I think this was a rule last year and there were some issues with different races enforcing it. Might be a USAT rule. There was some discussion on here about it.

AG is out, and since I'm the type of personality that actually reads these things, I noticed:

-"New in 2017, athletes will not be
permitted to have any other stickers on their bikes other than
the bike frame sticker issued at Athlete Check-In. Any previous
event stickers on the bike must be removed."

This is in bold maybe to call attention to a (potentially) silly rule or maybe because it's just new. Had a friend dinged at SB Tri last year for having an old race sticker on his top tube (!), not visible from the side. Official dinged him in transition and found out about the penalty after the race. It was reversed. Still, don't want to have to deal with crap like that post race. I have stickers on my stem, I just put the new ones over the old, technically they need to be removed.

-Swim start is now rolling per expected time and not AG. This is great assuming everyone doesn't just ignore it and get in the under :30 wave, in which case wait will be as long as ever.....

There may be others those were just the two that caught my eye

The entire field is in one rolling start? Or is there a rolling start for men and then a superset one for women or just one rolling start like they do at IM events?
Has anyone ever heard of this at a 70.3?
Dang that seems like a lot of people coming out of the water in a 5' window!

On the athlete guide under race day window page it says rolling start is 630-730am self seeding. This is great for those who dont like being run over by the sub 30min swimmers.

Los Cabos 70.3 had a rolling start when I did it, worked out great. We self seeded in corrals based on time.

Also new is the swim course starts from the dock not while sitting in the water. No time to get acclimated to the cold water.

Just from the map, but also says:
The swim starts and finishes at the boat ramp in the southwest quadrant of Oceanside Harbor and goes in a counter-clockwise direction.
Originally from: http://www.ironman.com/...e.aspx#ixzz4ZWr4uCtO

With a rolling start they would need a timing mat on the dock.

Duh. of course.

Hopefully there'll be enough matting on the concrete ramp, that's painful.

I wonder how it's going to be set up, and whether it's really any different than a TT start?

I've done New Orleans 70.3, which was organized by AG but a rolling start of 3-4 jumping off a small dock, Chattanooga 70.3 which was a self seeded TT start but really the same, jumping off a small dock a few at a time (bit of a free for all that one), and IM Coz which was rolling by self seeded time and the same. I assume this would really have to be like those starts as well

Wow... this seems nuts. I have raced Oceanside 9 times and never had a problem with the swim start or course in general. The rolling start seems nuts to me. Why would anyone intentionally start later? In my opinion, there is a huge advantage starting early in Oceanside.

Probably because you're a fast swimmer. If your a 40 min swimmer its no fun being ran over by the waves behind you as I have there in the past. Ill be seeding myself appropriately for that reason, won't affect my time (timing mat) more wind/heat a half hour later in the day is fine.

Also, before the waves were spread out over 2 hours, now the rolling starts will be over less than an hour.