If drafting is allowed, then the bikes should be required to be UCI legal. TT bars shouldn't be allowed at all. With drafting, it's a bike race.
If drafting is allowed, then the bikes should be required to be UCI legal. TT bars shouldn't be allowed at all. With drafting, it's a bike race.
Nice!!!!!! I was thinking more along the lines of a quick taser blast directly into the scrotum of the over-drafter. Your parachute idea is good, but what about the second offense? Do you have a multi-chute system?
An alternative idea (but comparatively low-fi) would be to have tri-legend Scott Tinsley approach the offender on a motor scooter and personally deliver a slap so hard across the face that the individual loses the other cyclist's wheel. Obviously this requires both a disclaimer (protecting Tinsley from prosecution) and Tinsley's willingness to participate (probably not an issue).
For women's races RuPaul would replace Tinsley.
Scott Tinley, that is.
I like the order switch to: swim, run, bike. This would mean everyone would have to do all the work alone until the bike. The gaps would be bigger at the start of the bike, rewarding those individual efforts more. The pack might come back together in the bike, but people would probably risk a bit more during the bike. Plus if someone is a really good biker, but relatively poor runner and swimmer, by the time he caught the pack, he might be too tired to win sprint.
Since the swim is so short compared to the other disciplines (even in IM), they should just do away with it and call it a duathlon.
I propose a 10K swim / 60 mile bike / Marathon run. All those take world class specialists approximately 2hrs to complete. Makes it a little fairer. It would never fly though, especially on the recreational level. Alternative would be 5K swim / 30 mile bike / half marathon - which would never be adopted either.
yikes, where to start with this thread...
The ITU requires the bikes be standard road bikes that are compliant with UCI rules. They cannot have flat base-bars and IF the athlete chooses to use aerobar extensions, they are clip-ons that cannot extend past the brake levers. So, no, there are no TT bikes in a draft-legal race. No discs either. I am not 100% on rim depth, either. While I haven't seen any 1080's out there, I know some guys roll 60mm deep rims. I don't know if that is by rule or by choice, but I certainly wouldn't want too deep of a rim up front while in that pack.
Did you really say "streamline the officiating and make it easier by preventing drafting"?! Do you know how friggin difficult it would be to officiate a race with 60-70 athletes of similar cycling ability on a 10k loop course? That would add to the officials' duties five fold.
The best swimmers are right at 16:00 - :30 for the 1500m swim, with everyone within 30 seconds of that. The bike leg is consistently 50 minutes or better (29-30mph), and the run is 30:00-31:30 on every course. Do me a favor, get yourself into a group ride and don't do any work, but sit in the middle of the group and ride 30mph for 50 minutes. Then tell me how fresh your legs are. There aren't pacemakers in the front group, they are a rotating paceline. The pacemakers/domestiques are for the chasers who weren't within 30 seconds of the front pack out of the water. In contrast, the best non-drafting bike splits are normally 53 minutes.
Did someone actually say that non-draft is more spectator friendly? On a draft legal course of Olympic length, you HAVE to have one loop. One loop means you head out on to the bike course and no one sees you again until 55 minutes later. With ITU racing, 4 loops on a 10k course means people see you constantly. And the run loops are either 2k or 2.5k, meaning they see you 4-5 times again. In Europe, ITU racing is the dominant format. Non-draft is fun and, in my opinion, a greater test of you as an athlete. But I do believe that ITU is better racing, and better spectating.
Hey wise guy, you officially killed this thread by interjecting actual facts into a discussion related to a sport that is the butt of an ongoing letsrun joke. Nice job, buddy.
funny wrote:
yikes, where to start with this thread...
The best swimmers are right at 16:00 - :30 for the 1500m swim, with everyone within 30 seconds of that. \
Just demonstrates what a joke the "swim" is. Most races are with tide/current. 15:30 for 1500m in a pool following a black line got 10th at last year's US Championships. A 16:00 1500m OWS knowing that you have two other disciplines to go is pretty damn fast for a non-specialist. ;)
funny wrote:
...Did someone actually say that non-draft is more spectator friendly? On a draft legal course of Olympic length, you HAVE to have one loop. One loop means you head out on to the bike course and no one sees you again until 55 minutes later. With ITU racing, 4 loops on a 10k course means people see you constantly. And the run loops are either 2k or 2.5k, meaning they see you 4-5 times again. In Europe, ITU racing is the dominant format. Non-draft is fun and, in my opinion, a greater test of you as an athlete. But I do believe that ITU is better racing, and better spectating.
Do you mean "non-draft legal course of Olympic length"? I would not agree that for non-draft legal racing you need a single loop. It depends on the size of the field, the course terrain, road conditions, etc.
Great points on how ITU racing can be more spectator friendly. My point above was that of the pro races I have seen (on tv and live, Olympics excepted) it seems that spectator turnout is sparse. If the goal of multi-loop draft-legal pro racing is to increase spectators and move triathlon towards major sport status I would say this major rules change has not been successful. On the downside, this rule change, to me, makes the race action more predictable than things were when the pros raced without drafting.
Your mileage may vary, I have no issue with anyone who thinks today's pro triathlons are more exciting to watch today.
For what it's worth, I have raced multi-loop courses such as the old NETS race in Hartford. They used to put 500+ racers on that course, the bike course was 3 or 4 laps, 6 or 8 miles each (been a long time so I'm not positive, but I know it was a multi-loop ~40k). This was non-draft legal amateur racing, and I don't recal any big problems with drafting. I don't buy that you can't set up an ITU pro bike course that's 5+ miles long and race without drafting. You certainly need good width on a course to allow the athletes lanes to pass on the bike, but with ITU races being closed to traffic this is no issue.
funny wrote:
Do me a favor, get yourself into a group ride and don't do any work, but sit in the middle of the group and ride 30mph for 50 minutes. Then tell me how fresh your legs are. There aren't pacemakers in the front group, they are a rotating paceline. The pacemakers/domestiques are for the chasers who weren't within 30 seconds of the front pack out of the water. In contrast, the best non-drafting bike splits are normally 53 minutes.
I wasn't suggesting that the riding was easy, but that it could cover for disparities within the group. Also, you suggest that the front group is a rotating paceline therefore has perfectly fair distribution of work. I'm sure that riders that are confident in their run will do less work. Do you have an argument as to why swim, run, bike would be less interesting than swim bike run?
Tri Man wrote:
funny wrote:yikes, where to start with this thread...
The best swimmers are right at 16:00 - :30 for the 1500m swim, with everyone within 30 seconds of that.
Just demonstrates what a joke the "swim" is. Most races are with tide/current. 15:30 for 1500m in a pool following a black line got 10th at last year's US Championships. A 16:00 1500m OWS knowing that you have two other disciplines to go is pretty damn fast for a non-specialist. ;)
How can you say most[b/] swims are with the tide/current? Almost all tri swims start and finish in nearly the same place. Maybe you go in one end of the beach and come out the other end, but it's rare that you do a straight 1500m down current swim. It's not unheard of, but 95% of all triathlon swims start and finish within 150 yards of each other.
I'd be much more suspect of course distances, or how much time you save by running into the water from the beach (for races that start that way), or the effect drafting has for swimmers right behind the leaders (can't do that in a pool race), or even the value of wetsuits vs even the best of those super duper swim suits.
For comparison sake, I worked the swim at last year's USAT Olympic Distance amateur championships. We set the 1500m course using marine GPS (no idea what it's actually called) which they told me had to be incredibly accurate to avoid underwater obstacles. After the buoys were in I was next to the officials who double checked our measurement, they were within 5m of 1500. It was an in-water start (i.e. no run in) and the finish was on the ramp so you had about 10m of running after you stopped swimming. The top swim time of the day was 18:48 with only 10 men under 20:00. For women the top time was 20:02 with only 8 under 21:00. These are amateur racers, but the winning times on the day were 1:52 and 2:06 which aren't far off what pros do. They were swimming into the sun coming towards the finish which probably slowed things down some. To get down to 16:00-16:30 woud be a lot more than just tide/current.
Sorry for the excessive bold font there, meant to bold one word, got something wrong.
As for the order of events, Swim Bike Run vs Swim Run Bike or any other configuration, it's a combination of the safest way to do things as well as the best way to manage a finish line. When you think about it, the leg where you're most likely to have a fatality is the swim, and the leg with the least liklihod is the run. Swimming last would be a far more dangerous thing than running or biking last; imagine being all hot/sweaty and getting in cold water...cramps, heart shock..not good.
As for finishing on the bike vs on the run, it's a heck of a lot easier to manage the finish line for runners than bikers. It's much less of an issue these days with chip timing, but still with a bike finish you need a lot more room to keep things safe.
I used to race and work a Duathlon series that was just Run Bike. Those finish lines were crazy! Sometimes we had 6-10 bikers coming towards the line at once, very hard to get a good finish order. Another race I used to do was Run Bike, but then they had a 1/4 run after the bike. That worked pretty well because you had to get off the bike (making finish line management easier), but that 1/4 mile run didn't change the order much.
funny wrote:
Do me a favor, get yourself into a group ride and don't do any work, but sit in the middle of the group and ride 30mph for 50 minutes. Then tell me how fresh your legs are. There aren't pacemakers in the front group, they are a rotating paceline. The pacemakers/domestiques are for the chasers who weren't within 30 seconds of the front pack out of the water. In contrast, the best non-drafting bike splits are normally 53 minutes.
Did someone actually say that non-draft is more spectator friendly? On a draft legal course of Olympic length, you HAVE to have one loop. One loop means you head out on to the bike course and no one sees you again until 55 minutes later. With ITU racing, 4 loops on a 10k course means people see you constantly. And the run loops are either 2k or 2.5k, meaning they see you 4-5 times again. In Europe, ITU racing is the dominant format. Non-draft is fun and, in my opinion, a greater test of you as an athlete. But I do believe that ITU is better racing, and better spectating.
29-30mph for 50 minutes is no big deal, I'm a mediocre cyclist and I've done that several times in fast group rides. It's less than 300 watts to sit in the pack at that speed!
I'm also not sure I believe that they always hit those speeds, I've seen pro races where they're closer to 26-28, truly a tea party. It's not like any attacks are going to be successful without wasting massive amounts of energy, so what's the point in taking a hard pull?
That's what makes the bike leg so spectator unfriendly, the pack sits together for an hour and nothing ever happens. They're sipping tea in the pack for an easy group ride, it's clear that nobody is doing any work and there's no incentive to make an attack happen. So they sit on their butts for an hour while everything comes back together. Watching attacks go off is demoralizing for spectators because we know those guys are doing 50% more work and are never going to get away. Races where drafting is illegal is MUCH more exciting, even if you only see them twice, because there's actually some uncertainty about how the finishing order will relate to the starting order and has some correlation to the fitness of the riders!
d2xccoach wrote:
Tri Man wrote:Just demonstrates what a joke the "swim" is. Most races are with tide/current. 15:30 for 1500m in a pool following a black line got 10th at last year's US Championships. A 16:00 1500m OWS knowing that you have two other disciplines to go is pretty damn fast for a non-specialist. ;)
I'd be much more suspect of course distances, or how much time you save by running into the water from the beach (for races that start that way), or the effect drafting has for swimmers right behind the leaders (can't do that in a pool race), or even the value of wetsuits vs even the best of those super duper swim suits.
No doubt those are some other factors that make the swim a almost a non-factor in most triathlons. If you are going to include three disciplines, at least make an attempt to equalize them. Alas, it is what it is and it won't change. So you just have to go with it.
BTW, the super duper suits (we called them silly or shiny suits) are now no longer allowed. Therefore, thanks to FINA's ineptness, we have two unofficial sets of WRs - textiles and shiny suits.
Also, you can't draft right behind a person in a pool, but you can certainly catch a draft from the swimmer in the next lane.
I know changing the order has been stated, but doing the bike leg first, then the swim, then run would change things drastically. You could have the tactics of a bike race, with attacks happening in order to get away from the faster swimmers and runners. It would make for a more interesting pro level race.
Funny -- that post deserves a Scott Tinley slap.
This! I gave up the sport and went back to running when ITU brought in draft legal racing. Just wasn't the same for me and pretty much eliminated the advantage of a good swim as you were a sitting duck for the chase pack on the bike. If the bike were first, pretty much everyone who knew what they were doing would finish withing a minute of each other (over 40k) and the swim would be hugely important again.
craptacular wrote:
I know changing the order has been stated, but doing the bike leg first, then the swim, then run would change things drastically. You could have the tactics of a bike race, with attacks happening in order to get away from the faster swimmers and runners. It would make for a more interesting pro level race.