Awesome, thanks for that.
I have no experience or knowledge of Lanza but I think the late season timing could really work for me. And if it’s a tough bike course than all the better. Probably looking at 2020 though, and try and angle it with my wife as a late summer holiday
I can see why the locals might be a bit annoyed about cyclist on the Femes road if it causes major traffic problems. I guess that’s always a problem when you don’t have too many alternative roads to choose from.
I didn’t notice any particular change in attitude to cyclists while I was out there last month. I was based at CLS though, so most of the traffic on the roads that I was riding on was tourist hire cars. I guess around the bigger towns it might be more of an issue if cyclists are causing traffic to back up behind them, especially if they are trying to get to or from work.
The bike guides did say that they’ve changed the way they run their rides after trouble with the police. You used to just turn up at the bike centre and go, but sometimes they had 40+ riders turning up and on the climbs and descents the groups were spread out over quite a distance. Now you have to pre-register and they restrict the groups to 16 rides. I did 4 group rides over the 11 days that I was there and I’ve noticed that the guides are keeping off the bigger roads where possible. We ended up riding between CLS and Mancha Blanca in both directions several times and they always took us via Soo, Munique and Tiagua rather than the main road up through Tinajo.
I’m not sure that I understand the comments about CLS not putting anything back into the wider community. I know a lot of the Green Team are foreigners, but the resort must employ a lot of locals. The guests from CLS must put a reasonable amount of business into the local shops and restaurants. Very few IM competitors seem to stay at CLS now, so CLS running the race on the island must be pretty good for the holiday industry. If the 70.3 is at Playa Blanca now then that must help the hotels there too.
Yeah I didn’t really understand the CLS comment either and I said the same as you that the employ alot of people. I think it was said by someone who runs a competitive training camp place in Lanza also where we were staying so possible just picking holes.
I’m In!
Been licking my wounds all week after turning down a Kona slot in Bolton last weekend. Finally found a silver lining when I saw that this coincided with half term week.
I’ve wanted to do this race ever since I can remember but have always found reasons not to go, expense being one. But now that I feel I’ve ‘saved’ myself 10K by not taking the family to Kona the relative cost of taking the family to Lanza for a week feels cheap. Added to which there’s no question they’ll enjoy it more. I might too!
Dreading the swim biff but absolutely can not wait to ride that bike course.
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Yes buddy. Going to be great. Swim biff will be fun. Swim is my strongest bit so think I’m going to go hard and get clear.
My size and weight will do me no favours on the hills and heat.
In, did it just the once before back in 2013 and played with it tbh.
Been back a few times for holidays and long weekends - and missed it - can’t wait 
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I’m 90% certain to enter Lanzarote 2020, my intention is to Qualify for Kona
Based on my IM Hamburg data, Best Bike Split gives me an estimated time of 5h46 at Lanzarote, which is good enough for a top 10 bike place, based on 2019 race, if I can repeat my Hamburg run, then I just need a sub 1h10m swim
All looks good on Paper, but an extra 35 minutes on the bike could make the run tougher
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New poster here,
I’ve also signed up for Lanzarote, but I have a really dull question! What insurance company do you guys use for oversea’s events? I’m concerned that normal insurance might see it as extreme sport in the risk adverse world and refuse to pay if I had an off!.
p.s Apologies for the vanilla question, hopefully I’ll add more entertainment in future lol
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HE HAS SAID IT!!!
I HAVE READ IT.
(You’d do well at Bolton with your bike skillz)
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Cool. Why Lanza Matt?
Is that with the Brutal headwinds from this years race?
You ought to wind it back to race day 2019 and see what that spits out
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I usually use Dogtag, which is quite reasonable for single-trip cover.
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I entered Roth, which is on 5th July, just a week before Bolton and Switzerland. It’s a shame as Bolton looked like a good place to KQ, and the new course in Switzerland should be really good. I have read loads about Lanza, seems to be a bit of a Marmite course - but felt that I need to give it a go, and as a strong cyclist, hopefully will give me a good chance of KQ (but think Bolton would be a better chance)
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Just found out how to load actual weather on the day… now gives me an estimated time just over 6 hours
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Do you not always do that? For future race plans, I’d always select the advanced weather of the day of the race, but it’s only really accurate if you refresh it a day or two before the event. Months prior, it will just be using historical averages for that time of day/month/year.
But as Poet says, when trying to compare how you’d have stacked up in a previous year, then you should select the specific weather conditions from that day for a realistic comparison.
Now that you’ve said you’re being predicted over 6hrs, what settings are you assuming compared to Hamburg? What I realised when analysing Bolton was that my Copenhagen power targets were meaningless over such a vastly different course, as producing that level of IF over a significantly longer period of time would blow TSS through the roof. That meant further reducing target IF, which meant an awfully slow bike time to come in with a reasonable TSS value.
Which is where this would massively fall down. 35 minutes more cycling but with the same TSS might equate well to a similar run. If you’ve just kept the same IF, meaning TSS is way up, then running as well off the bike would be far less likely.
That said, I doubt you’d be expecting to ride a brutal Etape du Tour the week before this one!
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I’ve used insureandgo since doing overseas tri’s. They just specify “triathlon” as an acceptable activity which would cover all distances, whereas some specifically state triathlon up to a certain distance (i.e. sprint/standard are included, but longer than that and they need extended cover).
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Thanks, that’s really useful.
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Just be sure to remember that the bike course in Lanza is pretty brutal. Not technical or steep but some of the climbs and the headwinds are relentless. I would say that experiencing the riding conditions in Lanza prior to the race would be invaluable. There is the Volcano Olympic distance race in April and that combined with a solid bike week really gives you a feel for the conditions on the island.
Good luck with it. I really wish I were doing it again in 2020 but not looking convenient for the family.
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I’ve also used insureandgo in the past like Stenard, but my bank account is Flex+ from Nationwide which includes travel insurance which includes triathlon as well, or it did when I last looked.
Jeff
Really? I also have flex+ and have for years, and they said no to me when I checked which is why I’ve always also had single trip insureandgo policies to cover me for the few races I do abroad.
Maybe we should start an insurance thread!
Edit - re-checked the policy doc. Each individual discipline is covered, but not triathlon specifically. Which is why I think I originally checked with them, and they wouldn’t guarantee it was (at least to me)
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