Roads at Breath of Life Ventura

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi folks;

I’m still pretty new to this wonderful sport, having only done 6 tri’s so far, but for anyone who was in Ventura last weekend, didn’t it seem like an inordinate amount of flats on the bike course?

I did the Olympic and I think I recollect 17 - 20. For sure I saw 4 before the u-turn.

Just wondered what others thought.

Brian
Team Optimistic

2

Someone had “spilled” some roofing nails on the course, from friends racing I gather people have different views on what “spilled” means.

3

I did notice a LOT of flats, but had no problems myself. I didn’t see any nails or other debris near where people flatted, I did see broken safety glass near the turn back onto Harbor from the loop.

What shocked me was how many people I saw who flatted and then gave up. Huh? And these were guys on 5k bikes. I saw one guy get at least 2 flats, which I could understand would run you out of tubes/tires, but he didn’t quit. The guys walking bikes off the course after one flat, that was weird.

4

I hate seeing that too. Saw a beautiful Cer velo getting loaded onto a truck mid race. I also see guys race with no repair kits. I assume they feel the race is shot if they lose that time. I’m just happy to finish with better splits each time.

I know some locals don’t like the race like the jackass doing wheelies thru the run. maybe a local dumped nails.

I did get my first :02 penalt. My guess is drafting tho I did my best not too.

Finished in 2:46.

5

I thought I heard someone mention something about a box of nails. I know there were an unreasonable number of people on the side of the road. I don’t remember seeing any nails, however, when I went through. It looked to me like they did a pretty good job of pre-sweeping the course for junk on the side of the road, mud from the farmers, etc. and I didn’t notice anything, but it sounded from people after the race talking that it was pretty obvious it was on purpose.

Mike

6

I drove in along that stretch of Harbor and didn’t notice anything, but who knows.

The sad irony is that the guys who DID flat were riding legally at least beforehand. The ones I saw anyway. At least two passed me legally, calling out on your left, and minutes later were flat. The huge packs fared better, though I was glad to see USAT did a decent job of policing the course.