I’ll track you all then.
‘clever’, don’t be fooled 
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Entries now open
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You in, then?
not yet, working out logistics as the kids have camps around that weekend as well…
It doesn’t look like the easiest race logistics wise, even getting from Bilboa to V-G doesn’t look that easy unless you have a hire bike.
Barcelona is a doddle in comparison.
Jeff
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I’m seriously considering this. Timing wise, if I were to go long, based on what isn’t already sold out, it’s either this or Bolton.
I agree the split transition looks a bit of a pain (say, compared to Copenhagen), and the athlete guide isn’t entirely clear whether all these shuttles they put on also allow for the bike to be transported via them on the Saturday, or do you just ride (probably easiest)? But I’m unclear what you think is complicated about getting from Bilboa. Wouldn’t you just hire a car (or is that not an option)? That’s all I did for Mallorca, and was far easier than trying to faff around with public transport.
Can’t quite make sense of the T2.1 and T2.2 bits. Is it just bike catchers, which is kind of what it looks like, and so T2.1 is effectively meaningless and T2.2 is all you’d really care about?
I find that kind of thing strange. We all know exactly how far an IM bike course is. They’d clearly already passed that point once if they’d reached 132k, so why on earth would you listen to a marshal telling you to head to transition?!
Yeah I can’t find the video now to see if there were any further comments. Nuts really you should know how far you’ve ridden. 
Maybe they were close to the cutoff who knows?!
I’m looking at possibly doing this. I did Barca last year and it appears to be much less appealing place to go for families.
Anyway I am looking at rental cars that would fit a bike box in the back, does anyone have any ideas what I could use?
Cheers,
G.
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Welcome Big G👍
I got a bike box and two cabin sized bags in the back of my dad’s Mini Countryman with 3 people (dad driving) . Will it be just you or the whole family? If you can get the rear seats down is the main thing.
Welcome and wheezy is bang on. If you can drop the backs seats a lot of cars will have the space but if there’s more than two of you you need a bigger car or split rear seats.
So, this one or the new Ironman Switzerland course?
Vitoria looked great, until I just checked accommodation costs. I was expecting Spain to be pretty reasonable, but it seems super pricey. I can’t see anything under £750 for 4 nights. Maybe I’m actually looking too far in advance? I know some airlines didnt have return flights showing as available yet when I looked yesterday.
Thun would also be interesting, being new. But again, I imagine super pricey just because it’s Switzerland
Have you looked at Airbnb Stenard? Might have a little look later. We’ve spent a small fortune this weekend in Zurich.
I did actually, just after I posted my last message. Seems you can get two bed flats for about the same £750 mark, so that could work better. As mentioned, it is also rather early.
Cost is definitely a factor. It’s already at tier 3 and with car hire to factor in, costs will mount. But Spanish rental cars are generally pretty cheap from my experience, so I’m hoping that’s similar here.
Bolton would definitely win on cost effectiveness, and it would also completely alleviate the inevitable PB hunting that would occur on another fast Euro course. At Vitoria, I’d want to try and go a lot faster than Copenhagen otherwise I’d wonder what was the point, whereas at Bolton it’d all be about the challenge of completing the course. It’s just obviously not as “exciting” in terms of location and / or achievement!
Cheers Stenard. 
I need to get this bad taste out my mouth of my dnf at the weekend. That weekend works perfectly but I just dont want to go to Bolton.
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Hear this a lot from many people. Interested to find people’s views.
Agree Bolton run is ugly suburban especially on the out and back half of the lap, but the support on race day made it an enjoyable run for me. I don’t spend any time looking round a race destination before or after, so guess whilst I’d never want to go on holiday the features of a race are more important than where it is to me.
Some caveats:
amount of money spent on European travel make it inevitable you want more and that’s a good thing but acknowledge comparing a holiday with just a race.
Race course still has to inspire with good locations. So whilst Bolton is seen as unappealing, the bike course could be wonderful countryside. Yes more suburban this year, but people generally over the years rule out Bolton itself rather than the bike course.
Is part of it lack of status? IMUK has a much better ring to it!
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I’d say for me it’s just I don’t fancy going to Bolton for IMUK. The bike course isn’t the problem new or old as the roads and terrain are similar to around this side (best side) of the Pennines. Not really anything rational about it. I appreciate many could say the same for the Outlaw but I like Nottingham as a city, just because I’ve had lots of good times there.
With Vitoria-Gasteiz I fancy it because it looked a good event watching it on fb and I fancy going to the Spanish Basque Country. My family originates from the Basque country before going to South America several generations ago. I fancy Nice because it is one of the big historic traithlons IMHO, albeit previously not as an IM race. Nothing rational about any of it other than I can do IM France easily logistically for training and the event itself.
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Car hire would be an option but probably quite pricey for 3-4 days that you’d probably need it for, not sure if there’s any buses, taxi by myself would also be expensive.
It would work out really expensive for me, not least the way the pound is losing to the euro, I got almost 1:1 yesterday 
My flight options are also more limited, I either go to Manchester assuming there’s a direct flight or locally via Amsterdam, that’s an option but everything adds up.
Bolton, Wales and even Cork are all driveable but I’m not sure I’d want to do one for the sake of it, they are not fast time courses as you’ve said and I’m not sure I can get my head round the training as it stands, but that might change after Sunday. I’d need to have a good day and decent roll-down for Kona as well and I’m not totally sure I really want to go, although it would be hard to refuse if it did roll.
Jeff
So having had to wait a little bit before being in a position to commit, this has really got expensive. Entry is now on tier 4, all the airbnbs have gone, and the only thing left are official race hotels which only seem to offer accommodation from the Friday, when I’d want to head out Thursday for ease. Accommodation is looking at 200ish/night for two sharing. Unless you want to be based a 40+ minutes drive out of the town, which isn’t really an option.
I guess being a new event has its draw backs in that it’s popular early on. I’m amazed Spain is going to be significantly more expensive than two races in Denmark however!
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