The swim was as expected water was not great but ok navigation was fairly easy but a mass start in the water was just the worst possible start. A rolling start would have been more comfortable. Transition area should be better organized there was no dedicated space like a box to put the wetsuit so obviously the transition zone turned into a massive mess. Their was so many other event on the same day that I was setting up in the transition area while other were either pick up their stuff or competing… not great. Now the main and most annoying issue. The GPX files on the brief and website was the wrong one! It took me on a detour during the bike leg I ended up doing 94km and more elevation than the other competitors. I saw no sign and no one to put me on the right track when I took the wrong turn. Signs are in any case hard to see as they are small and not clear especially when you are averaging 41kph. At some point random cyclist actually pointed me in the right direction… that was extremely annoying. Fred station were good though. Finally it is simply unacceptable to have 1km of basically gravel road at the start and finish of a triathlon like this. My bike got damaged and gels lost. Their also random cobble stones on the all course but I don’t hold that again the organization. The run course was nice but very mixed terrain. However the main issue is the number of different event on the same course that lead to bottleneck at many different times and I was basically slaloming between all the different runners that were on the course. In conclusion I won’t come back, lost precious time on the bike leg and damaged my bike on the course.
Thank you for your feedback, we had to apply some relatively late changes to ensure the bike route was safe, the signage and Marshalls should all have been present and correct. We thank you for your participation this year. - Castle Race Series