Any comments on IM Switzerland for those who have experienced the race.
I did the race last year. It is a well organized race in a beautiful location. I was a little worried how they were going to pull off an IM race in a major city but the Swiss are very well organized and there were no problems at all ,except for a surprise Alpine storm that brought 3 hours of cold rain on the bike which made for some hairy descents. Heartbreak Hill which you do twice is a blast, for a about a 100 yards, hundreds of people converge at the top of a hill with every type of noisemaker imaginable. It deafening and you can imagine how Lance must feel climbing Ventoux. Zurich is a wonderful city, although fairly pricey. It’s much hipper and fun than thought it would be with loads of excellent restaurants in the old part of the city. As an added bonus, the race was in late July while the Tour was in the Alps and we drove down and caught 4 stages.
Any comments on IM Switzerland for those who have experienced the race.
I havn’t done IM Switzerland. But I will do it next year and I have done an olympic distance tri that is partely on the same course:
The swim has two loops in the lake of Zurich. Last year the water was quit rough on Sunday due to a upcoming thunder strom (it was calm on Saterday when I competed).
The bike consist also of two loops with about 400m of height each. There is a quite steep but short climb (heart brake hill) 5km before the end of each loop. On this climb there are alot of visitors that give you a ‘Tour de France’ feeling: http://www.ironman.ch/fotogallery.asp?jg=2002&name=BIKE8.jpg&titel=Radfahren
The run is in the city mostly parallelto the lakeshore.
Do you have more specific question?
Felix, http://home.tiscalinet.ch/weilenmann/Sport
Hi!
400m vertical clilm/round would make it 1200 in total. I had 1550 on my altimeter which would make it 520/round. But you live in the area.
Pros:
Nice town, moderate climate, well organized, very friendly crew!
Cons:
Expensive city (no issue when flying in from the us, i suppose), boring and overcrowded 4 loop run course with lots of U-turns & drafting on the bike (A big problem in Zürich this year was drafting! They have the 7m front wheel to front wheel rule and I saw a lot of packs on the totally flat portion of the ride which is 33 of the 60km loop. Not as bad as in Clearwater but well, that was horror!)
Tim, the thread is 4 years old
.
Tim, the thread is 4 years old
What the hell… how did it turn up on the “recent posts” list!
must have been yesterdays beer!
sorry
I hear Nixon might resign!
I hear Nixon might resign!
Oh ahhhhmmmmm yes, but isn’t Roosevelt president?