I’m looking at St. Polten for a first 70.3 (funnily enough, it didn’t happen this year for me…).
It ticks a lot of boxes - great course reviews, I like Austria, and there are lots of wineries around to make coming and watching people run around in lycra worth it for my wife.
I’m pondering logistics though - given the wineries (seriously, this is a factor) I’m tempted to stay in Wachau and do bike tours from there post race - but obviously would have to drive to St. Polten in the morning of the race, and not sure how that goes with parking and the like.
If that’s the case I’m half-hoping that Henley isn’t on and I can travel to Sweden for Challenge Vansbro. That checks almost all the boxes - family visit, 30 min drive from parents-in-law’s house, RD went to school with my wife…
Yep I did it back in 2010 when it was ironman. Swim awesome, bike is superb. Run course has changed somewhat. I stayed in the Town centre. Used Nirvana which took away any faff but to be fair its logistically easy. @Jorgan stayed out a bit. He will update on that. To be fair didnt have much time to do anything apart from a Sunday afternoon/evening drink in town with all the TTers that went (it was a big TriTalk event that year) .
Hi. Yes, logistics are quite easy once there; certainly if you have a car. I drove over from Bavaria the 3 years I did it, and stayed at Hotel Seelend outside town (Waitzendorf); even that was only about 15 mins by car. Loads of free parking there, and easy to get out on the bike for a shakedown from the hotel. Lots of parking at race too, as Matt says. They have changed the transition locations and run course slightly from 10 years ago, but essentially the event remains the same. Despite the hills, there are very fast flat stretches, and the roads are smooth. Biking was my weakest discipline, and I still averaged over 34kph iirc (best split was 2:33 I think). I didn’t recce the course, despite having a car, but it’s worth making sure your descending skills are honed! The descent after the first climb is fast and winding, and I have seen ambulances attending crashes! Make sure your brakes are sorted.
If you plan to drive there from Wachau, I would just consider what road closures will be in place on the morning, as this was a closed course in our day, assume so for Challenge too. I guess you could use the B33 & B1; bit of a drive though.
Awesome, thanks all.
If it’s going to be an hour or so drive, we might just stay in St. Polten and de-camp to Wachau later.
There’s accom in town centre of St. Polten now, time to book it in.
And remember how to rebuild the bike after travel. It’s been a while. Descending skills might be a problem too, I live in Cambridge, so there aren’t any hills. The only one which might get you any speed has cars entering and exiting at the bottom, so I’m not going to be tucking down that one.
I’ve been trying to convince him, but he’s doing Kraichgau the next week.
I was thinking of it, but it’s sold out, and if travel bans are over, I may end up having to go from Vienna to America from St. Polten.
And ‘friendly’? What’s that about? During the race it would be non-stop abuse if we crossed each other’s path. The sort of stuff you could only say jokingly to a mate because if you said it to anyone else you’d get punched in the mouth.
And that any TA who didn’t know the situation would probably DQ us for some sort of abuse and interference!
John would insist that you kept your window seat, and if you wanted a window seat and he had it, he’d probably twist your arm off to make sure that you took the window seat!
Bloody lovely bloke, but I’m pretty certain I’d not want to have met him back in the day. Having said that, the bloke who bought my uncle’s truck and tipper run back in Oz was one of the serjeants-at-arms for the Hell’s Angels - nice bloke, so long as you’re not in his world.
I did this in 2011 or 2012 when it was a IM event and it was awesome. A mate (Grindal) flew in from Copenhagen and I flew from LGW to Vienna with another mate. We used a Pension (Austrian B&B) and rented a van to do the course recce. Seriously beautiful course.
However, there is NOTHING going on in St Polten. There are few restaurants for post-race meals and those that were open were attached to hotels and you had to be a guest. Look for AirBnb type arrangements, but the area is beautiful and well-worth another couple of days.
You could then cruise back through Rapperswil and abuse me the following Sunday!
