Shame on DCB Adventures

Triathlon Forum
1

I’ve just experienced one of the worst run events in my 10 year triathlon career. A 2.4 mile swim hosted by DCB Adventures out of AZ. Here are some highlights:

  1. Entry Fee - $40 plus USMS one day license ($8) plus active.com ($3) = $51. Similar events such as Red Rock Triathlons splash & dash series are half of that ($20). No t-shirt, but a cheap/crappy finishers medal - looks like something you got at a swimming event when you were 10 years old.

  2. Event started about 1.5hrs late. Made me miss a subsequent 2hr bike ride I had scheduled due to other commitments later on in the day. Don’t know about you all, but IM training put enough of my time at a premium.

  3. Course was poorly marked. I don’t have the specifics, but it seams like there were buoys about every 500m or so. So don’t tell me the extra cost of the entry fee went to marking the course.

  4. To top it off: No results! They lost 97% of the results. They posted about 5 out of 200 finishers. Nothing for anyone else. I have no idea what my time was. So much for using this a gauge for IMAZ. They are offering entrants 50% off of their next ‘Open Water Swim Event’ for this fiasco. This event was clearly targeted for triathletes. I have no intention of entering another one of their swim events. They are not even offering credit towards one of their Triathlons.

One thing I will say to be fair is that there were plenty of lifeguards on kayaks for safety - But if your going to put a high dollar price tag for a crummy open water swim that was targeted for a workout for 90% of the people there, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! Go to a Red Rock Triathlon event and take some notes. They post their results on the same day usually - and their results are taken by hand for the splash and dash series.

This DCB Adventure event sucked. I hope they learn some lessons here.

2

Gotta go with Shxxer, oh I mean “anon” on this one! Late, unorganized, and I didn’t get a medal “they ran out” oh…but they did offer the LIVESTRONG wristbands for those who didn’t get a medal - nice! I seriously considered poaching the event, but thought I’d contribute to a local company, shame on me…

3

I too was disappointed with this event. I can put up with the time delay, the announcement that the swim will start in one minute and the horn blasts ten seconds later, and a practically unmarked course, but not getting a time defeated my whole purpose of doing the event. I contemplated if I should “pile on” with this post, after some thought, decided that if a product/service is put out in the market (at a relatively high cost) that can’t deliver its very basic components, then it should be outed and put up to public scrutiny. Sorry DCB, please take this as constructive criticism, but you must get better.

4

If the event was that bad you might ask them for a partial refund for your entry fee. No results, medal, etc. They didn’t live up to their billing so it isn’t out of the question to ask for a refund. If they give you a hassle try writing your credit card company and ask them to give you a refund.

5

Anon,

Thanks for the kind words about Splash & Dash. I hate to post on forums, because sometimes the wrong message gets received. However, we (Red Rock) do not want to be associated with a forum discouraging athletes from attending another local race directors events. David of DCB is a friend of ours and regardless of what happened this past weekend, we don’t want to be a part of putting a director down to build us up, though you had good intentions. David works hard on his events and I’m sure he will correct the situation.

Good luck with Ironman. Though I heard the swim is cancelled because of the snow run off in Flagstaff. (that’s bad sarcasm)

Best Regards,

Jeff Suffolk
The Red Rock Co.
www.redrockco.com
jeffsuffolk@ironmanusa.com

6

Does anon get kicked off the forum now? I mean I don’t think DCB is a major company traded on the stock market and is trying to keep the sport going.

7

Tibbsy’s back!!!

8

Did you know Mission Bay sucks a major amount of ass?

9

Jeff - I agree with you - I’ve only been to one event in Arizona - An AARP tri put on by Premeir Event Management, so I do not know the RD’s in the area.

I can comment on putting on events as I have produced over 200 multi-sport events. It is a thankless job. I commend anyone that produces races.

I expect that the RD knows that his event needs to be improved. If he wants to stay an RD he will have to improve his events or find another way to make a living.

If he improves his event, we all win - If he goes away we all lose - lets all try to offer constructive ideas to him to improve his event. That goes much further in help support our sport then telling people to stay away.

Good luck this week preparing for IMAZ, Jeff!

Z

10

Thanks Jeff… You’re a friend, and I appreciate the support. But it’s my music, and I’ll face it.

I’d like to start by offering my apologies for a poorly run race. We seemed to have many things go wrong… and the participants were the one’s that suffered.

We had 76 registrants on Thursday before the event. The final count was around 220.

We anticipated a few extra (double) the amount of last minute registrants, we received twice as many… we planned (food, water, metals, portable restrooms, lifeguards and safety boaters) for 150…

3 of our 9 buoys were blown off course and needed fixing first thing Saturday morning.

Registrants were signing up as late as a half hour after the event was supposed to start. We were accommodating because these Ironman athletes wanted to get the opportunity to swim in the lake prior to the big event; I understand that request, and know that they won’t get another opportunity, so I allowed it.

We rented kayaks for volunteers so we weren’t dependent on personal boats as safety boats because we needed 25 safety boats in the water for this event. The company we rented them from was just under an hour late.

And the biggest issue. Timing. Our timing system operates this way: One system collects times, another system collects finisher place. We combine these two into a program that has the participants sorted by bib number…
If we lose either of these, we are lost. The back-up system for finisher place was collected on sheets, then if anything happens to the place collection we can re-enter the data… Not rocket science, but we seemed to lose both sets of finisher data.

For our errors, we are baiting you to give us another opportunity to make it right, to give you the all around positive experience you expect from any event. For those athletes who participated in the 2.4 mile swim, we offer you entrance to ANY of our events for 50% off. I’ll be sending out an e-mail to everyone entered in that swim shortly…

Again, I am very heartbroken about this, and can only promise that we will improve…

Very sincerely,

David Benjes
DCB Extreme Adventures
david@dcbadventures.com

11

I have done a few DCB duathlons and triathlons. All went off without a hitch. The 2004 Xterra race at Saguaro Lake was one of the best organized races I have done in the Phoenix area over the past ten years. I don’t know what happened with the swim race but I know that DCB is capable of putting on outstanding and good value-for-money races.

12

I was down at Tempe Town Lake for this event and I was not impressed to say the least.

Sounds like a nightmare day for the RD and his crew, but the truth is that it was a bad experience for almost everyone involved, so 50% off the entry fee for another their race is not enough. IMO they should refund the entry fee to anyone that requested it.

13

First off, I didn’t do the event, or even watch. I did do a very similar event last October, in town lake. I think I paid the $8 USMS fee and was comped on the smallish entry fee by DCB.

I look at it this way: I don’t give a crap about a finishers medal. Keep it and save me the buck. I also don’t give a crap about the published results, I have a wristwatch and can track my own time, which I trust better anyway. If I was there to swim ~2.4 miles in the lake, and got that, I’d be more or less satisified. If the course was off in distance or started late, then that sucks but it is also typical of first time/low key events, including the one I did. I have low expectations. But then, I’m also a cheap bastard and you wouldn’t see me paying $50 for this type of event (unless there is free beer and fajitas involved). Boycott overpriced races by registering ahead of time when it is cheaper and less trouble for the race directors. Encourage the local triathlon community to participate and the race directors to offer you events, or you will see more disappear (ie., we’ve lost several in the last year already). Asking the race director to refund entry fees and eat the cost himself is crazy. Sounds like there were some lessons learned but he was trying hard to accomodate everyone as best he could, maybe too hard…kudo’s for that.

14

what you said.

15

Laides and Gentlemen!!! Dan side steps an issue!!!

16

Dan–If this was an LBS you would say they should be out of business. If this was Mission Bay, you would ban the original poster from the forum. I am almost forming the belief that you are opinionated!

18

“Dan side steps an issue!!!”

i think i just did the opposite.

by the time i got up this morning this was full throttle, and the subject of the thread had posted. quite admirably, i might admit.

if race direction was like the insurance and credit card industry, many of you would be shit out of luck, because THEY would be boycotting YOU. maybe that will happen. maybe it already has, and you guys just don’t yet know about it. would you call for a boycott of certain RDs if you were going to be boycotted yourself?

whatever happened to “vote with your feet?”

19

True. However, the athletes who signed up for the event did not get what was advertised. Hence some type of refund is in order. I’ve gone to my credit card company after the race organizer could not offer just compensation and was able to get a refund of the full amount.

20

SEE! Screw you guys! Tibbs gets me.

21

I think that is unreasonable - to go around the RD to get a full refund (on your cc) just because you didn’t like the way the event ran. In this case - yes the race didn’t go as planned, and yes it was a bit unorganized. but it seemed to me that everyone in the water got to swim ~ 2.4 miles and the purpose of the event was to give IM athletes an opportunity to swim in the town lake on the course before the race next weekend. Seems like everyone got that.

I personally agree that $50 is a lot to pay - which is why I didn’t sign up to do the race. Plain and simple. I think the 50% discount is very acceptable and allows everyone to try another DCB race in the future at a substantial discount.

The thing I think is important to remember is that even if the race didn’t happen exactly as planned the RD still has to pay for the event. If the race was perfect you should expect a partial refund / credit and this is exactly what everyone got.

plain and simple guys this was a training event on the IM course and everyone still got to swim the course. like Dan said - if you aren’t happy with the RD or the cost of the events, don’t go.