Berkeley: Tri friendly?

I live in Berkeley (although I'm not doing many tris, these days). I'm not sure how much of a tri community there is in Berkeley, but the training options are great. Lots of pools (and as a grad student, you'd have access to all the campus pools), great cycling (if you don't mind hills), and you can run outside year-round. For OWS you can't do much in Berkeley proper, but there are places to swim in the bay.

I know there's a tri group at the Berkeley YMCA, although I think it's mostly for beginners. The univeristy has a tri tream that seems to compete regularly, but I have no clue who can join it or how competitive it is. My only experience with them was when they tried to organize an olympic distance tri a couple of years ago and had to cancel the day before. That sucked.

Thanks--I'm hoping to come out and look around before I move for sure, but w/ my schedule and budget, there's a pretty good chance that won't happen.  California sounds like heaven at the moment as I'm running on ice.

The Cal triathlon team finished 2nd place overall last year nationally in Tuscaloosa, with the men finishing in 1st place and the women finishing 4th.  I'm pretty sure anyone can join them and train with them, however.

http://www.caltriathlon.net/ 

Like he^ says... they are second in the nation... so you can safely say they are tri "friendly"
Here a video they made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xehiSpJ9DyY

As a Bay Area native and SF resident, I can't speak specifically for Berkeley, but I can say that the entire Bay Area is very tri-friendly.  In my tri group here in SF there are a few people who live in the East Bay.  Berkeley is just a very quick jump from San Francisco and trails in Marin or the Peninsula.  Good luck with the move!

yeah, what she said...Lots of places to swim, bike and run in the bay area. SF itself has several large races (Escape, Treasure Island, etc.), great cycling in Marin and East Bay, ow swimming in the Bay, pretty good weather all year, good cycling and tri shops. You won't have any excuses here!

I'm a grad student at UC Berkeley and I am also on the UC Berkeley tri team. It's a great, huge (150+ members) team and a great way to meet lots of other students at Berkeley. There are ~20 practices a week, core workouts, swims, track workout and team rides. There are also a lot of social events. I really like it. i'm not very competitive, and there's a huge range of ability, from pro to beginner. I'd say the team is 2/3 undergrad, and 1/3 grad so you'll meet a lot of grad students. We have a few community members on the team too! Maybe I"ll see you next fall =)