Bike Share Challenge Accepted: Athlete Powers Through 5150 Tremblant on a Bixi Bike!

Nicolas Malguy on the ride at 5150 Mont-Tremblant. Photos: Courtesy Nicolas Malguy.

Even if you’re not from Montreal, if you’ve been to any major city around the world, you know the bike. Those big, clunker, bike share cruisers that you can rent for quick jaunts around town. Ideal for a quick commute, not so great as a fast, aero option for your next triathlon. Which is why there were more than a few double takes as people walked by Nicolas Malguy’s rack for the 5150 Olympic-distance event in Mont-Tremblant last Saturday.

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Turns out that Malguy wasn’t only using the Bixi bike share bike for a bit of fun – the 27-year-old from the Paris suburb of Le Blanc Mesnil is on a two-year work term with a financial company in Montreal and didn’t bring his bike over from France. For the last six years its been a tradition for the young Frenchman to do at least one triathlon a year – it started as a challenge from a relative, and he’s done at least one triathlon every year since. When three other friends said they were going to do the race in Mont-Tremblant, he figured he would tag along and get his triathlon covered for 2025.

This was Malguy’s first Olympic-distance event, but that didn’t prompt him to do much training leading into the race.

“I didn’t have a lot of time to train, I’ve been doing lots of travelling,” he said in an interview yesterday. Using the Bixi bike was “a personal challenge, and also as a bit of a joke.”

Using the bike gained lots of attention, though.

“People were cheering for me,” he said. “People were tracking me on the Ironman application. I was so shocked.”

Malguy was also pleasantly surprised that he passed one of his friends out on the bike course, too. (And, yes, that guy got lots of ribbing on the way home.)

Malguy finished the race in 3:44:08 (37:48 swim, 1:50:45 bike and 1:02:31 run). He might not have been in contention for the podium, but considering how little he’d trained leading into the race (and the bike he was competing on), that was all pretty good. Malguy has been putting his energy into exploring North America – there wasn’t much time spent swimming, biking and running.

“To be truly honest, every week I was discovering Canada,” he said. “I play basketball every Saturday for two hours. I went to the swimming pool five times, I use a Bixi to go to the supermarket and the gym, and I went running six or seven times. I was just doing the race for fun.”

Malguy arrived in Montreal in the dead of winter, but rather than complain about the frigid temperatures and abundance of snow, he embraced the winter.

“I discovered the frozen season – it was crazy to see the snow storms,” he said. “I love snow – I was like a kid. I discovered ice skating – I was able to do so many things we can’t do in France.”

In addition to embracing the winter opportunities, Malguy has also spent lots of time travelling – since arriving in Montreal last December he’s already make trips to Quebec City, Toronto, New York and Boston. Later this summer he’ll journey out to Banff, Jasper and Calgary with a few friends, and he’d like to explore more of the continent before his work term is done in December, 2026.

And will there be any more triathlons before he heads back to France?

“Maybe the 70.3 next year,” he laughed. “But if I do that, I’ll have to do a lot more training.”

And what bike will he use?

“Maybe a Bixi,” he said.

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