Anybody map the bike course yet, with any kind of elevation profile or total?
I’m in, and my wife is considering it … but she needs to get her head wrapped around the bike profile. Anybody have anything mapped for total elevation, profile, etc. yet?
thanks,
w
www.mapmyride.com and do a search. Most big events have been mapped out by someone else already 
IIRC Tremblant is 4x Cat 5 climbs and about 500m of climbing per lap.
I did the search, and none of the rides mapped in the area are the course. I even did my own MMR entry, and the elevation profile didn’t give me a climbing total, only a rough profile. Too rough.
I’ve seen some posts in here (a month or two ago, when the topic was “hotter”) that suggested it’s in the 4K feet per lap range, total climbing. Big diff between 500m and 4K feet, so my wife is sort of freaking a bit over the tradeoffs. I have to do it, since I’m in for the full in August, so the June race is more a reconnoiter for me, as well as a T minus 8 weeks test. But she’s working on her first HIM, and she’s hoping to get her head around this course’s details before jumping in, or choosing a different race.
I was hoping somebody had a Garmin or Joule profile somewhere?
My wife is planning to ride a loop this weekend. If she takes a garmin I’ll tell you all I can about the course.
I’ve ridden in the area and I’d say it would be tough to find 90k with over 1000m of climbing. There are some steep hills but they aren’t long, if they are long they aren’t steep.
Search this forum. Someone posted a link to the course on map my ride back in June. I’d describe it as ‘herky jerky’ - - no flat bits but no long climbs. A LOT of short steep stuff.
The ride posted is the first two out and backs - - so 56 miles…which you ride twice.
This is really well done.
Check out Jon’s post here: http://www.swicyclorun.com/2011/08/cool-stuff-post.html (scroll down to the RideWithGPS.Com section). He has an elevation profile comparison of IMWI, IMMT, and IMLP.
This is really well done.
https://picasaweb.google.com/...&feat=directlink
The last I heard was that that is not the course. I will give you an idea of the area though, there aren’t that many roads to choose from. Most of the roads around tremblant are dead ends, there are only 2 roads into town
And to think I spend all summer crying and whining about the Pocono 70.3. I need to get a head start on my griping about the 10K of gravel road on this one. In any event these are outstanding pictures of what will surely be a long day for me. I would like to see other pictures and comments about this course. I noticed that the French have different words for everything. Tim
I’m in, and my wife is considering it …
Your wife should decide soon. Despite everyone thinking the half would never fill, as of 2 weeks ago there was less than 200 spots remaining.
Francois in Montreal
She decided. She’s in.
I entered the course into mapmyride, and it ended up with less elevation than expected (which is, in my experience, less elevation than actual, but I’m not telling HER that!), so she decided to think about it seriously. We went to dinner tonight, we each had about a liter of some fine Hofbrau Hef, and she did the whole “I love you man” thing; short story, she’s in. We just finished the registration.
Looking forward to anybody’s Garmin or Joule data, however. In my experience, MMR comes up 10 to 15% low on elevation due to the low sampling frequency of elevations; IOW, it doesn’t get all the ups and downs if they’re frequent, which I understand this course to be.
The picasaweb photo gallery is awesome - we’re really looking forward to it! Time to start thinking about when to ramp up the Outseason; but not just yet.
Whoa. That is one choppy (up/down/up/down) course! I did Wisconsin last year, and considered it to be very choppy; but MT looks to be worse!
Whoa. That is one choppy (up/down/up/down) course! I did Wisconsin last year, and considered it to be very choppy; but MT looks to be worse!
Making electronic shifting that much more appealing!
I was able to get out the Tremblant a few weeks back to ride the course. I was not sure about the turnaround spots on the course so my ride was a bit extended. I was planning for one full lap, but ended with 64.25 miles instead. According to my 305, that included 4059 ft of climbing, so significantly more than Map My Ride that estimates the course at 1950 ft of climbing/lap. When looking at the Garmin data, it seems the extra 8.25 miles included about 500 feet of climbing, so my best estimate and assuming my Garmin read the elevation well, one loop of the bike course would be about 3500 feet of climbing.
I have never done anything with a Garmin to export the data to a TCX or GPX file, but if anyone would like the data I’d be glad to send it along. I bought a GoPro camera the day before heading to Tremblant to record some footage of the course, so there is a link below for two videos out on youtube. Finally, below is the synopsis I sent out to my Tri Club members after the trip - sorry it’s so long…
The venue will be fantastic!!! The area is beautiful and the resort area will be a great post race venue.
Swim – as you know, it will be one loop, so when you’re standing on the beach, don’t expect to see the turnaround as it will be a long way out there. It’s a good sized lake (bigger than Lake Placid) so if we have any wind in the morning, there will be some chop on the water, but should never really get much for waves. The water is very clear and was quite warm – I was told 80F, so even this far north, we could potentially have wetsuit issues, although it seems rather unlikely.
The Transition, now a dirt lot, is to be totally paved by race day, so that should solve some of the potential issues there. Not sure on parking, I’d guess my hotel has space, but parking at the base of the mountain is limited and I’m sure they’ll be charging non-racers on race morning. BTW – nothing about this place is cheap; parking close to the base area was $15/day. Lunch at the base area for 2 club sandwiches and 2 beers was $40.00 CDN.
Bike Course – Ouch. There are significant climbs right out of transition. Generally speaking, the climbs on the course are not particularly long, but the are very steep. It will be very important not to charge up these at the start of the bike otherwise you’ll just be zapped for the day. The first six miles (on Monte Ryan) are rolling, but steep. After the right turn onto Route 117 we’ll move directly into the long climb (about 2 miles) listed at 4.5% on the course map. Heading out, it was not too bad, but it was long. After descending the 6.5% backside, the course levels out and really is quite flat out to the turn around. BTW, Route 117 is a 4 lane highway – it was a little bizarre riding there – my understanding is that the athletes will have the entire north bound lanes on race day. Coming back into La Conception you start to see the 6.5% climb approach, and taking the hill from this side is much worse (steep). 6.5% does not sound all bad, but this is a serious climb. Once over, a nice downhill to the turn back North on Monte Ryan and it’s hills. We’ll pass the base/transition area and then start directly up Chemin Duplessis and the climb to Lac Superior. While the profile map on the website shows the 12% hill, I really did not think the climb up was all that bad. It is different than that long climb on 117, in that it is really a series of short, yet very steep climbs. There is plenty of time to recover between the climbs and regain a good chunk of speed. So, in my opinion, the first 40 miles of the course are worse to contend with than the short section up to Lac Superior and back. Of course, this is the first loop, so we get to go back out and do it all a second time. Pacing will be very important. The re-paving of the road to Lac Superior is basically complete (all but 1km), so this and the other parts of the course are in very good shape. The course is very scenic, especially the road to Lac Superior.
Run course – The first 3 miles or so does have some decent hills, again, steep, but not very long. Once we reach the Linear Park Trail, we’ll be running on a “Rail Trail”. As Stan said, basically like Paint Creek and it does get pretty skinny. I have been told they will be widening the trail for the race, so that should help, otherwise it will be very tight with 2400+ athletes running on it. We did run it in a downpour, so there was lots of puddleing on both sides of the trail, so that might be a problem if we get rain on race day.
The village area is fantastic. Could not count all the cafés and restaurants – all with outdoor seating and plenty of beer. There were 4 stages set up throughout the village with concerts going the entire weekend. From everything I was hearing things will be similar come race week. Lots of activities for kids and after race stuff for the adults. Couple very nice golf courses, spas all around, etc… We plan on staying at least a week.
Not sure if everyone has been up to Quebec, but it is very French there. Everyone in the resort area seemed to be well versed in English, but we ran into some other tourists that we could not communicate with.
Long winded, sorry. I was riding around with a video camera and shot plenty of stuff, so I pieced it all together into 2 videos. Had no intent on doing so when I was filming, so the shots are not the greatest, but it might help to give you a good idea of the course – mostly bike course, start to finish and just a little of the run course. Plenty of walking around the pedestrian village as well – very boring, but again might be helpful to at least see what we’ll be heading to next year.
Hope it helps – Paul
Part 1: http://youtu.be/NMs5lN5Cqd8
Part 2: http://youtu.be/39iUv7L4xiY
Did anybody get out this weekend with a Garmin, as hoped? :-)))))
My wife did it this weekend. Her Garmin said 1289 meters of elevation for the lap. It’s a deceptive number though. most of the uphils come right after a down that can carry you over. She said the course is basically 3 parts Montee Ryan which is rolling but not hard, 117 is uphill out and down back but she didn’t realize she was going up until she noticed she was coming back down. The 117 is only place where you get to just put your head down and go. The last part is Duplesis which she found hard, 2 back to back climbs in particular. As you go out it’s rolling but really going up which you can see from how far below you the river is. Coming back is bombing fast. Duplesis will not be nice near the end of the second loop of the IM, it won’t be so bad in Half. All this comes from my wife who does not describe herself as a strong cyclist. If anyone is going to get intimidated by a bike course it would be her but she says it’s not bad and Lake Placid is much harder.
… she says it’s not bad and Lake Placid is much harder.
Thanks for posting this. I know that the pure elevation numbers can be deceptive sometimes when trying to asses how hard an IM bike course is. I was looking for a comparison with Lake Placid, which I did last year. If your wife is right, my wife is going to be delighted when I tell her the news :o). She’s doing her first full IM at MT next year and she is scared of the bike course.
Awesome videos, thank you!
Being an ignorant American, please share the name of “the greatest Canadian band you know?” So I can buy that CD? Fantastic music, thank you.
The Tragically Hip.
Album is Day for Night, the song is Grace, Too
Given the rolling nature of the course and the short steep climbs, will anyone opt to use a road bike with clip-ons, rather than a full-on TT rig? From folks’ description of the course, it doesn’t sound like there will be a whole lot of time to be tucked down into an aero position…