Team triathlon

[DaveQB]

Having had 7 knee surgeries and the buoyancy of a stone and there not being much in the way of time trial racing in Sydney, I'd love to get in on team triathlons. Any tips how to get involved? I asked the local tri club but they rarely have teams.
Or I could learn to swim if there was swim, bike, swim triathlons. Do they exist?
Thanks.

[Derny Driver]

The trouble you have is that these team events usually consist of 3 people who know each other pretty well. The idea of having a random stranger as one of your team is not appealing, unless you can pull out some credentials as being some sort of weapon on a bike.
The usual modus operandi is to find someone from a swimming club who is amazingly fast, then organise a gun bike rider from the ranks of the local cycling club, and then pick some whippet of a kid to do the run for you. The idea of 3 random people just teaming up for the fun of it ..well it doesnt often happen unless the 3 are all mates and just having a nice social day together.
The team events are incredibly competitive ...so its difficult unless you organise yourself a swimmer and a runner and enter your own team - which is probably the way forward.

Not being able to run ...you are probably barking up the wrong tree snooping around triathlons. If you reinvented yourself as a swimmer there are lots of good ocean swim races and events to do. Swimming is excellent non weight bearing exercise. I could never really swim at all when I decided to do some triathlons, I took a few lessons and then got stuck into training and actually turned out to be a decent swimmer. I was always out of the water in the front group. You might think you cant swim but you may surprise yourself.
Anyway, not sure Ive been of any help but good luck and I hope something falls into place for you.

[DaveQB]

Thanks for the info Derny Driver
I didn't realise team triathlons were like that. Good to know.

Since I posted this I finally found the term for swim, bike....aquabike. Sounds more like a vehicle than an event. There seems to be a few meets in Sydney and NSW that have Aquabike events. So maybe I should get a swim coach and give this a go.

[mikgit]

i've noticed, since my GF has been getting into triathons, is that ther'll be calls for a runner for a team all over the place, but not swimmers or riders. Seems that most people are fit and can swim and the fitness allows people to "do" the bike, but not the run.