I've never triathlonned and no desire to, cycling is just fine, thank you.
But everything you do has risks, some higher some lower.
Sometime back, I went with a friend to a couple of her half-ironmans. I was very impressed by the number of volunteers around and the help that was given to people that needed it. It looked to me like everything that could reasonably be done to make it safer was being done.
On the cycling end of it, as best I could tell, cycling in general is about as dangerous PER HOUR as driving. Well, you'll hear of people getting killed cycling and people say "And that's why you shouldn't cycle!" But I've had friends killed while driving and never heard anyone say "Guess I'll stop driving. It's just too dangerous!"
My mom died in 1980 at the age of 50 from complications of diabetes, mainly from being overweight. If she had gotten interested in triathlons, she'd probably be alive today.
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"be careful this rando stuff is addictive and dan's the 'pusher'."