Racing for team GB at World Triathlon Hungary 🇭🇺

Pro long distance triathlete Malachi Cashmore and Rhys Jones race the world triathlon para cup Tata in Hungary. Interviews with Paralympic gold medalists, tandem bike problems, friendly rivalries and more.

Any feedback welcome, not the most in race footage but this is what I got. Hope you enjoy!

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Hey, welcome back to my YouTube channel. So, in this video, we’re going to do something a little bit different. We are going to drive around topless in a van and beep our horn at teenage girls. So, hope you enjoy. No, I’m just joking. Um, but we are doing something a little bit different. We’re dropping it down from Pro 70.3 racing to guiding um at well in Hungary at the World Triathlon Power Cup. Um it’s in Tata which is about an hour’s drive from Budapest and we’re guiding for Reese Jones who’s a visually impaired par triathlete. He’s a super cool guy as well. We’ll get an interview with him later. Um, but yeah, this video is going to like cover the leadup to the race, like how we go about working as a team, doing a triathlon, swimming tied together, biking tied together, well, not tied together, on a tandem, but running, and then all the transitions, and then hopefully we’ll get a couple of interviews with some other athletes as well. Also, I’m hoping to swap a shirt with my friend Ernie, who’s from Lithuania, um because I’ve been looking to swap one of my GB Triathlon shirts with someone else from a country where he’d like really struggle to get a shirt from. And he says that he’s bringing me a Lithuanian Triathlon Federation shirt to swap for one of my GB ones. So, I’ll keep you updated on that. We’re flying from Manchester to Budapest this evening and we’ll see you probably in Hungary. 2 hours later. Okay, so we made it to Hungary. The flight was delayed a little bit, so we got here at about 2:00 in the morning. Yeah, like half 2, which is in the morning, and that was nice. And there’s only a double bed, so me and Reed. We snuggled in. Yeah, we snuggled in to keep warm. I’m just joking. I was on the uh on the sofa bed, which is actually more comfy than my university bed. Um, but I thought as we’re on the way to swim, I’d introduce you. Well, you probably know who Reys is anyway from Instagram, if you really care about my Instagram, but I thought I would officially introduce him on YouTube. So, this is Ree. Um, he used to be in Coldplay, which is really, really cool. So, the song Paradise is actually written by Ree, and it was originally paratry, wasn’t it? They’re on the parrot train. Well, I thought it’d be quite um a funny story for Reese to tell our first like um race and training ride. So, over to Reese. So, we went out on our first ride and Luca big Malachi up saying, “Oh, he’s so strong on the bike. He’s so technically proficient. He can corner like no one else.” And on our first corner, we ended up in a hedge. Well, I I I thought it was quite funny, but you were absolutely mortified. It’s quite a graceful craft. Yeah. And I think Eve was with us. Yeah. She just She thought this was great. So, yeah. I can’t Oh, I know. I can’t really see where we’re at. Is that a lake? Yeah. Yeah. We just swam 2 kilometers around this lake. There was no one else swimming in there and we didn’t know if it was safe, but we did it. And the taxi driver yesterday said it. You’re right. Watch the curb. The taxi driver yesterday said it would be 24°, but we didn’t believe him. But my internal calibration body temperature sensor says it was 23.8. So, he wasn’t far off. And it was actually very, very pleasant. Uh, so me and Reese, we swam tie together out of the hip. And it was really really great until we started sprinting and then we just crashed into each other about five times. I thought I just went I veered to the left. Yeah, just the talk the talk pulled him off off center. Um but it’s good practice because apparently there there’s 15 people on the start line plus guides. That’s 30. So it’s going to be absolute chaos. So it’s quite good practice. This is the bike that me and Ree race on. It’s a scack and they specialized in tandemss. They’re all like oneoff custom builds. So Reys picked out all the measurements for this and all the parts and everything, but me and Reese have done a couple of changes. Um, but I thought I’d go through all the things that are specific to tandemss, which you might not really think about um on a normal bike. So this is my end. I’ve got shifters up the top here for when I’m in the TT bars. I’ve got my bottle on for if I get thirsty during the half an hour that are on the bike. Although in the last race we did, it was like 22 minutes. So I don’t usually put any water in the bottle. It’s just there for a purposes. Um and then moving backwards a bit, we’ve got Reese’s position is an old drop handlebar which we chop the ends off. So you can imagine like it used to come round like that. Um but obviously he he never used the drops anyway so we just chop them off. Um, and then he’s got armrest at the top here. So when I’m in TT position, he holds on like this and tucks in nice and arrow behind me. Um, and then we’ve got two chains. So on the opposite side, we’ve got a chain that connects my cranks to Reese’s cranks. So you can see that when I pedal, he has to pedal as well. So it’s kind of like riding a track bike if you’ve ever ridden a track bike. Um, and then this chain ring, it’s a Garber. It’s a 56 to bent the old one because if I’m doing 800 900 W and Reese is doing 800 900 W that’s quite a lot of watts. So the old one bent. So this one is like a triple thickness custom one. Um it’s got no cutout on the back which I think is probably a bit more arrow too. Um but it’s definitely not going to bend cuz it weighs probably like 400 g. It’s pretty solid. Um, and then moving back again, we’ve got Stram Red with ceramic speed jockey wheels. He knows how to uh how to get all the efficiency out of his bike. A CES disc. I don’t actually know if this disc is meant to be used on a tandem, but we haven’t had any problems so far. And then the last thing is the rotors. So, the brake rotors on a normal road bike are usually like 140, 160 on the front and then a 140 on the back, but these are both 200 mil. So, similar to what you’d get on like a downhill mountain bike, just so we’ve got a bit more power cuz there’s twice the weight, um twice the power, and twice the fun. So, yeah. Um hope that was interesting, I guess. Okay, I’m here with Hannah Moore’s leg, bronze medalist at the Parolympics. Um, and Hannah Moore’s leg is also wearing Hannah Moore’s dog on her custom socks. Um, are you looking forward to tomorrow Hannah Moore’s leg? Woof. Okay, question to Hannah Moore’s Legs owner. You uh you’re in Hungary and you’re in the really nice hotel. What’s your favorite thing about Hungary so far? I think the lake. The lake is very pretty and uh the nice weather apart from when it rained. It was a storm earlier. So, apart from that, it’s great. The lake and the weather. So, basically just the lake. Yeah. Oh, and can you talk me through your socks as well? My socks have Rex Ponchi and uh Rex is my dog. He’s currently at home without me. But um yeah, he’s the best. I love him. They are quite nice socks. I can confirm. Lucky race socks. I’ve successfully swapped this shirt. It’s a Lithuanian running vest. And look how cool it is. It does say Lithuania, but it’s in Lithuanian, so it looks a bit weird. It’s not a spell check. And we went and checked in at the race briefing. And we’ve got some stickers for the bike. And they gave us this cool bag. I’m here with team Serbia. They’re racing us tomorrow. Um, I thought I’d ask them some really serious questions. So, last time we saw Laser was in Swansea. Past the party. We will be start uh after in the briefing room. Yes. Pasta party. Yes. We saw you last time in Swansea. No, in Vishi. Oh, sorry. The time before that we saw you in Swansea. Okay. What is your favorite thing about Wales? Uh you actually you because I feel you you are really my uh good friends and I feel you like a brothers and my feeling is on that way. Oh thank you. Yeah, because we have many many races in race can be good or bad. But uh friends and this energy what I feel when I see you and when I stay in contact with you that is something what is for all life. Thank you. Thank youa is what they call me means um bomb hole in Greek. In Greek. Yeah. And I’ve noticed you’ve got some great tattoos. Yeah. Your probably better than mine. Yours. This guy. Is that actually you? Yeah, that’s actually me. And actually the two artist wanted to do my photo. So I’m doing it. Tomorrow if we beat you, you have to get a tattoo of me on the other arm. We’ll be up for that. I’ll pay for it. I don’t know if my wife will allow a excuses. Well, my girlfriend allowed this. Okay, good luck. Good luck. And I hope I hope you we will be together on the podium. And now we’re just going off for pizza with the British Triathlon team um to get all carbed up for the race tomorrow. Okay. Is it going? This is a microphone as well because I’m proper professional now. This is where I I can see. Wait, let’s go this. Yeah, let’s go this way cuz then it’s got trees behind us. This feels really professional. It’s not going to be professional for long. We are We just had a British try meal and it was really good. And I had two pizzas and these guys had pasta. So, I’m already one step behind cuz I’m feeling proper stuff now. This is Dave and this is Luke. And they got gold medals in Paris. And you’re both is it MBEs? Yeah, we are. Yeah. Recognized by the king now, which is so cool. I’m very jealous. Um, but I’ve got two questions, one for each of you. Yeah. So Dave, if you could be guided by any celebrity, who would it be? Any celebrity? I don’t know, man. Uh, celebrity. I go Will Ferrell cuz I think it’ be a funny race. That would be very funny. The first you’re lad night and every film he’s ever done. It’s a great great SP and he’s quite big as well, so he provides quite a good track. Yeah, true. If you could be guiding any prot triathlete, but they’re blindfolded, who would you want to guide? Man or woman? I think you’d be a good laugh to be honest, mate. I think it would be quite I think we should try that one day where we’ve got you on the back and then we blindfold you. I would hate that for me though. It would be good fun for you. And I guess I’d be a bit more trustworthy of you cuz you’ve been guiding Dave. So I know I was in good hands. Great answers. Thank you very much and good luck tomorrow. Yeah, you too. Good morning, Ree. Morning, Malai. It’s now4 6 on this fine morning. Welcome back to BBC News. Today on the show, we’re going to do a bit on the weather, a bit on our race tactics, and we’re going to talk about my shoes, too. So, over to Ree for the race tactics. Okay. Thanks, Malachi. Race goals. So we always like to split our goals into two main categories. Uh first of all is like the predictable stuff. Our goals for this race are to be all of our splits from last year. We are going to focus on the swim and the run particularly and then we also like to have aggressive tactics or aggressive goals. This race we’re going to focus on beating as many Spanish people as possible. They pushed in front of us in the uh check-in queue. We were happily stood there like British people do and then they just rocked up and Spanished their way in in front of us. So, we’re gonna get our own back. I came down to the check-in with just my running shoes on my feet and my bike shoes in my bag. And then I realized that I had to leave my run shoes in transition and my bike shoes on the bike. So, I’ve been walking around barefoot and I’ve been getting some funny looks, but they’re just jealous. We’re just sitting on the swim start now in front of a lovely lake ready to start and we’ll see you after we’re done. See you later, guys. [Music] Right, there we go. We finished. We’re just out on a cool down jog now, but that was a actually pretty insane race. There was 13 on the start list and we finished fifth, but we beat all of the Spanish. We We beat them all. all three of them who pushed in front of us in the queue yesterday and it was a proper close race. So, we came on the swim, it was chaos. There was people everywhere, had a couple of fights, but I think we came out of the swim eighth out of 13. Um, and then through transition we got up to seventh. Um, and then we’re out on the bike and then in front of us there was two Spanish, Polish, Italy like right in front and then Serbia GB a bit up the road. We stayed in seventh for the first lap and then coming down one of the dead turns there was four people all backed up like on 12 m gaps and we went they break to the front and we flew up the inside did a classic chopper move and cut them all up and the Spanish guys at the front they were like oi o and I was like just laughing at them and everyone stood on the dead was like ooh that was really good. So we moved up to fourth there and then we held on on the bike for fourth and then came into transition. The Italians came round us so we were in fifth and then Reese ran pretty strong. Probably one of our best runs actually. Um and we ran like I think it was just under 19 minutes on a pretty hilly course. Um and we held off all the Spanish which is really good. But the whole time I was like, “Do not let them beat you. I’m going to be so mad if you do.” Um, but yeah, Reese held on and I think we finished fifth. So, we have officially put them in their place. So, we just finished the World Cup and this is Mike and he little bit of a nightmare start on the ride down to the raceourse. Tried to change my gears. No response. And then I looked down and the wire disconnected from the DRT. Couldn’t put it back in. It snaps clean off. Luckily, I was in a good gear, so it’s fine going uphill in the race. Going downhill was a little bit wacky racers spinning at 150 RPM. Saw you coming down the hill when you were properly spinning. It was like looking at, you know, in like Scooby-Doo when they just start running and their legs go around really fast, but like going up the hill, it looked like an actually okay gear. It was perfect for going up there. So, it worked out all right. Yeah. You rode in the same gear and still came third. You must have been pretty happy with that. Yeah, I was pretty pretty happy with that. So, this lake, it all used to be marsh land. So, it was like all grassy and bobbly and like just soaked in water, but this guy came who I took a photo of yesterday, the statue over there, and he came and he dug it all out and then so built a wall all around it. And apparently, so it’s two meters deep at the edges, but then in the middle it’s like eight or nine meters. And so in the summer they keep it at this level so that you can swim in it and everything. And then in the winter they block it off with locks and they bring it down to like a meter all the way. And then when it freezes, they all ice skate on it, which is pretty cool. But yeah, bit of history in the video for you there. And the private thing, uh, everyone follow Machai Cashmore on YouTube. Like and subscribe. Yes, like and subscribe.