In Reply To:
All you guys talking about legalizing drafting....why don't you just go sign up for a marathon or a 10K if you don't care about the bike.
Seriously, if you allow drafting, I'm going to laugh all the way to the bank since I am an above average runner for a 44 year old guy. A draft legal race favours, me, but that's not what its about. I'll just get some of my best buddies to sign up for every IM with me and tow me to T2 without ever putting my nose in the wind and uncork a 3:10 marathon at every IM after he pulls me to a 5:00 ride on a course like LP. That's bullshit.
Its about guys playing or not playing in the rules.
Like I said, when there is some early congestion, it is possible for honest guys to momentarily get caught in a group just because of the sheer density of folks on the road.
But after a short time, there is no excuse.
- Courses don't cause drafting or packs
- Lack of marshalling does not cause drafting or draft packs
- People who choose to not play within the rules cause them
Ditto Dev...no excuse no one to blame but those who are drafting.
I'm about to post a video and Transition distribution by the minute and its going to show that pretty much the 5 to 7 minute surrounding my exit time(1:26 and change) the most athletes
hit the bike. Its also going to show there was plenty of room as I'm passing a ton of riders. The video will be 8 times speed to condense 56 minutes into 7(20.5 miles at my average speed at that part of the course) So much for the argument too many coming out of the swim at same time and you can't help drafting.. Pretty much after the first half mile or so its wide open for the most part
where I was and considering an average of 63 to 64 per minute were coming out for that 5 to 7 minute period it couldn't have gotten any worse... a previous poster said 400 and high 300's
for I think 1:05, 1:10 etc but that was swim exit... I added in transition times and that shifted things quite a bit..
What you have is a built in valve to cut the arrival of bikes on the course down from the arrival of swimmers..
Between wetsuit stripping,narrow run through the tunnel to pick up the bags and then a long narrow runway to the change building(convention center) and back out to the far end of the bike rack (again a narrow path) it acts like a valve or pinch point to reduce the outflow of bikes.. amazing....
I'll be posting that video in a bit.