And since I’m on here… We’re seeing a lot of bikes now for Ironman Wisconsin. If you are doing IMMOO this is the time to get a complete check-up/tune-up on your bike. Leave yourself enough time to ride the bike once or twice after you get it back to check it out and confirm everything is OK. We so frequently see bikes come in with good customers who say, “It just needs a quick going over, I think it is fine…” and we find some fairly important issues that need to be addressed prior to Ironman. Remember how much time and money you guys have invested in this event. For want of a $2.99 cable, a $4.99 tube or a $50 tire your race could really be goofed up. Preventive maintenance is cheap insurance. OK, I’m done ranting.
Amen to that, Tom. I might also suggest that people travel with whatever emergency gear they can that makes sense. I was planning on bringing spare cables and bar tape with me to my recent first IM but decided against it since I just gave the bike a complete overhaul. When reassembling my bike after the flight, I snapped a bolt. Doh!(Thankfully I had a replacement.) Buy a torque wrench dammit!! Then unfortunately I took a spill riding the course two days before the race and completely smashed my aerobars. I had to replace the bars, re-cable everything, and of course re-tape the bars. So before the race I was scrambling to get all of the parts I needed. I was in my hotel on Saturday working on my bike and the only real test ride I had after all the work was riding the bike to the check-in that night. Luckily, things worked out quite well.
Tom, I was thinking of you all along. I had a picture of a mini-you floating over my shoulder, shaking his head muttering “I told you so…”