Anyone done one (off road) ? opinions ? advice ? recommendations ?

Cheers

They were quite popular in Spain and it seemed to be that if you were half decent on a bike you’d be in with a chance of a podium.

Nope but fancy giving one a go. The bristol run rider duathlon is on my doorstep so seems rude not to. http://www.runrider.co.uk
if you’re interested.

did the http://www.humanrace.co.uk/ wildman in surrey a couple of years ago. good fun. nice people. hard gnarly old bastard usually wins it. there is a series starting soon iceman mudman etc.
also It’s not offroad but the winter ballbuster is meant to be a right well ballbuster.

i’d do more but they ten to be quite pricey.

Hmm saying looking at the website. I might enter the series. something to keep me occupied over the winter

I did the Human Race winter duathlons last winter. They were damn hard – a hilly, off-road run of two laps of a course of about 8 to 10km, an 18 to 20km mountain bike ride and another run of half distance, 4 to 5km. The distances varied according to the terrain but I was racing for about 2 and a half hours on average.

Their ride courses aren’t like MTB races – they’re wider and a lot less technical on average. If you’re a half-decent runner and rider, you’ll be down the field after the run, recover a lot of places on the ride and lose a few to better runners again on the last run. A lot of the riders don’t use momentum and look for alternative lines so you can make a lot of places by just being efficient.

I’d encourage you to try it. Just remember to pace yourself carefully and keep gels and fluids going in throughout the race.

Haven’t done an offroad one but I’ve done a fair few normal ones and I did the ballbuster which I can confirm was hard, top tip leave something in the tank for the second run or it will not end well. If you have done a few triathlons and aren’t good at the swim but do fairly well because of the bike and run don’t presume that you will be troubling the pointy end of the field in a duathlon. Turns out most people are slightly worse at one of the three disciplines in a tri but everyone in a duathlon is rapid on the bike and run so you end up placing about the same as you would have in a tri anyway.

What kit to wear is also a slight dilemma as they are run in the winter so just a trisuit will be a little on the cold side! I’d imagine you would be warmer off road though, for my last one I went with a jacket over my trisuit on the first run and bike then took it off for the second run as I was far to warm. Little things like tribelt and elastic laces are a good idea, tribelt more so you can remove/add layers which you can’t really do if your outer layer has a number pinned to it. Quick transitions are effectivly free speed, requires no effort or skill to get them snappy but so many people don’t manage it, if you don’t mind looking like an idiot practice them in your garden until you can do them blindfolded. Finally practice riding after going for a run and running off the bike, the latter is much more of a shock to the system than you might expect.

Iain

Ate they not just tri’s for people who can’t swim?

Ate they not just tri’s for people who can’t swim?

That’d be my reason for doing one 😀

I did an off-road one around ashton court a couple of years ago. I am by no means speedy on the bike but my bike time was right up there. What was clear was that the majority of the field found the wet, slightly technical singletrack quite difficult, so I drew the sweeping conclusion that triathletes cannot ride off road for toffee. On the other hand, I was well slow on the run so there you go. It was November iir; I went for a tri suit, base layer, and bike jersey. Should have had off-road shoes as it was a bit slippy underfoot. Elastic laces and number belt.

I prefer tris because I like swimming.

This roadie one comes highly recommended: http://www.vlaevents.co.uk/vlahelwith.html

I’ll be there this year.

I did the Grizedale off-road du in March. Bloody hard work but great fun.

I’ve done a couple, evil sheriff and cambridge. Great fun, running off the bike is hard work as your legs don’t like going from bike to foot and turn to jelly!

Did an off-road duathlon a few years ago, run-bike-run, was great fun.

Certainly good to train the 2 disciplines back to back.

Elastic laces and 2 pairs of trainers would be my tip, as you can lose a lot of time in the transition. A bit demoralising to be beaten by someone just because they had elastic laces and didn’t take so long to change their shoes!

Cheers, Rich

I forgot to mention that I normally ride SPDs but fitted flats and ran and rode in off road running shoes to speed the transitions (plus there’s nothing worse than coming off the ride and putting on cold, wet trainers for the second run).

I saw a bunch of people wearing tri suits but it’s not necessary. I wore lycra shorts and a running shirt, throwing on a really lightweight waterproof for the ride.

Well I did one !! and in the main, enjoyed it, apart from the first half of the last run, bloody hard that was. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone thinking of giving it a go. It was interesting looking at the times for the bike section, you can tell the MTBers from the runners!! I had practised run to bike beforehand (a little) but having done onenow realise that I should have done bike to run instead.

Does anyone happen to know where the MTB section of the Iceman is held ?

Cheers

Rich

doing them in training is beneficial. Short run, usual mtb ride then straght out again for a short run gets your legsused to the very lifeless feeling your legs get on the 2nd run