I'm going to preface this by saying that Delmo does a great job promoting his races and giving the athletes what they want. I have nothing against him personally.
Now, onto my experience from 70.3 AC. I was one of the first athletes out of the water and onto the bike course. The first loop was completely empty sense I was at the pointy end of the race. By mile 15 myself and 2 other athletes caught up to the lead biker and therefore the lead motorcycle (an AC Police Officer). My thought was the lead moto was on course for the first loop and would peel off for the 2nd loop. This was not the case. We were flying up the expressway with a police lead out. He had his siren going so the athletes ahead could move over. However, they could not get over fast enough (due to the crowded course) and we ended up bunched up behind the moto on the expressway - yes, drafting off the moto and each other.
The course was NOT CLOSED TO TRAFFIC. The right travel line on the expressway was, but just to the left of the cones were cars zipping by at 60mph. With us coming up at 30mph the athletes ahead of us were not expecting this (even after calling on your left) and constantly swung out in front of me and the other 2 guys up front. On multiple occasions I nearly had to go outside the cones into traffic - which in all likelihood would have resulted in me getting hit by a car and killed.
Once we were off the expressway, things did not improve. On the loop section of the course athletes were spread across the entire road. I was hardly able to ride on the right side of the yellow line at all. Again, the moto was right in front of us trying to get everyone over (which also is completely unfair to our competitors who had to weave their way through people by themselves).
My race ended at mile 30 when I hit the ground around a busy corner with tons of patches in the pavement about probably 40 bottles scattered throughout the intersection from athletes ejecting them. After getting up and seeing that my basebar had snapped I waited for a ride back to transition. During this, I was talking to the police officers at the intersection. They agreed with me in that it was the biggest shit show they had ever seen. There were so many athletes on such a tight course that even clearing the dropped bottles off the road was impossible - which became their job (rather than directing traffic) as there were no volunteers at the corner.
Once I arrived at transition the med tent was starting to get busy with everyone who had crashed. The guy next to me had been run over by another rider, reports of people being unconscious on the course, ect.
Overall, a terrible race experience for me. I will never do this race again due to the sheer lack of saftey. IMO, Ironman needs to take a serious look at what their race directors are doing with their courses. This was a flat course - no technical descents or anything like that. There shouldn't be as many bike accidents as there were.
Now, onto my experience from 70.3 AC. I was one of the first athletes out of the water and onto the bike course. The first loop was completely empty sense I was at the pointy end of the race. By mile 15 myself and 2 other athletes caught up to the lead biker and therefore the lead motorcycle (an AC Police Officer). My thought was the lead moto was on course for the first loop and would peel off for the 2nd loop. This was not the case. We were flying up the expressway with a police lead out. He had his siren going so the athletes ahead could move over. However, they could not get over fast enough (due to the crowded course) and we ended up bunched up behind the moto on the expressway - yes, drafting off the moto and each other.
The course was NOT CLOSED TO TRAFFIC. The right travel line on the expressway was, but just to the left of the cones were cars zipping by at 60mph. With us coming up at 30mph the athletes ahead of us were not expecting this (even after calling on your left) and constantly swung out in front of me and the other 2 guys up front. On multiple occasions I nearly had to go outside the cones into traffic - which in all likelihood would have resulted in me getting hit by a car and killed.
Once we were off the expressway, things did not improve. On the loop section of the course athletes were spread across the entire road. I was hardly able to ride on the right side of the yellow line at all. Again, the moto was right in front of us trying to get everyone over (which also is completely unfair to our competitors who had to weave their way through people by themselves).
My race ended at mile 30 when I hit the ground around a busy corner with tons of patches in the pavement about probably 40 bottles scattered throughout the intersection from athletes ejecting them. After getting up and seeing that my basebar had snapped I waited for a ride back to transition. During this, I was talking to the police officers at the intersection. They agreed with me in that it was the biggest shit show they had ever seen. There were so many athletes on such a tight course that even clearing the dropped bottles off the road was impossible - which became their job (rather than directing traffic) as there were no volunteers at the corner.
Once I arrived at transition the med tent was starting to get busy with everyone who had crashed. The guy next to me had been run over by another rider, reports of people being unconscious on the course, ect.
Overall, a terrible race experience for me. I will never do this race again due to the sheer lack of saftey. IMO, Ironman needs to take a serious look at what their race directors are doing with their courses. This was a flat course - no technical descents or anything like that. There shouldn't be as many bike accidents as there were.