1. can you draft off somebody not in your "race"? Yes - it would be too hard to police.
2. should you be able to have any clip ons at all? Not sure.
3. how deep should wheels be allowed to be? Stick with the ITU/UCI rules, even if they suck.
4. are you obliged to retire if you're lapped? No.
5. should RDs be only allowed to have so many laps per race? It's up to the RD and the course, but I imagine there is going to be a need to keep lap counts down (less than 3?) because athletes can't count. And I say that somewhat jokingly, but it's easy to lose track when you're racing.
6. should there be any prerequisites to entering? This is a tough one. I personally feel that we should work hard to keep triathlon open to everybody. Does that mean we have to introduce a Cat system like USAC? I could see it. Instead of AG waves, we have Cat waves?
7. can you ride an MTB bike? Yes, to my point above, everybody should be able to try a tri. They'll just have to suck it up. I did my first 4 tris on a mountain bike. Still had a huge smile on my face.
8. should we shit-can 1.3.073 entirely for draft legal? No. I think we should try to keep things consistent to make it less confusing for new people. Hell, I still can't convince my father-in-law that my local sprint is not an Ironman. The simpler we can make the sport and the more consistent we can be with international rules, the better.
I have a few other open questions:
1. Will we see existing races go draft legal? At a minimum, drafting becomes one less thing for officials to deal with.
2. Will this do anything to improve TV coverage for triathlon? A multi-lap DL race would be potentially easier to put on TV. If anything, spectators might enjoy it because they get to see their athletes more often. But, I don't think we should confuse "draft legal" with "multi-lap" - they are two distinctly different things, even if we're used to draft-legal races tending to be multi-lap.
3. How will this affect the triathlon bike industry? If I want to get into triathlon, or if I want to just simplify my costs of participating in cycling-related sports, I can now buy just a road bike, race DL triathlons, race crits, ride gran fondos, and do my local group rides with one bike. That's actually pretty appealing to me.
4. How will this affect the triathlon race industry? This expands on my first open question, but I'm wondering if this will also introduce a potential for higher insurance costs due to higher perceived risk, and therefore higher race entry costs?
Overall, I like the idea.
Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador