This comes to mind:
I think the way to do this is looped course. 3x60km on 30km of roads max. The old Keith Jordan IM Texas course was nice, but we have what we have. Here in Ottawa, the issue is the downtown road closure (10 percent of the course). The other 90 percent of the course is closed for cycling all weekend, so citizens have already organized their lives around stupid cyclists closing down the city every Sat and Sun. But that 10% of the course downtown, itās like all hell broke loose and it was dead easy to get around downtown even with the road closures, you just needed to know what was closed to get around it.
The Ottawa course is multi loop and people here keep talking about reducing the loops and extending it to parts of Quebec where the best riding is on the other side of the river from Ontario, but I think the gridlock this will cause is a mistake for the long term sustainability of the race
Ironically, the āoldā rural section of IMTX is alive and well as the Oilman course in November
Near missā¦? I saw a facebook post on my feed some guy hit by a truck, but he continued on to race
I think part of this is always going to be that cities should be places for people to do thingsā¦ - as opposed to transitional spaces for cars to drive through. The way car dependency happens in the US and in Canada, is that youāll always have a contingent of curmudgeons who will always complain about the slightest inconvenience because the race conflicts with whatever plan they have. Also, local news loves traffic stories so these things always tend to get overblown.
Obviously, we want to be gracious guests but youāre always going to have people who will complain. But part of living in a society (and obviously putting on a race) is in how you manage those conflicts.
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Cynthia and I had the same conversation in Kona when we went out to dinner back in the year with two races and everyone was so upset. Interestingly, what they were upset with was their perceived lack of communication and they were caught by surprise when trying to just drive to work to do their jobs so they could support their family. Really nothing against the actual race itself, but it resulted in a bad attitude toward the race and all competitors. I felt like I was on a personal unpaid public relations mission for the race organization.
As you mentioned, many of these issues would be resolved if all of the athletes are positive ambassadors when they are guests at a race location. All of us end up paying the price for some of us.
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To the part in bold, I think thatās the takeaway from @rrheisler ās article. Thatās what we all need to do. Yes we pay to do triathlons, but they donāt exist without local coucil and community support. We are not entitled to anything special from the local community because paid to do a race. Our stadium is their community. If we go to watch the NY Yankees, we can be assholes inside their stadium because they own and operate it. Ironman does not own and operate its stadium, the stadium is largely provided on community goodwill. Sure, the community gets a bit of an economic boost, but it only goes to some people and some businesses. But the rest of the population are the āownersā of their local Yankee stadium that they are lending us. Its a community lending of the resource with everyone benefiting, versus a physical stadium scenario. This is the main problem. We donāt need to be ambassadors when we pay for seats in a pro sports stadiumā¦.we can be entited consumers. But our triathlon stadium has different ownership and stakeholder structure which I would say most of us disregard because paid Ironman an entry fee.
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We could be near the perfect stewards to the local communities and weād still get hate, weād still get the same bitching about why said race is there. So we certainly donāt do ourselves any favors when we show up to communities and ride like assholes, and do the dumb shit that the minority of does, that āweā all then have to pay for.. But thereās going to be hate on our sport regardless of how respectful we are to the community. And no that didnāt start because we werenāt respectful, it started because we were simply there.
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Exactly.
Think how many people are pissed off at traffic lights, grocery stores, online commenting etc.
Iām not sure about that. I echo Ryanās story above, I think weād all be surprised about the amount of frustration generated by people training and/or riding the course during race week. Race day certainly is an issue, but it goes well beyond that. āeasily tolerated but still dislikedā is WAY better than āfull hateā. Just because people wonāt worship us doesnāt mean itās not worth striving for that improvement in the relationship.
Jumping lights/stop signs, public urination, crossing like a dick when running, etc., these are all things ive personally seen during race weeks and it disgusts me, and Iām a member of this community. think of locals who are getting their first impression of ātriathletesāā¦none of that is EVER necessary during race week. poor behavior reflects on all of us.
Unrelated but a good example. First time I raced in tremblant, as I was driving into town I saw people riding on the trans-canada highway. Itās a god damn interstate highway. might even be illegal to ride it. and this was at like 2pm thursday of race week, peak traffic time. EVERY car passing on that highway looks at that and goes, ālook at that asshole!ā there is no reason to need to pre ride 99% of most courses, especially now with google street view, or your own fuckin car, just drive it if youre so worried that you need to physically see the course. Riding two abreast, and that general regard that your pre-race reccāy is more important than rules of the road or community members driving around, is the problem.
Honestly, I think this is one of the best articles ever put out by ST and one of the more important discussion topics on this forum in recent years because itās totally true. We could wear out our welcome at any race site at any moment, letās not forget that.
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I 100% think āweā have our part to do. I just think the race itself impacting people have waaaay more to do with a race staying or having a positive impact than the 10% of the jackasses having a negative impact suddenly being the end all be all of a race staying or going.
We basically wear out our welcome just by having a race that impacts so many people; jackassery or not is almost irrelevant at that point.
I think we all have a duty to be the best representation of our sport to others, but Iāll also say that probaly has absolutely very little bearing on whether races stick around. Iāve heard for 15 years the ālocalsā hate triathletes in Lake Placid, Iāve heard of all the horror stories of triathletes filling the roads during the summer build up, yet, Lake Placidās contract keeps getting extended.
Why the hell would IM/the city allow the metro race course that it just did, thatās waaaay more damaging than any FB comments that a few knucklehead triathletes will ever harm the relationships. But again, if we need our hand slapped so that we ādo betterā every few years, perfect article for that. If we are using IM Jax as the example of it harming the race continuing, thatās a terrible take imo. Do an WTF article on the Jax course 10x more of an issue than off handed jackassery comments from a minority of triathletes.
FYI - the use of the term āfull-distance triathlonā has always irked me. You are referring to Iron-distance races, which could also be called long-distance or ultra-distance. But calling them āfull-distanceā implies that shorter events are not actually āfullā triathlons. Of course, a triathlon can be a sprint, international, Olympic, or any other distance and still be a āfullā event. Just my linguistic preference.
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Just to be clear the highway 117 in Mont Tremblant is a Quebec provincial road. It looks like a 4 lane trans Canada highway, but it is not. If you were driving on the Autoroute 13/15/20/30/40/440/640 in around Montreal, bikes are probibited on those autoroutes. But any three digit road number starting with a 1 (like 1xx) itās all good for bikes. The shoulder on the 117 is gigantic, but personally unless I am on there super early in the morning, the transport trucks and cars going 100-130 kph just make the ride noisy and not totally enjoyable.
But your other points are all valid. Just wanted to point out the status of those roads in Quebec. People are on 1xx series roads with bikes often enough.
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Ironman is the original distance. Similar, but not exactly, like how my kids came home ranting to me about their math teacher who proudly (unironically) told the class how she did a ā5k marathonā over the weekend. That really triggered my kidsā¦ I told them they just need to smile and congratulate her!
But ya, the term full distance is used for effect that way I suspect. To make a kind of passive aggressive statement that everything else is less thanā¦
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Races go away mostly because of 1, but it doesnāt just apply to IM. We have lost every race that takes place in Tempe Town Lake, 4 Peaks killed off the Splash and Dash (used to have like 4 or 5 in TTL) because the locals stopped supporting it. Cactus Man is pretty popular, not as popular as Lifetime, but enough for meā¦but Iām guessing to continue to exist it would need at least 500 entrants instead of the 350ish. Again, thatās on the locals. We have the largest tri club in the country, or at least it was the largest several years runningā¦and we continue to lose race options because not enough locals want to race locally.
So really itās all point 1.
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I edditted out the ranking system (#1 was not filling race capacity). I hope Ryan can give us an inside baseball on the reasons why IM Jax was 100% āmetroā. (Hint it makes IM the most money while doing what to the host city?ā¦..win but at what cost?). Again at some point the Rev3 Rush race idea is going to look pretty damn good (only slight pink at this point in the tri sphere)
Iāll go one step further and point out that the village of Mont Tremblant used to heavily promote the course as a training tool. There are still signs on the 117 and on Chemin Duplessis that say āLa Route DāEntrainementā (training route) with an IM logo, marking the course and telling you where to turn, etc. There are even a few km markers on Duplessis stapled to trees if youāre looking closely enough.
So not just ātechnically allowedā but at one time heavily promoted
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To the same point, somewhat, not every city needs to host an IndyCar or NASCAR road course
Iām happy with just Long Beach and St Pete
Montee Ryan and duplessis not part of this convo. Riding there fine, I myself did. Iām speaking only about trans canada hwy section. That stretch even if legal to ride, is akin to a US interstate highway and I think if you elect to ride that outside of race day, you have a screw loose. Also, thereās no NEED to ride it during a recon. The highway with great pavement, no turns, and one steady straight incline?No one on earth will ever convince me that section of the course requires a recon.
The was also the comment from alocal on the IM Jax page that asked, āIs anybody going to clean up all the trash left on the roads from people doing the race?ā Every race i see people throw trash or water bottles on the side of the road.