I have not seen or heard of anything like it, but I have had a similar idea for a while. If I were motivated and not pre-occupied with my career, family, and training I might actually do it too (if I could come up with any money). My idea was a training facility for endurance multi-sport where the indoor area would be a warehouse style layout with a 50 meter pool, a 400 meter track, and a designated trainer area in the infield of the track for brick workouts. Probably half the infield would be turf for drills and stretching or whatever. This indoor facility would be ideal for all your winter training needs, and would also facilitate the ability to do realistic brick workouts since you could jump out of the pool and run straight to the bike with ease. I also imagined an outdoor area with a man made hill that would give locals the ability to ride and run on hills longer than an interstate overpass, around here it is all flat. It would be boring going up and down the same 1/2 mile hill but it is better than nothing. I give free license for anyone to steal that idea, I’m most likely never going to do anything with it.
I do like the idea of a designated race site though, very cool. I might have to come down and race there someday.
Setup events here in NC has put in plans to build a tri facility.
In talking with some of the big-wigs for setup I know they plan on doing the following:
Man made lake for the swim portions of races
many miles of wide roads (closed to traffic) for the bike leg
Same as the bike for the run
Small stadium for the finish of the events
Dorms for people to come and stay for the weekend to train
onsite bike shop for maintenance
Off the top of my head that’s all I can think of. I am sure there is more.
Outside of the Olympic facility in Colorado is there another facility like this anywhere?? Anybody else find this kind of compelling??
“According to the plans, the center would host about 20 events a year. Members of the Pender County Planning Department say each event is expected to draw about 2,000 people.”
The only part I don’t quite see a solution for is is volunteers…most tris need 'em, and lots of 'em. Can’t imagine the volunteer pool (in rural NC) will be ok with doing 20 events a year. Wonder if the funding model contemplated paid volunteers?
Same goes for any pro-bono stuff cities are willing to give RD’s for a once-a-year race…likely that stuff becomes paid. I’d expect fees to go up to pay for the staff / stuff, but also expect the race quality to be high, as you can continually improve the experience as you host more and more events.
Setup events here in NC has put in plans to build a tri facility.
In talking with some of the big-wigs for setup I know they plan on doing the following:
Man made lake for the swim portions of races
many miles of wide roads (closed to traffic) for the bike leg
Same as the bike for the run
Small stadium for the finish of the events
Dorms for people to come and stay for the weekend to train
onsite bike shop for maintenance
Off the top of my head that’s all I can think of. I am sure there is more.
Outside of the Olympic facility in Colorado is there another facility like this anywhere?? Anybody else find this kind of compelling??
“According to the plans, the center would host about 20 events a year. Members of the Pender County Planning Department say each event is expected to draw about 2,000 people.”
I call bullshit.
im sure the center could host events other that triathlons. with that much road/path construction they could have major running events, or color runs… which could easily draw that many people with racers, families, spectators, and vendors. even bike races and TT’s could be an option. without having to ask permission to close roads to traffic you open up a lot of options as to when you can host races i’d imagine.
interesting idea. i’ll be keeping watch for any new info about this.
Setup events here in NC has put in plans to build a tri facility.
In talking with some of the big-wigs for setup I know they plan on doing the following:
Man made lake for the swim portions of races
many miles of wide roads (closed to traffic) for the bike leg
Same as the bike for the run
Small stadium for the finish of the events
Dorms for people to come and stay for the weekend to train
onsite bike shop for maintenance
Off the top of my head that’s all I can think of. I am sure there is more.
Outside of the Olympic facility in Colorado is there another facility like this anywhere?? Anybody else find this kind of compelling??
“According to the plans, the center would host about 20 events a year. Members of the Pender County Planning Department say each event is expected to draw about 2,000 people.”
I call bullshit.
Major bullshit.
While the facility will be nice, it is hard to fit 2000 people on a half or full course. Certainly not one this small
Use an existing racetrack facility, like Pocono or one of the other big ovals. I’m not sure how many of them have infield lakes/ponds deep enough for a tri swim. It might get boring doing laps around the oval on the bike, but the complete lack of traffic would be nice. Plus you could get individual lap splits, and if you flat your worst-case scenario is a 1-mile walk back to the infield. The run could be on the infield road course an pit road areas. The rest of the track is built for events, and spectators could see athletes in all stages of the race just by walking around a bit.
Personally I’d dig being able to give my wife/kids a wave after every bike lap. They could show me my lap splits on a chalkboard, making me feel oh-so-Valentino Rossi.
Interesting for sure but yea I have a hard time seeing the viability of something like this actually panning out.
Are people really going to want to race the same course over and over again for multiple races?
Racing the same course multiple times in a race and over several races is my biggest concern about the project. There are races I go to every year but it is once a year and usually there are other contributing factors for why I go back again beside the race itself. I live near the site but would not see myself doing more than a couple of the races in a year time.
I think this concept can work very well. For example, last year there were over 30 triathlon/duathlon/running/open water swim events held at this venue close to London, UK: http://www.dorneylake.co.uk/index.html
Granted, the 2012 Olympics rowing regatta was held here so the venue benefited hugely from that investment. It’s certainly not a purpose-built tri venue. However sprint and olympic distance races seem to attract plenty of support and there are at least two large event companies putting on races there.
Re numbers, I did a property industry sprint tri in May with over 1000 racers across various age group waves. On the same day they had a relay with 300 teams and a 3km open water swim with 100 entrants. If you include the various supporters attending then the numbers were very strong across the day. Non-corporate events are probably a bit smaller but still seem to be successful.
The lake is good to swim in, the bike is multiple laps of 5kms on a closed road, and the run is on an out-and-back alongside the lake. It’s not picturesque by any means, but the multi-lap format is good for spectators and good for learning to pace yourself. Doing multiple events over the year on the same course is also helpful in tracking your improvement (or lack of!).
The cost seems insurmountable. Convincing a group of investors that it will MAKE money seems a stretch, to me. The video is very well done, makes it seem exciting.
But I can’t imagine doing race after race there in the middle of nowhere, NC.