Just my observations on the new rolling start format at Oceanside
This was my 6th Oceanside, a venue perfectly suited to AG starts. This year they moved to a rolling start with 5 minute increments for corrals starting at under 30.
IMO it made for a more crowded swim and bike. I've always been in a larger AG broken up into two waves. At the gun, the under 30s take off, the 1:00 swimmers fall back, and everyone sorta spreads out in the middle. Yes, you had to weave through prior waves but it's really not that big of a deal. I've started in wave 3 and wave 23, so have seen the worst of both ends. But every year was the same. By the time you got to the bike it was fairly well spread out.
Yesterday, the swim was as crowded, if not more crowded, than I've ever experienced there. All of the :30 swimmers - and there are a lot - just moved in one big pack. And there really is no incentive for a slower swimmer not to start in the sub 30 corral, I passed a TON of folks starting at the front of the 30-35 corral. Or people are just really bad at self seeding. But any chance to get on a course earlier is IMO an advantage.
Oh, and getting let into the water trying to "run" on that rubber mat was painful as hell.
Onto the bike, the bike course was very crowded pretty much to the north Camp P entrance, or more crowded than prior years (or they had more entrants).
I'm not racing for AG so I don't really care about that angle, I know that's an issue for many. Yes, there were a lot of waves and the wait could be a little long (23? 24 waves?), and I don't know how fast they got everyone in the water yesterday as opposed to last year, but I don't think that's a sufficient enough reason for the new format (as if that matters). Walking back to T1 to get the bike at 1 ish, didn't seem they were closing the course any earlier than last year either
WTC seems to have instituted a solution to a non-existent problem, and I hope they go back to the wave format (knowing they probably won't).
This was my 6th Oceanside, a venue perfectly suited to AG starts. This year they moved to a rolling start with 5 minute increments for corrals starting at under 30.
IMO it made for a more crowded swim and bike. I've always been in a larger AG broken up into two waves. At the gun, the under 30s take off, the 1:00 swimmers fall back, and everyone sorta spreads out in the middle. Yes, you had to weave through prior waves but it's really not that big of a deal. I've started in wave 3 and wave 23, so have seen the worst of both ends. But every year was the same. By the time you got to the bike it was fairly well spread out.
Yesterday, the swim was as crowded, if not more crowded, than I've ever experienced there. All of the :30 swimmers - and there are a lot - just moved in one big pack. And there really is no incentive for a slower swimmer not to start in the sub 30 corral, I passed a TON of folks starting at the front of the 30-35 corral. Or people are just really bad at self seeding. But any chance to get on a course earlier is IMO an advantage.
Oh, and getting let into the water trying to "run" on that rubber mat was painful as hell.
Onto the bike, the bike course was very crowded pretty much to the north Camp P entrance, or more crowded than prior years (or they had more entrants).
I'm not racing for AG so I don't really care about that angle, I know that's an issue for many. Yes, there were a lot of waves and the wait could be a little long (23? 24 waves?), and I don't know how fast they got everyone in the water yesterday as opposed to last year, but I don't think that's a sufficient enough reason for the new format (as if that matters). Walking back to T1 to get the bike at 1 ish, didn't seem they were closing the course any earlier than last year either
WTC seems to have instituted a solution to a non-existent problem, and I hope they go back to the wave format (knowing they probably won't).