the RD told me it was due to contract conflicts between USAT and Xterra, but didn't go into details. Would love to see an RD put up another Xterra in the summer in SoCal. I am curious how many participants they need to make it worthwhile?

I wish other races would just drop the Xterra branding and keep running. I'm personally not interested in trying to qualify for Hawaii (as I have no chance), I'd just like to be able to race offroad.

The bigger question is why are we obsessed with ‘branded’ races at all??

That's a good question. From the consumer on the outside looking in, one might expect branded races to have better organization and provide a path to qualify for a marquis event. The former is not a guarantee by any means but the marketing illusion is there and latter is appealing to some.

Brand awareness would be my guess. Let the brand essentially be your marketing ploy.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I've been doing triathlons for over 30 years and Xterra races over the past 10. Not sure why they can't seem to generate enough interest and participant numbers in the US as they have become very popular in other countries. It may be due to the fear of injury on the bike courses that scares people away. Here in the DC area we had EX2 and Charlottesville. A few years back there was the East Coast Championship race in Richmond which was one of the funnest race courses I've ever done. The Richmond race shut down due to low participation and increased operational costs.

I own a health club and have been a RD for a number of races. A good friend of mine's family owns a coffee plantation in Panama and we explored putting on an Xterra race on his families planation since there are races in Costa Rica, Mexico and South America. When we contacted Xterra about starting a race it became pretty clear that the brand fees were going to exceed $10k. They also didn't follow up with us and didn't seem very interested helping.

Xterra was sold not to long ago and wonder what the direction of the company will be with US based races that helped get it all started. Its sad because they are a ton of fun and I really enjoy doing them. Hoping the small races can continue even without the Xterra name.

The race scene is still going strong here in the southeast, there should be an announcement early this month about what it will look like moving forward and which races are sticking around

I am literally as far away as I could be from you, living in Maine - we have one Xterra race in the entire region, at this point (French River). I was surprised that the races in Quebec were not rolled into the Northeast region to give people a little flexibility. I may end up racing more in Canada than I do in the USA.

Related tangent... Does anyone know if both the 2020 and 2021 offroad nats will be at WOY? It looks like they've been on a 2-year rotation for the last few. I'm eyeballing Ibiza 2022, so trying to line my ducks up.

Fellow Mainer here; I was wondering if there is any function on something like Strava that would allow one to host a 'do it yourself, when you can' event. It would be a real race, but with virtual results. No mess, no fuss, bring your own food and awards if you want. I know Strava offers KOMs, but it as far as I can tell, they do not offer triathlon as an activity that can be listed. Anyone know if this already exists with another platform?

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
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Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2

My first triathlon was the Richmond race, and was quite an experience since it was one of those years the James just barely got below flood stage by race day. Luckily i knew how to handle it thanks to the outreach that was going on at the time with their ambassador program. Btw, all three of those ambassadors no longer race, although Scud would still be out there..

Anyway the increase in licensing fee happened with the new ownership, the us series is slowly falling away and it seems like the brand doesn't care.. maybe because we (Americans) don't seem as interested in going to Maui. Actually earning a spot there is quite hard with only three auto qualifying races, with a limit on the rolldown, nor does the regional champ slot roll down. But to be realistic, right now there are very few people targeting Maui slots. The acceptance rate for us based races is really low.

Ex2 is probably doing almost as well from a pure numbers perspective as any us based xterra, but those numbers are due to loyalty to ex2 and not to xterra. If ex2 dropped the name recognition it would lose almost nobody in attendance. The promotion and outreach has really been lacking lately.

Actually, regional champ slot DOES roll down. I know as the regional champ in my area did not go and I got the rolldown (and did not accept it).

I think the only exception is if the regional champ won an auto qualifying slot.

I just did a really cool off-road triathlon yesterday, designed to mimic a 70.3. Start the swim at 8am, swim 70.3 swim distance (1.2 miles). Then do the bike and run loops repeatedly until you hit 5 hours (1pm). Whoever is farthest along the course wins.

The bike loop was 5 miles and the run loop was 2 miles. Those of us that podiumed managed to get in 6 laps of each.

They also held a sprint tri on the same course, which had a shorter swim and just one bike and run loop, just like a normal triathlon.

And they also started off a duathlon and 5k trail run all at the same time. My son did the sprint tri and my wife did the 5k run.

There was no Xterra branding in sight and the race was still awesome. BUT, to answer the other person's question about why bother with branding, branding attracts people because it creates consistency. With consistency, you will get some sort of standards of safety, distances, and quality so you can show up and know what you're getting without any rude surprises. And most of all, it creates a pseudo-league which allows you to compare your results to others', again because of the consistency. Xterra and Ironman branded races allow you to compare yourself to other people because standards allow for more "apples-to-apples" instead of "apples-to-oranges". And comparing yourself to others is really why people race at all in the first place.

Imagine if all triathlons were all crazy distances and weird formats - you'd never be able to compare yourself to other people except for those just in that one single race. But because Ironman or Xterra has at least some standards, you can get an idea of who is the best and how you compare to others. No sport becomes truly popular until it creates a league and some standards of play to give the masses some sort of idea of what to actually train for.

"Why have branding at all?" If you don't have at least one successful brand and league, your sport is dead or doomed.

The local Xterra promoter has 5 trail runs scheduled...but I haven't seen an XTerra Triathlon on their schedule in two years.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Which local promoter? Richmond or DC. I've done ex2's for 11 years straight, even in years i did only once race that was the one i did, and consistently one of the highest rated xterras on the American tour, it is going strong. For Richmond, renting the space downtown was a major reason for not continuing that race, it was already on life support during the peak participation years of the mid to late 2000's. My first time there in 2009 they were already saying "it might not happen this year"..