#150: Doing a triathlon without a bike
And other lessons from the Chicago Triathlon by Supertri.
issue #150: Aug. 28, 2025
Welcome to the first Triathlonish newsletter coming out on Thursday. I’m not sure if it made my Monday-Wednesday less hectic or if it just spread out the hectic-ness at a different pace. (We covered all things UTMB on the Feist podcast.)
Though the hectic-ness in my life might also be related to 30-hour trip to Chicago over the weekend for the Supertri race and Chicago Triathlon. Which was also (!) my first “race” back postpartum. So I may or may not have fallen asleep on the couch the last two afternoons.
- Kelly
A few takeaways from the Chicago Triathlon “by Supertri”
1. The age-group race seemed mostly back
I have been notably skeptical that triathlon, as a whole, is experiencing any kind of a boom. (Probably just depends on what year you start counting the numbers from.) And while there have certainly been races I’ve been at in the last couple of years that were robust and fun and community-driven (Boston Tri, Women’s Kona, USAT Age-Group Nationals the year it was all combined in Milwaukee, I love Escape from Alcatraz), I’ve been unsure about the overall picture.
When I was coming up in tri and the sport really was booming, the Chicago Triathlon was one of the pinnacle races I did. I grew up in Chicago. It was, at one point, a massive event (8-10K athletes) and it used to have all the feel and hooplah of the big city short-course races that have mostly gone away.
It was, then, genuinely good to see it back to almost what it used to be. Across all the races over the weekend, there were ~6,700 finishers. (I think race orgs always announce bigger numbers because they count registrations, not finishers.) As I Uber’d from the airport, there was a bank billboard welcoming the “triathalon.” There were spectators literally the whole run course and actual race-size crowds post-finish. I haven’t seen this size of successful tri in a long time, outside of a championship or Ironman-brand event — and those tend to not be super welcoming or beginner-friendly, etc.
2. Heading to a triathlon with just a backpack is amazing
Because I was only coming in for 30 hours, and because I was keeping my postpartum expectations low, I had *zero* desire to fly with a bike. Travis, at Triathlete, did the Supersprint race on Saturday on a Divvy city bike — and told me it was amazing. (Divvy is Chicago’s city bikeshare program and there’s a special wave for people who want to just do the Supersprint on a Divvy.) But because I was flying in Saturday, I opted instead to do the regular Sprint race on Sunday and rent a bike out of transition.
[An aside: Doing the main races on Sunday — the Sprint and Olympic had about 5,800 of the 6,700 athletes — let me really get the full feel of the thing, too.]
And while it took me 20 minutes to figure this out, it turned out the partner rental bike tent was literally inside transition. You could just roll up and roll your bike straight to your rack.
It seems they’ve done a pretty good job re-building this race as welcoming. (I actually had to keep remembering, like, ‘on your left’ might make some of these new athletes veer left. 😬) Apparently, one-third of the athletes were first-timers; there was a first-timers program and wave and a tent by the start for them. These things are not unique — other local community-driven races do lots of stuff like this, too; Boston did when I was there last year — but these are not things you always see at big races. The Sprint was half women. The Kids Race on Saturday had 700 kids in it. Something there is working.
My only note: They should add back an elite-amateur wave, because there are also very fast age-groupers who probably should not be mixed in with those of us on rental bikes.
3. There is — at least — the possibility that Supertri’s plan will work. It very well may fail, but it has the best chance of the chances.
Look, there are a lot of people who have tried to make money in triathlon. And a lot of people who are trying to make money right now. Most of them have made a small fortune only by starting with a large fortune.
Supertri’s plan, on its surface, might look a lot like a lot of the other plans, but I think there are some key differences that matter.
Their mass participation play is largely building off existing races
They’re focusing on short-course and grassroots and bringing new people into the sport — which is the only place there’s a gap in the market; there is not a long-course gap
The pro races are then added to the AG events and integrated where it makes sense
The pro races are also structured in a way that the teams can fund themselves and franchise — I don’t totally understand this, but I understand it enough to know it brings money in, not out
The biggest challenge is going to be (100%) getting people to understand this style of pro racing — Supertri struggled to figure out where to put the Supertri event in Chicago, with the AG finish and transition about a mile apart they ended up stranded in the middle, and it’s simply a hard format to explain to Americans — but once people see it, they like it; it is fun to watch
I’m still skeptical triathlon is going through a boom or that any of these plans to revolutionize the sport will ultimately succeed. But this is the best approach I’ve heard and seen so far.
This big weekend of racing kicks off the big time of year
Alright! We’re officially entering championship season. Which means it’s one big week of racing after another — or, it’s a couple of big weeks with some breaks in between while all the athletes go into their training caves to prepare for the big weeks.
First up: This weekend is the T100 & WTCS in the French Riviera. And the final IM Pro Series race before the championship races. Where is Frejus in the French Riviera you ask? How do you pronounce Frejus? Good question.
T100 Frejus (also known as: The French Riviera)
It sounds like it’s actually quite an interesting French Riviera style course — which made me slightly nervous (because the age-group Ironman events there don’t close the roads), but I gather the roads will be closed. That feels very Hayden Wilde-esque, but who knows. Can he win both??
WATCH: Saturday at 7 a.m. local (women go seven minutes after the men)/1 a.m. ET/10 p.m. PT on Friday on T100 Youtube/HBO Max/Eurosport/TriathlonLive
WTCS French Riviera (interestingly, they’ve gone with the Riviera branding)
Taylor Spivey has pulled out of the T100 (but is still doing the WTCS), which means the only people doubling Saturday-Sunday now are Morgan Pearson and Hayden Wilde. (Morgan also did the Supertri in Chicago; as did Georgia TB, who is racing the T100 among her seven races in seven weekends.)
It’s a brand new WTCS course. And we do have a huge number of the top-ranked athletes, with the WTCS season getting slow to really get going. So, should be a good one.
WATCH: Sunday the men go at 8:45 a.m. ET/5:45 PT and the women at 10:15 a.m. ET/7:15 a.m. PT on TriathlonLive.tv
Zell-am See 70.3
And. Joanne doubted me on the Feisty Tri podcast coming out tomorrow, but Zell am-See did have a 70.3 World Champs back in 2015! It’s unclear if this course is different from that one or the same!
Either way, it’s the last of the IM Pro Series races before the championships (Men’s Nice, Women’s Kona, Marbella 70.3), so there’s a good number of big names (especially the female athletes) looking to line up points in a last hit before the big races.
Start lists: Men & women
WATCH: Sunday at 5 a.m. ET/2 a.m. PT on Outside Watch in N. America
From the races
Other than that, we had the U.S. winning Junior Pan-Am Games, the first pro spots for Kona 2026, and a sprint in Tallinn.
Results: Supertri, Tallinn 70.3, Junior PanAm Games, IM Switzerland, Challenge Samarkland
The -ish
Some of the things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.
It’s UTMB week! (If somehow your Instagram is not full of videos of people running around Chamonix.) We went deep on all of the UTMB acronyms on the Feist podcast and the first American ever won TDS yesterday. So things are off to a start. (Outside Run/Spotify/Instagram)
It’s also the Diamond League Final, which they’ve set up just two weeks before the Track & Field World Champs. In case you were wondering if championship season is limited to triathlon. (Citius Mag)
Michael Johnson was removed from BBC coverage for those world championships, because of the ongoing payments owed by his Grand Slam Track. Which is certainly a different approach than tri takes. (The Independent/Facebook)
The PTO CEO went on The Triathlon Hour and said ‘oh, the PTO almost went out of business last year, things were really financially bad, but now we’re good.’ And, I just want to point out that some of us have said this many times over the last year, that the PTO’s financials did not make sense and they were on the brink of going out of business—and we were told explicitly this wasn’t true and we were being haters. But math can’t be a hater, it doesn’t have feelings. And math can’t go on a friendly podcast now and say ‘I was lying before about how everything was great, but now I’m not lying, things really are great.’ 😑 (Apple Podcasts)
A new Spain location was announced for the T100 race. (World Triathlon)
A whole bunch of Ironman news: A 70.3 is returning to Sri Lanka. Vichy is bringing back the full-distance and Vittoria is adding a 70.3 to its full race date. Happy Valley 70.3 is also going to host the N. American champs next year (and my sense is the area’s visitor bureau has been going hard). (Ironman/WTAJ)
The rebranded Malibu Triathlon — now Zuma Beach Triathlon — is in two weeks. Gonna finally happen!
The course maps for 70.3 Worlds have been released. And it has been pointed out to me that there is 5,800ft of elevation gain on the bike course. Which is a lot. (Ironman)
Talbot is releasing 12 series of deep dive doc-style videos for The Feed over the next 12 weeks, but it wouldn’t be Talbot if we didn’t start with Lionel. (Youtube)
It was also gravel tri nationals this past weekend and Gravel Worlds (which is not the same as the UCI Gravel World Championships, in case you were confused). (Slowtwitch)
And the mountain bike world championships are starting, which are this super interesting two-week event where they’re bringing together eight disciplines. And there’s basically no information anywhere about it. (Valais 2025)
Nike has renamed its trail team the All Conditions Racing Department and is going to make all its airflow hole apparel available to all. Also a trail supershoe. (iRunFar/Believe in the Run)
Outdoor recreation is up, according to a report from the outdoor industry. (Outside)
This whole ‘does running cause colon cancer’ thing really took on a life of its own. We spent Tuesday tracking down the different studies and reports. (New York Times/Outside/Instagram)
One last thing
He makes a whole bike out of chocolate.
Thanks for all your background work.
Always enjoy reading your articles.🙂