Last month IRONMAN purchased the stationary training platform FulGaz. This Australian-based training tool is roughly analogous to Rouvy, the Czech platform that IRONMAN used to host the bike leg of its virtual IRONMAN events during the pandemic. By “roughly analogous” what I mean is that neither platform is a gaming-style graphical construct, like Zwift, rather they rely on digital imaging overlaid onto real videos.
A rider on either platform can preview or relive an actual race route experience, either solo or in a virtual group setting. It is doubtful that IRONMAN would have ever thought of this – or at least not as quickly – were it not for the COVID pandemic. Having been forced into it, IRONMAN has seen the value of a virtual experience as an adjunct to in-person racing. The value of FulGaz is that helps “IRONMAN athletes get ready for their races,” according to Andrew Messick, CEO of IRONMAN. “We have the skills and abilities and unique assets to help our athletes be ready.”
Whenever I contemplate this my mind conjures the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in Nice, France, in 2019. The racing took place over 2 days, 3000 athletes per day, on a tricky mountain course that did produce bike course casualties (in the form of road rashes, at least). Perhaps a preview of the course would have helped negotiate blind and decreasing radius in the Maritime Alps, as well as get the athletes ready for challenging topography. I asked about this specifically.
“Yes. That’s exactly right,” said Messick. “Are we recording an IRONMAN course? That’s right. That’s a key content area to anyone training for our races. To have access to our courses. We’ve been going through mockups of how that will look. Where the turns are, the aid stations. That’s what we’ll be addressing.”
I asked if IRONMAN looked at Rouvy, as a possible acquisition, before pulling the Trigger on FulGaz.
“We have really liked and appreciated our partnership with Rouvy. It was super instrumental and important to us in the launching of our platform. With FulGaz, we really like them; we like Mike Clucas and his team; he comes at this from the perspective of a coach. He has coaching DNA. As we look to create a platform and a tool for our athletes, we like Mike’s philosophy and his design of the platform.”
IRONMAN said it does not want to compete with Zwift. “We envision a very different market. There’s a gap in the market in the preparation for our races. If you want to go to Kona, set a PR, approach your first IRONMAN, we’ll have a program to help you master the Lake Placid bike course.”
Fulgaz is going to continue as a cycling product and IRONMAN is going to invest resources into that platform, as a cycling-based platform. But the point of the deal is for FulGaz to springboard IRONMAN to a new platform. FulGaz will remain cycling-only and if IRONMAN courses are on it, that’s a temporary measure. A new platform, with new branding, will be developed for multisport (and perhaps run-only), and all IRONMAN-specific routes – cycling certainly and run as well if that develops – will be on that multisport-specific platform.
“If you talk to the underlying technology, we’ll have a running component. That will be the goal, to get run, bike and perhaps even swim into the platform.” But that will not be a FulGaz-branded platform.
IRONMAN's bike course can remain on Rouvy after the current contract with Rouvy expires, but may not, according to IRONMAN, carry the event producer's name in the titling of those courses.
