You ever hear someone say they had to catch the pack after the bike

You are right this is done

You ever hear of a man and woman having the exact same bike split.

She just happens to KQ and the know each other

How about a certain manly, very large tri club where multiple members all have the same bike split

All legal. Moral? To each their own

I think it would be similar to my old sure win strategy, of getting out of the water first, then letting each person behind get into my draft zone, then me speeding up until they are drafting. I could take each and every competitor out of the race, unless they had a better short sprint than I did, which was not usually the case. All my years of bike racing and crits would have paid off bigly, had there actually been a Marshall up front holding the rule line...

Would have been entirely legal, but I would never do it, except one time to show the foolishness of the rule in the first place...

I'm not sure if the pro rules are different than age groupers but at each pro meeting I've been to the referees explicitly state that slingshotting is illegal. I can't imagine were operating under different rules. When you begin to make a pass you must make an identifiable move to the left signaling the start of your pass. If you don't, penalty, even if you complete the pass in time.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

You are. I don't know why, though.

Oh well then.

I mean I guess with the course being way more crowded that kind of makes sense. Only kind of though.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

I've been doing this for years. Although I would hesitate to describe it as a strategy, and certainly not a winning one, more an unfortunate consequence of being a crap swimmer and decent cyclist.

Blessed are the slow swimmers, for they (we) shall slingshot their way through the field on the bike

The rules are the same, there's just not enough "policing" available to carry through with the rules in crowded areas. And since money is involved with the pros, they get more "policing" and the AGers are supposed to be good sports.

Obviously there is a misunderstanding with AGers who regard taking turns as fair play and LEGAL drafting when the rule is meant for a pass and not repeated relaying.

For some reason, we all tend to break/fudge rules while just driving across town even when there's no competition. Now those who pre-plan ways to do it with others are ... brigands?

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

No the rules are not the same. Look it up. Pro’s can’t slipstream, AG’ers can.

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It happened to me. I passed a few hundred on the bike. I definitely got to slingshot a lot. I wouldn't say I took advantage of 25 seconds or anything. The people I was passing the first half of the bike were going at least 2 mph less than me.

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"If it costs you 30 minutes at Maryland so what" -dwreal

A few years ago when races weren’t using rolling starts I had a handful of races where I started in a late wave which means I ended up passing a lot of people on the bike. And of course I used the slip stream when passing. Partly because it was legal but also because it’s a safer way to pass when so many are on the course. Now I had to make sure to pay closer attention when passing and entering the slip stream since I’d be screwed if I entered then had someone behind me trying to pass me.

Not sure how feasible it would be for a small group to do that for 56/112 miles because of the cooperation it would take and go the course is laid out. But sitting at the legal draft distance has great benefit for not only saving energy but also helps a lot mentally since you can kind of just focus on the person in front and not worry about the watts you are pushing.

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Completely within the rules. If you aren't maximizing the rules to your benefit then you aren't racing smart. Chattanooga full and 70.3 is a pretty good example of where you can see a benefit for this.

For the past few years I've started at the back of the swim line for the 70.3 and slingshotted my way through the back. This year, with the weather projected to be warmer and a recorded size field, I opted to go to the front so I could have a clear course and get out of the heat. It paid off because I was 3 miles from T2 before I saw the last cyclist who was at mile 3 of their bike.

Last year for the full I got sent off fairly early due to having a low bib number from AWA. A guy who had beat me at a small half-distance a month before just had a general number and was probably sent off in the middle of the pack. Even though I put up a faster bike split in the 70.3, he went about 10 mins faster than me in the full. Granted he may have pushed a little harder during the bike, but there was probably a 3-5 min benefit from being around a crowd.

I think the same thing happened at gulf coast 70.3 in 2017. The winner of my AG started in the middle of the pack where the rest of us got sent out in the top 50.

I'm sure you could argue that they spent energy trying to get around people, but at the end of the day I don't see it as cheating. They just maximized that race position they were placed in.

I'm wrong once again.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

One of the known impacts , if a long line of evenly spaced people are being passed, a pro needs to ride past the whole line, the AG can just slot in, and go up the line, one at a time

If you look at the time differences at the bike splits you often see that the pros are <2 sec from each other. At their speeds that's borderline 10m and at that speed they definitely have big advantages of each other. At least for pros a better solution would be a time difference between them to get them out of each others slipstream. Once you're out of the slipstream you'll have to up the effort to keep up and overtake and it becomes a bit more of an interval ride, not exactly what they want.

I mean if it’s within the rules, it’s not cheating. I probably should race smarter like that but I’m more frustrated with more people around me. It is always a lot of work making sure I’m not in the draft zone as people will speed up as I’m passing, or jump out in front of me as they are trying to pass somebody ahead of them. It’s just the IM packs so many people on a course I did IM 70.3 Chattanooga this year and it was actually better than I thought on the bike.

You are also to ride on the right side. If you actively try not to be in a slipstream while moving up on a slower rider, you may be blocking other riders.
Ride on the right, pass, move back to the right.
In a group, ride away or let them ride away.
It is a rare occasion I see slingshot between two people for a long time, I have seen deliberate drafting much more often.

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Team Zoot So Cal

The only thing I would say against that strategy is that once the slingshotter passes, they would need to be moving much faster for the passed athlete to be able to maintain their speed and drop out of the draft zone, then the passed athlete would have to surge to get back in the draft zone of the front athlete to become the slingshotter. Or the passed athlete slows down to get out fo the draft zone before picking back up which would render it pointless? Either way, seems like a lot of surging to me on both ends which I wouldn't think would work very well.

I had an experience at Indian Wells where I had a bad swim, then an absolutely terrible T1 (12 minutes!) and then got it together to bike around 2:24 or so. I don't think I did much, if any slingshotting because the people I passed were moving so slow that I had to move left early for my own safety since by the time I yelled "on your left" I was pretty much passing them, any earlier and they wouldn't have heard me. If I tried to sling shot, I would be afraid of them making a last minute movement, I also wouldn't be able to see if they had a slower athlete in front them that they would try to pass. so yeah, altogether, it has to be just the right circumstances for slingshotting to be a real advantage. I imagine if I just had a bad swim and a normal T1, maybe that would be it, where the guys I passed were riding 2:26-2:30 instead of the 2:45+ riders I passed with my bad T1.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

The only thing I would say against that strategy is that once the slingshotter passes, they would need to be moving much faster for the passed athlete to be able to maintain their speed and drop out of the draft zone, then the passed athlete would have to surge to get back in the draft zone of the front athlete to become the slingshotter. Or the passed athlete slows down to get out fo the draft zone before picking back up which would render it pointless? Either way, seems like a lot of surging to me on both ends which I wouldn't think would work very well. //


You just described a normal cycling pace line, and they seem to work quite well for a group going faster, than a solo person would otherwise. Keep in mind that it is not all about speeding up each time, but the trailing rider resting while dropping back(in the draft by the way too). It is those moments of rest that allow for a faster pace once you are going to the front. When you can ride/rest, ride/rest, then the overall speed can be just a bit faster, even with huge distances vs sitting on wheels. It is about the rest involved...

I'm no cycling expert but I don't think a paceline requires riders to drop back 6 bike lengths before getting back in line/to the front.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

I'm no cycling expert but I don't think a paceline requires riders to drop back 6 bike lengths before getting back in line/to the front.


It's ok you're not a cycling expert, doesnt mean you cannot understand the dynamics of groups riding together. If you read my last sentence again, it indicates that even in this dynamic, you can get some of the same benefits of a true cycling pace line. And in some cases where the pace line is 20 guys long, you would drop back even further than 6 bike lengths obviously. But now we are moving into double pace line territory, which is another discussion..

Right, but when you drop back in line in any size cycling pace-line, you are immediately behind someone when you fall back in line, saving energy. I guess what I am saying is that if were talking about two guys who are of similar speed trying to use this legal sling-shot strategy to leap frog each other over and over again, that having to yo-yo with 6 bike lengths between them before the next pass happens, it seems to me like it would require either one athlete to slow down to let their partner pass, or for the passed athlete to push hard to make the pass. Either situation doesn't seem very efficient to me. Perhaps I am just missing something here? I know one still gets a small draft advantage even with 6 bike lengths, but it isn't the 30-40% you get when you're right on their wheel.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo