It sounds like we both agree that the rules need some clarification to deal with such cases. Right now, "drop back" is technically not a legal option once one has initiated a pass, but perhaps it needs to be legal in certain circumstances (e. g., when there is no legal alternative course of action).

If you think such occurrences are rare, you obviously haven't raced on a course as crowded as IMFL, where you very frequently see rider A passing rider B at the same time that B is starting to pass rider C. Actually, an even more common situation is that A is trying to pass a series of riders B1, B2, B3, B4, and B5. By the time A passes B1, he is already in B2's draft zone and has to complete his pass of B2, etc.--so he must pass all five riders in one longer acceleration. By the time he has passed this long train, it is VERY likely than a rider C will have come up and passed him on HIS left. Note that this situation arises even if riders B1 through B5 are moving considerably slower.

Fortunately, I'm so slow coming out of the water that I don't run into the packs much until the latter part of the bike leg, but it does become a problem then.

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
Which is probably why I was registering 59.67mi as I rolled into T2.