I might be venturing into dangerous territory here...

buckmulligan
buckmulligan Posts: 1,031
edited July 2013 in The cake stop
Triathlon!

Just watching some highlights of the Windsor triathlon on Channel 4, nice to see some minority sport getting some coverage! I've been thinking about doing one for a while now.

But my question is about the bike leg. I thought you weren't allowed to draft people on the ride, but in the elite mens both the leading group of 5 and the chasing group of 10 or so had a pretty good peloton going.

Comments

  • turnerjohn
    turnerjohn Posts: 1,069
    elites you are allowed to draft....mass start, normal ones tho which are started individually your not allowed to....spose its safer that way
  • gavbarron
    gavbarron Posts: 824
    Only the elites can draft and pretty much only in Olympic distance races. It was a bit of a compromise when it became and Olympic sport, essentially the IOC thought that pack racing would be more spectator friendly and so the ITU made it draft legal for the Elite races. At Ironman distance even the Elites can't draft.

    For everyone else though there is no drafting, essentially it's TT rules
  • ozzzyosborn206
    ozzzyosborn206 Posts: 1,340
    thought it was due to if you had say 30-50+ riders and they all had to keep a certain distance between each other it would be impossible to overtake or rule
    gavbarron wrote:
    Only the elites can draft and pretty much only in Olympic distance races. It was a bit of a compromise when it became and Olympic sport, essentially the IOC thought that pack racing would be more spectator friendly and so the ITU made it draft legal for the Elite races. At Ironman distance even the Elites can't draft.

    For everyone else though there is no drafting, essentially it's TT rules
  • gavbarron
    gavbarron Posts: 824
    In that case the race ref has to use a bit of common sense. I did a race a few weeks ago where it got quite congested in places and mini peletons formed until the road allowed them to spread out again.

    I did one a few years back that fully followed TT rules and so each rider had to set off a minute apart, made the first transition a farce and it had be neutralised in the end!
  • bernithebiker
    bernithebiker Posts: 4,148
    I did quite a few, but I always found the swim a complete nightmare (open sea). Even though I spluttered out of the water fairly well placed, it's quite an unpleasant experience, especially if it's a bit rough (which it nearly always was). Never understood why they have to set off all 400 people at the same time, asking for trouble.....

    The natural rush of getting out of the water and onto the bike and thinking 'thank f*&k that's over' almost made up for it......
  • bernithebiker
    bernithebiker Posts: 4,148
    Oh yeah, got red carded on my very first one for drafting - motorbike came up alongside and blew his whistle, almsot made me come off the bike!

    It was a fair cop though, I had been sucking the wheel of some bloke downhill at 60km/h for over 1km.

    Was supposed to do a 100m penalty lap thing, but thought bugger that and was disqualified!
  • Daz555
    Daz555 Posts: 3,976
    Doing my first ever duathlon on Weds night (Castle Combe 2-10-2-10-2mile "monster") - I assume drafting won't be allowed which is a shame because I was hoping to wheel suck the whole way round! :mrgreen:
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  • me-109
    me-109 Posts: 1,915
    Daft arsed rule that cannot be sensibly applied on half the roads that triathlons (used to, assume they still) use. Not nice open dual carriageway TT routes on any that I've done.

    Picked up a 5min penalty donkey's years back at Ripon. 500 people down single carriage (twisty, nadgery stuff) past Brimham Rocks. Spotted twice behind someone. Yes, probably, but with a relatively slow swim for my finishing position I'm a damn sighter faster on the bike and run. Was I behind the same person? Was I the same time or faster? What were their swim times compared to mine? No point in drafting someone that's slower, but I might not want to try overtaking on a blind crest or bend thank you very much.
  • bernithebiker
    bernithebiker Posts: 4,148
    Me-109 wrote:
    Daft arsed rule that cannot be sensibly applied on half the roads that triathlons (used to, assume they still) use. Not nice open dual carriageway TT routes on any that I've done.

    Picked up a 5min penalty donkey's years back at Ripon. 500 people down single carriage (twisty, nadgery stuff) past Brimham Rocks. Spotted twice behind someone. Yes, probably, but with a relatively slow swim for my finishing position I'm a damn sighter faster on the bike and run. Was I behind the same person? Was I the same time or faster? What were their swim times compared to mine? No point in drafting someone that's slower, but I might not want to try overtaking on a blind crest or bend thank you very much.

    Yep, the drafting thing is a bit of a joke, and partly why I stopped doing tri.

    I can guarantee that over 90% of the field will be breaking the drafting rule at some point in the race. It simply is not possible to stay completely away from every other bike. (I think it's a rectangle 3m x 7m).

    So then it just comes down to the judge to decide what is blatant drafting and what is 'accidental', which will always make for controversial decisions.

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