Pedals stolen in T1! Is this IRONMAN?

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi, this is was happened to me in IRONMAN HAMBURG…
Here you have my letter to IM:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing the letter that I wouldn’t thought I could have written a couple of days ago. However, what me and my family have lived during the last weekend was a total disaster…

Since 2012, I have been participating in IRONMAN® events. I was very proud to hear, every year, the famous sentence “you are an Ironman”. The organization was always perfect (Austria, Zell am see, Mallorca, Frankfurt, …). Most of the times, we have chosen and paid the fee (not cheap) from IRONMAN®, because we wanted to enjoy a problem-free experience. Moreover, I was just waiting to come back from Hamburg to enter in my next IM and to begin with the IRONMAN® Coach Certification Program.

*This year I wanted to participate in the IRONMAN® in Hamburg (what I consider my second home). Me (and my family) have put all our efforts, passions, hopes, time and a lot of resources to be there for that important race for a senior-amateur-athlete like me. *
Everything was prepared, but this time the unexpected has happened (anything is possible)…

*After finishing a hard & cold (for me) swim leg, I had to be assisted to recover my breath and temperature. I always had the idea to go on the race “at all reasonable costs”. *
*After, more or less, one hour I was ready to try to recover the lost time and at least to finish the race. *

However, when I was still evaluating this alternative, I saw that somebody had stolen the pedals from my bike!!!
*****I couldn’t believe it!! *
The T1 was fenced and provided with private security from IRONMAN®!! … How can this happen in an international event like this? (At least, the day before I had serious doubts about the organization of the event, and I didn’t left my GARMIN EDGE attached to the bike).

*Unless you are an athlete (and I hope you are), you can’t imagine the feeling from that moment. Then my unexpected journey to receive assistance to handle the “problem” had just began: *

- First, I was attended by a volunteer. The lady was really nice and helpful. She accompanied us to speak with the “Security manager” form Ballindam T1 area.- The “Security manager” was really fast&efficient avoiding any kind of responsibility. He said that we should go to see the “manager of the info point” located at the entrance.- The “manager of the info point” tried to look the other way. Thus, she gave us a safe and problem-free-canned answer: Go to the “info point at the city hall”.
- In my more than 20 years attending and solving complaints from customers (all over the world) I have never seen so a non-collaborative and unhelpful attitude form a person attending customers. Her first answer was to run away from the issue, and to strike back (to see if the foreign obstacle disappears and gets discouraged) answering in German and argueing: “it is your responsibility”. Great!! Now it is my fault!!!

*Therefore, we asked to speak with higher rank (able to give us a reasoned solution/answer). Of course, she was not able to do so, and instead she told us: “look yourself for an IRONMAN® address and complaint there”. Perfect! Now we have to do her job!!. *
Finally, and after telling her that she was not doing her job, she gave us an incomplete post address (generic, standard, without contact person, without e-mail) without erasing her unfriendly look from her eyes.
*We were astonished… are we still in the EU? Are we in Germany? Is this really the image that IRONMAN® wants to deliver to its customers? Is this the official answer from IRONMAN® in the 21st century?. *

What a bad experience… this was not the kind of answer that we (and the worldwide community of triathletes and to the triathlon business expected from IRONMAN®).

*You were not prepared for unexpected issues like this one. All the people involved were completely lost, without guidance, and without the right attitude to do their job. It is clear that no performance protocol was developed for these kind of issues. *
Sirs, this is IRONMAN®, not a “run for free popular race”.

For sure, you know the time, effort, commitments with family and work, investment (among others: hotel, plane, bike transport, trainer, nutritionist, physio, gym) … that for a participation in an event like this are required. Moreover, I am sure you also know the responsibility that you acquire with the participants (and his/her families) in the success of the challenge.

Here we are talking about to aspects:

- The fact that the pedals from my bike were stolen in a protected and surveilled area under the responsibility of IRONMAN® (by the way: the pedals costs EUR 1200. More value that all the rest pieces of my bike together).**- The fact that I had not even the possibility to go on the race from T1.

I honestly expect that this was only an isolated internal coordination misunderstanding, and that I get a professional answer from somebody with enough emotional intelligence, authority, and business acumen to solve this issue at this level.
If you have any doubt or need additional details, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am open to find an acceptable solution for both parties.
Waiting for your news,

Still waiting for an answer…

2

Is it safe to assume that these pedals are Powertap P1 or similar?

I know that I sometimes get a bit of anxiety leaving my bike overnight in transition with my P1 pedals there.

Also if that is the case, I assume the pedals were there when you arrived at your bike in the morning as you likely woke them up to calibrate?

So someone literally took the time during the swim to go to your bike and swipe them?

3

That is a pretty rough go, have heard the odd story of missing computers etc…

I have P1 pedals, I put them on the bike race morning to keep the moisture off of them, as well as lower the risk of them going missing!

4

Do I have to start using security bolts for my pedals now?

5

Yes you are right Powertap P1 (1200 EUR).
Before to enter into the water I checked the bike and everithing was OK…
How can this happen by Ironman?
and now, they don’t answer…

6

Yes I did that, but they were stolen while I was in the water…

That is a pretty rough go, have heard the odd story of missing computers etc…

I have P1 pedals, I put them on the bike race morning to keep the moisture off of them, as well as lower the risk of them going missing!

7

That definitely sucks, but I’ve heard plenty of similar stories at IM-branded events; missing bike computers, running watches and even shoes. You might think your stuff is safe in transition, but the harsh reality is that it’s not at all. Someone taking a pedal wrench in and stealing someone else’s pedals is low though.

Did they photograph you and your bike when you checked it in? I’m not sure what good this might do, but it’s some kind of starting point I guess.

I doubt you’ll get anywhere with WTC though; I think the absolute best you can hope for is a free race entry to compensate you for not being able to race, but I’d say even that is unlikely.

8

Yes, at the entrance they take a picture of your bike…

That definitely sucks, but I’ve heard plenty of similar stories at IM-branded events; missing bike computers, running watches and even shoes. You might think your stuff is safe in transition, but the harsh reality is that it’s not at all. Someone taking a pedal wrench in and stealing someone else’s pedals is low though.

Did they photograph you and your bike when you checked it in? I’m not sure what good this might do, but it’s some kind of starting point I guess.

I doubt you’ll get anywhere with WTC though; I think the absolute best you can hope for is a free race entry to compensate you for not being able to race, but I’d say even that is unlikely.

9

Big corporation like this will surely assist you as best they can here
Total cost of all the equipment in the pits is catching everyone’s attention it seems
.

10

Man, thats awful. I hope everything will be resolved, as I am afraid of my bike staying overnight in t1 too!

11

There’s a big difference between having your pedals stolen overnight (the night before the race) compared to having them stolen in the morning after transition is open.

Obviously another competitor stole them. How is ironman supposed to police that after transition opens? I honestly have no idea how one can control that from happening. Cameras? Maybe but with thousands of competitors and so many bike lanes racked right next to each other, will you really be able to differentiate someone working on their bike or doing something malicious on someone else’s?

But this doesn’t excuse how you were treated by the ironman staff. They should have been more helpful. I just wouldn’t go as far to say they are to blame.

12

it sounds like it happened during during the swim and not overnight which is insane. some people are terrible.

13

Sorry to hear about your experience, and sorry that you weren’t met with a more cooperative attitude. That said, there are limits to how secure Ironman can make any individual bike. After all, there are over 2000 people who have legitimate access to the transition area. If some deviant opportunist who has access plays it cool, he/she can mess with other bikes more or less at will without looking out of place.

What were you asking the officials to do? I would have hoped they could have tried to find you an alternative set of pedals so you could continue your race. But, if you were demanding that they immediately produce YOUR pedals, and/or the scofflaw who took them, I could see why they were passing the buck. It’s a shitty situation, and you’d want people to be sympathetic and cooperative. Is it possible, however, that you were either unclear what you needed, or that you were asking for something that wasn’t reasonable for them to deliver in the moment?

14

Wow! That is brazen. It wouldn’t be too hard to steal a computer but pedals. Fiddling with a computer would look commonplace but taking off pedals in transition would look completely out of place.

If it were another competitor they would have likely racked nearby. Wonder if you could have found them if security personal checked in gear bags in the vicinity.

15

at first blush, there are two issues here.

  1. you had a very bad thing happen to you. i can’t presume to tell ironman what it should do. but if i were the RD, i would figure out a way to help mitigate the loss you took.

  2. in general, it seems to me that there is another aspect to race production - another service to be rendered. we already have timing, set up and tear down, public address, scaffolding and so forth. we’ve added to that race photography. we’ve added that yet new services, such as GPS tracking. i think it’s time to add one more service, which is camera surveillance. to me, if i was a timing company, or a set-up, tear-down transition area in a box, i would add this service. it’s too easy nowadays to set up cameras to surveil the transition area.

16

As access to the area is restricted to those with armbands, etc, then we can make a theory that there are people who have lawfully registered for the race. They have no intention of actually racing; they may do the swim, or ‘pretend’ to swim, but they do have normal access to T1. Plenty of time to shop the aisles before transition closes. Wonder if there were other ‘lost’ items at this same event.

The cost of entering the race is offset by income earned by simply riding away with someone elses’ bike, or swiping Garmins, pedals, etc.

17

Don’t forget that in addition to the couple of thousand racers there are probably nearly 100 volunteers and staff with legitimate access to the transition area on race morning.

18

As access to the area is restricted to those with armbands, etc, then we can make a theory that there are people who have lawfully registered for the race. They have no intention of actually racing; they may do the swim, or ‘pretend’ to swim, but they do have normal access to T1. Plenty of time to shop the aisles before transition closes. Wonder if there were other ‘lost’ items at this same event.

The cost of entering the race is offset by income earned by simply riding away with someone elses’ bike, or swiping Garmins, pedals, etc.

Yeah I remember having a discussion not too long ago about the ridiculous number of things we need to have our number on.

One person commented that body marking is out of date and not needed anymore.

Well here is one good reason why it should be. Athlete with numbers on the arm that read 679 taking a bike that is 422, well if a volunteer is paying attention of it is captured on race photography that’s an issue resolution.

19

Where do you store all of your training data? Is it possible for whatever site you use to track the serial number of the pedals and let you know if someone else starts uploading data from a set of pedals with the same serial number? I seem to remember someone doing that with a Garmin Edge unit and Garmim connect, but I could be mistaken.

20

Interested to hear what the resolution is…I suspect they will replace your pedals or reimburse you for them. However, I doubt you will recover travel, hotel, time, etc. I hope someone outs the person who stole them.