Rip Van Winkle Tri

Yep. It's our club tri. C'mon down and pass a good time.

They put on a great race and the gardens are beautiful...and plus great food and atmosphere...I highly recommend this

I am in. Love this race, I have participated in at least one of their races every year. Come on out and give them some support.

I am signed up for this one, but the website does not have a great deal of information.  This will be my 3rd sprint, so I am still a bit of a rookie.  Any kind of information/hints about the area/course will be helpful.  I am coming in from Metairie and spending the night in New Iberia.  Look forward to seeing everyone there.

Welcome to BT and to triathlons in Louisiana!

Yeah, I'm working on our club website, hopefully going forward we'll have more complete, accurate, and timely information. Meanwhile I'll try to hit the high points:

Venue is Rip van Winkle Gardens on Jevverson Island, south of New Iberia, north of Delcambre on LA Highway 675. Historic and beautiful site, made open to us through the generosity of the owners, normally a $10 admission. If you go here and click on "Aerial," then zoom in, you can see a detailed aerial view of the gardens, the nursery, and the lake.

Swim is 600 meters in Lake Pegnieur, starts and ends at the RVW dock, a mostly triangle course, lots of lifeguards and kayak support. Most of the course is in a sheltered cove, so very little wave action. And no one has been bitten by an alligator while participating in the triathlon. Yet.

Bike is mapped here. Advertised as 18 miles, though our RD reports it will be a little short, closer to 17.7. This is a new course, as on the course we normaly use there is road construction around US 90 that has forced closure of one of our roads, forcing us to go south toward Delcambre.  Typical Louisiana roads, which means they sorta suck.

Run is 2.5 miles through the nursery grounds, flat as a pancake, all on packed pea gravel, very little shade. With a little luck the nursery workers will forget the sprinklers on.

Be happy to entertain any specific questions.

thanks so much for the information.  What about on course aid stations?  Will there be water on the run course?

Yep. IIRC it's positioned so that you pass it twice on the run, but for sure you'll hit it at least once.

I am in.  Going to be my second OWS race.  T-Gator was my first.  Looking forward to it.  Anyone know if the roads are chip seal or just bad asphalt?  I have heard from several people that the roads were terrible last year.

RJ

I looked over the route on google map street view . . . that is the best recon I have.  I could see some cracking but no potholes.  Doesn't look perfect, but looks better than parts of the bike path I train on.

Got to go swim now - - - big masters meet here in New Orleans tomorrow and need to get some stroke work in.

I'll check in here later for some more information.

I'm not sure we even have chip seal down here. Maybe we do and I just don't know the difference.

Just bad asphalt, and I really don't think it's that bad. Certainly not the worse surface I race on. That might be a half-mile stretch of I-49 service road we ride for Yam City. 

Our local parish police jury proposed a new tax to "pave" many of our rural roads.  Most people assumed that we would be getting asphalt since most had never seen anything else used.  The politicians  were very careful to never use the word "asphalt" before the election.  After it was all said and done many of our roads were redone with a layer of tar, layer of chipped limestone, layer of tar, etc...    It has really made many of our local roads bone jarring to ride.  Once they get flattened by alot of vehicle traffic they do get easier to cycle on but no where close to asphalt quality.

This user's post has been ignored.

Only a few days away, ready to get it on.

Bear,

I assume we just pick up race packet that morning?  Also, Active.com has the race start time as 7:30am.  Does that sound correct to you?

Yes, and yes! We should be there as early as 6am. See you there!

Hi Everyone,

Please say HI at the race.  I'll be at the transition gate and bouncing around where needed, BEAR is easily found, the twins will be driving me NUTS, and tall Dylan will be moving slowly.....trying not to work too hard. 

Have a wonderful Tri!

Angel

Marked the bike course this afternoon, got to say so myself it is now a well-marked bike course. At least three arrows (paint and sign) at every turn, miles are marked in numbers big enough and bright enough to be seen by the space shuttle. Couple notes:

Bike course is 17.5 mile, not the 18 advertised. We had to change the route because of construction around US 90.
 Overall, I think this is a better route.

Coming out of the facility, at about the 0.75 mile point, you take a right on LA675 and go south for less than two miles until you take a right on LA14. This stretch  is really bad road, use caution. The rest of the route is decent and will seem like heaven after this stretch.

Course has one left hand turn at mile 8.5 and another coming into transition. All of the other eight turns are righties.

We also drove the run route, and it too will be a little short. One of the roads we normally use was blocked so we couldn't go quite to the lake like we did last year. I'd say it's no more than a quarter-mile short of the advertised 2.5.

Swim course, however, looked plenty long and, I swear, uphill most of the way.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Little yappie and on the road dogs around mile 8.
Watch for the speed bumps at beginning and end of the bike ride.  They wouldn't let us paint them, so I made new signs.  BEWARE!!!

Was there a headwind out there?  I thought I was doing well on the bike (leg wise) but the clock disappointed me some?

I thought there may have been a little headwind after we took the second right after comming off Hwy 14.  I know that I was having trouble keeping up with the avg. that I had done the first half of the race.  I normally tend to ride the second half better after getting good and warmed up.

I do know that I went out this afternoon for an easy recovery ride and noticed that I was having to work hard just to keep a descent pace.  Looked down and saw that back tire was underinflated.  Now my mind starts to think that maybe I was starting to lose air during the second half of the race.  Not like the road conditions would have anything to do with that. Lol.

I was disappointed too in my bike split, avg. almost a full 1 mph slower than T-Gator.  Maybe the tire maybe just need to HTFU.

BTW..  I ride Specialized Armidillo tires, first flat in 6 months or so of riding. And, yes I had inflated them before the race.

Didn't feeel like a wind of any kind out there, I'm blaming the road surfaces, especially on Bull Island Road. Seems it was harder to hold22mph there than it was to hold 24 on other segments, even the the other segments heading north and east like Bull Island Road was.

I am not a great cyclist (yet), but I hoped to hold 21 mph average (I did only slightly slower at Heatwave and it was a longer bike).  I was only barely able to average over 20.  I did not think that wind was bad, but was hoping and grasping from something! 

I do agree that the roads were tough.  When things smoothed out, I felt like I was flying (22, 23 plus), then I would hit a rough stretch and feel like my teeth were falling out of my head (18.5, 19 mph)!

For a small note of constructive criticism for the organizers, the finish on the swim could have a bigger buoy.  I had no problem seeing the three course buoys until I made the last turn to head back toward the dock . . . with the rising sun, I could see very little.  Once I was able to spot the dock, I still could not see that buoy (thanks go to the life guard in the Kayak who started yelling "LEFT" at me!)

Turned out not to be a huge deal, I was in 3rd (first wave) until that little course adjustment, I ended up 4th (by something like 20 seconds) so I only lost one position due to my little detour.

I am just glad that I did not swim into that brick chimney!  I was headed that way I think!