I watched IMC this last sunday and signed up for next year. I met two people who had to withdraw from the race because of tacks thrown out onto the bike course causing flats. It was apparently just beyond McClean Creek. Apparently the bike support folks ran out of tubes after a short time so some athletes were SOL. Rumor has it that an athlete crashed as a result of flatting from a tack and sustained a bad head injury. Does anyone have more information on this? I know this happened 4 years ago at IMC. I hope they catch the bastard and let some of the athletes who had to pull out spend some “quality time” with the guy!
Tom Demerly say’s it didn’t happen and they’re lying 
There was a thread earlier about this so maybe scroll down through the threads.
He’s wrong. I also talked with one of the volunteers who said she actually swept some of the tacks off the course.
He’s wrong. I also talked with one of the volunteers who said she actually swept some of the tacks off the course.
Yes we know he was wrong, but you know Tom… he tends to become an expert on everything
No, he was just trying to a possible rumor from spreading. The OP didn’t have first hand knowledge.
Too many things have been heard from a friend who knew someone who was there, yadda yadda yadda.
No, he was just trying to a possible rumor from spreading. The OP didn’t have first hand knowledge.
Too many things have been heard from a friend who knew someone who was there, yadda yadda yadda.
It wasn’t a rumour, he was just trying to make it out to be one.
At the time it was a rumor and he was warning against it getting out of hand before more information was known.
I talked to a friend who did the race yesterday, he got a flat at that point and says he pulled a thumb tack out of his tire. He says he saw a bunch of people stopped with flats at that section. Seems pretty confirmed to me.
I got a flat at the top of Maclean Creek Rd. There was a roofing nail through my rear tire. My wife came by about 5 minutes later and got two flats from two identical roofing nails.
Geoff
I flated 3 times during this race. Twice in MacLean Creek and once just past OK Falls.
The tacks that I pulled from my tire were big enough that the Tufo sealant would squirt out without sealing the hole. I ended up hold my thumb on the hole till it sealed, quicker than pulling the tire off.
I 1st flated were everyone else was, I knew when I came around the turn and saw how many people were having tire problems that something had to be on the road.
I think that my 3rd flat was due to slow leaks from the 1st two fixes. I just pulled the tire off at that point put my spare on. It was a long ride to the turn around and special needs bag were my second spare was.
I figured that I lost 20 to 30 mins due to the flats.
I also pulled a carpet tack for my rear wheel costing me about 7 minutes. It was the same as the tack in the guys wheel in front of me. I heard the Bike Barn gave out over 150 tubes before they ran out. The top of McLean Creek Rd was a parking lot to say the least. No question, it was shades of 2001 when someone pulled the same stunt at Vaseux Lake.
Front page of the Penticton newspaper would suggest that this was more than a rumor…
Text of the article
Ironman course sabotaged with finishing nails
By DAVID CROMPTON Penticton Herald
An apparent senseless act of public mischief wreaked havoc with cyclists on sections of the Subaru Ironman Canada triathlon bike course Sunday
Numerous flat bike tires were reported in the Eastside Road/McLean Creek Road area, the result of small and sharp half-inch finishing nails being dumped on the road
Local triathlete Scott Tremblay was among those impacted. Though he eventually completed the race, he fell short in his bid to qualify for the Hawaii Ironman World Championships because of the tacks – or nails – deflating his bike tires and costing him valuable minutes on his finishing time
“The carnage along McLean Creek Road, with all the flat tires, was unbelievable,” said the 32-year-old school teacher from Kaleden
“It was a very deliberate act, and it’s just a terrible shame for all the athletes who put so much time into training for the race. I don’t know what the motives would be . . . a practical joke or maybe someone doesn’t want the race to be here.” Tremblay sustained two flat tires because of the nails, costing him more than a half-hour. He finished in 10:08, which was 13 minutes slower than the 9:55 he would have needed to qualify for Hawaii
“Psychologically, it really messed up the race for me, but then I think about how much it must have hurt for someone coming from far-away places like Japan or Europe,” said Tremblay
The Bike Barn in Penticton volunteers eight manned service vehicles to help cyclists deal with flat tires and other repairs on the bike course during Ironman. Bike Barn co-owner Chris Prowse said quite a few athletes either didn’t complete the bike segment or lost a lot of time due to flat tires
“Quite a few athletes had multiple flats . . . we had one lady from France who had six flats, and she ended up missing the (bike) cut-off time by 15 minutes,” said Prowse
Prowse said the crews in his service vehicles got so busy fixing the flat tires, they couldn’t rescue everyone as quickly as they normally would
He added the area where most of the flat tires occurred was out of cellphone range, so the service vehicles were unable to call for additional assistance. Prowse noted it takes his trained bike mechanics -with all the necessary repair equipment in the service vehicles – two minutes or less to repair a flat tire
“It takes an athlete out on the road (a) minimum 15 to 30 minutes to repair a flat, so you can see the dilemma if you have three or four flat tires along the way,” said Prowse
He noted the majority of the athletes only carry two spare tubes with them during an Ironman
“Along with the ones we were repairing, we were also handing out extra tubes to a number of athletes,” said Prowse
The Bike Barn provides the service and the tubes, tires and other parts free of charge during the race. Prowse said the staff saved all the severed tubes and put them in a box.
“There are a few hundred in there, and then you add in the ones we gave out or the ones that the cyclists repaired themselves,” said Prowse. “It’s really quite unbelievable.”
Prowse said on average the tubes are worth about $7 each.
He noted there was also several flat tires reported in the Oliver area of the bike course.
“It’s hard to say whether those nails or tacks were embedded in the tire from another part of the course,” said Prowse.
“What happens is the object seals the tire, it eventually works itself loose and then the air comes out. You could ride for an hour or so before the tire deflates.”
Tremblay said he uses a ‘tubular’ in his bike tires. The tubular is glued to the rim and is more resistant to picking up tacks, nails or other sharp objects.
“The downside is it’s very difficult to pry it off the rim in the event of a flat,” said Tremblay.
Tremblay was actually stranded on the course for about 30 minutes before a fellow athlete came along and gave him a C02 cartridge to inflate his tire.
Tremblay said he did see one person crash on his bike, but wasn’t certain it was a result of a flat tire.
“We’re fortunate nobody got seriously hurt. If your tire bursts on a downhill section, the wheel just slides out and you can really get injured,” he said.
Prowse said there was also a problem in 2001 with nails or tacks on the bike course.
“It was definitely a lot worse this year, though,” Prowse said.
Tremblay is urging anyone who witnessed anything suspicious or saw anyone dumping the nails on the road to contact either the Ironman office or the RCMP.
(excerpt) …“It takes an athlete out on the road (a) minimum 15 to 30 minutes to repair a flat, so you can see the dilemma if you have three or four flat tires along the way,” said Prowse …
Holy crap! I sure hope it doesn’t take anyone 15 to 30 minutes to repair a flat. That’s just sad.
Could have happened anywhere , but being Canadian , am very embarrased. For what it’s worth ,apologies and consolation to fellow athletes for severe inconvenience.
Don’t worry about it, it was probably some American who moved up there since the election last year!!
jkatsoudas -
On a good day, I can change a flat in 4-6 minutes. But this year at Columbia Triathlon I faced the “stun factor”, and that turned my second flat of the day into a 20-minute ordeal. A big part of this was dealing effectively (and that took time there on the side of the road) with the mental anguish of the race part of the day being over. I had driven nine hours to get there, used two motels, and as usual Columbia was an important race for me - the annual early-season test of fitness. What I learned was that as fit as I might have been physically, I was not fully fit mentally - I was not ready for what seemed to me huge adversity. That was the “sad” part, and I think I learned a lot from the experience - if the race is worth doing enough to travel to, it is worth getting back into it completely and finishing as strongly as possible.
For the people at IMC, I can empathize with what they might have been feeling - only I have to multiply it several times over. For them, it was four or five nights of motels, very expensive transportation to the race, and a year (or more) of acutely focused training. It may seem paradoxical that, given those parameters, everybody wasn’t able to change those tubes in a heartbeat, but as I said about - the “stun factor” can exert a powerful force. Mental strength and focus cover a lot of ground.
You’re right, though, in suggesting that people doing an iron-distance race should be fairly adept at repairing flats. Like every other part of triathlon, it is a skill that should be practiced; otherwise it is such a needless way to see all your hard work dissolve into nothingness! But I guess I’m just trying to find other reasons why the people who flatted at IMC might’ve taken so long to get their reapirs accomplished.