Bishops Castle Tandem Triathlon

This unusual pairs event involves one person swimming 1km, both cycling 35k on a tandem and the other person doing a 10k cross country run.

Although these days I don’t visit a pool from one year to the next, I was a swimmer in a previous life and knew I could do 1km no problem. I was slightly ambitious with my estimated swim time and ended up in the fast lane which was probably a good thing as there was certainly nobody getting in my way!  The pool was only 20m long so it was 50 lengths with a lot of other people in the water and felt like there were more waves than the sea!

I had expected people to be really slick with the changeover but most that I watched seemed to have little sense of urgency with the exception of one very professional looking team in aero helmets with their shoes already clipped to the pedals.

When I got out of the pool and tried to struggle into some cycling gear I realised it was almost impossible to get a wet body into lycra quickly, but I had no intention of cycling 30k and waiting 50 minutes for Darrell in the rain just wearing a swimming costume!

Still feeling a bit shaky we set off almost immediately up a fairly steep hill, it was a relief to fly down the other side and regain my composure.  Since this event attracts a huge range of abilities we were quickly overtaking other tandems, I finally experienced what it must feel like for those guys who come past me like I am going backwards on a time trial.  We must have overtaken 8 or so pairs and nobody came past us.

Getting to the start of the run involved climbing the first hill again to a wood, we decided not to resort to the granny ring and although we probably gained some time Darrell set off on the run looking like John Wayne after a long day on his horse, he reckoned as a result of pushing too hard sat down!!  I’m also not sure wet cycling shorts were the best running attire as he spent the rest of the day complaining about his chaffed groin!! He did however manage to overtake another 12 people.

Since there was still 5k to cycle back to the finish I had to wait in the rain for Darrell to do the run, they had kindly erected a large gazebo as a shelter and some of the people doing the event for fun seemed to have had a picnic transported to the changeover!  I was relieved to finally have time to put my socks on as wearing just cycling shoes had drawn blood, then I spent the next 45 minutes swatting horse flies!

Once Darrell returned we set off back down the hill to the finish, having now ridden a tandem at least 4 times we were gaining confidence on the hills and set off like lunatics, we picked off a couple more teams and sprinted for the line only to find that they had put a load of traffic cones about 10 yards past it, luckily Rob had fitted a back disc brake!

We were slightly amazed to find that there were a huge number of mixed veterans teams competing but I guess a lot of couples ride tandems.  In fact the team that came 2^nd overall were mixed vets and the second all male team were actually slower than us!  In the end we were 10^th out of about 130 teams and we were awarded a prize in one or other veteran category.  I reckon we could both have gone a bit faster on our swim/run part of the event but we would have to work hard to knock 10 minutes off to beat the first mixed team! I think one of the most deserving prize winners was the guy who did the whole event wearing a plastic “Shrek” head!

The triathlon was part of the Bishops Castle festival and it was possible to camp at the event with a free Ceilidh on Saturday evening and some tandem it’s a knockout events on Sunday morning followed by a carnival procession.  There was also a kid’s triathlon type event on Saturday using the pool after the adults had finished.

If you can find someone who can swim 1km and get your hands on a tandem then have a go at this event. We had a great weekend despite atrocious weather, on a sunny weekend it would be even better.

Finally a huge thanks to Rob Blackburn for letting us borrow his tandem, I wasn’t convinced I would find one big enough for me to be the stoker as they all seem to be made to have someone small on the back. I think it would have been hard to come out of the pool and take control of the tandem (not to mention the fact that me on the front would have scared the pants off Darrell!), but Rob supplied me with the world’s longest seat pin which worked a treat!