“Relatively slow bike day”. What is that based on? Only spectated but conditions good and wind fairly calm. My friends racing put up optimal times for their training unless they all drafted.

Oceanside is traditionally fast on a decent day

Well look at the top two pro times, 2;08 and both drilling it, and both uber bikers. So either the course was long, or it was slow. I mean as compared to what most top splits in 70.3's are these days. I know there are a couple hills, but really my comment is how is it that so many AG'ers were right up against the top pros splits, or in the mix with them. Some old ones too.

My two Garmins (yes I should drop the watch on the bike) both measure it as 55.98 miles. Pretty darn close.

Winds were mild but a bit of headwind back into town the last 15 miles or so.

I had an absurd amount of bike mechanicals and had to get off 5 times to fix it so hard to say the speed. I went just over 2:30 and usually would go 2:20 or so on a course like this.

I did see a long set of about 6-8 riders riding in a nice peloton in the second half of the ride. These would have been all in the <30 minute swim group. All very near the front of the back. There were less than 40 or 50 bikes in T2 when I got there. I kept working at it, but could never catch that peloton. I did not see a single USAT/Ironman referee the entire bike.

I did see a long set of about 6-8 riders riding in a nice peloton in the second half of the ride. These would have been all in the <30 minute swim group. All very near the front of the back. There were less than 40 or 50 bikes in T2 when I got there. I kept working at it, but could never catch that peloton. I did not see a single USAT/Ironman referee the entire bike.

Thanks, that is what I suspected, and sorry about all your troubles. Sucks when you are primed to have a great race, and some outside shit happens to dampen your day..

I was just pissed I couldn't draft, too.

And good to see that they got the distance right, I remember when I did it the ride was 57.6 or so. And it was so silly as there was a turnaround in the middle of the road somewhere that could have been adjusted in or out. Probably measured it withe someones car and figured close enough..

Looking at various top pros back to 2015, only a handful went sub 2:08. Lionel twice. 2:08 most years is at worst 3 minutes off the lead or so. Guess I personally would not call it a slow day based on historical times

Course is exactly the same as last year and various other years *there';s been a couple different iterations but the current one is the "classic" one transition format. I had 55.8 last two years

Can’t speak to this year but 28-30 minute swimmer and 6 x raced. There are always a few drafters but I have never seen large packs like other flatter races (new orleans, Miami) it’s pretty well marshalled. Of course we only see what is immediately around us on a one loop course

Ok Chris, think I may not be making myself clear. When I say slow course, I mean hard slow course. Just like Wildflower is a slow course. You are right in that to break 2;10 on this particular course is very difficult, while sub 2;05 to 1;57 is normal on most other courses.

So that being true, one would expect the AG times to be further from the pros, not closer. The tougher the course, the larger the delta between AG and pro rides, at least in theory on a fair ride.. So how did so many AG'ers mix it up with the pro rides, that's all I'm asking. We have one eye witness from the front of the race that a large number were pace lining, so that is one reason. I guess the other is that a lot of people are ready to turn pro I guess??

Gotcha

No idea as to what happened on base. All I can offer is historical perspective from the front(ish) of the swim. I get the pleasure of seeing a lot of people pass me. And I mean a LOT. While I see the typical 1-3 person pack on Pendleton, it's nothing like flat races that I've been to, 70.3 or 140.6. I also know that a bunch of leather clad bikers left T1 on their Harleys, so a bunch of marshalls were on the course. No idea if they did their job. Maybe yesterday everyone decided to bunch up, call it the Talansky factor

how are you coming to the conclusion that the AGers were too close to the pros? I just looked at the results for M30-44 and there was only one athlete (a 40-44) that broke 2:20, and he just barely did it.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

What is interesting (for me) is that I'd watch this type of thing at various races and poor Jimmy would get railed on after the inevitable ST twitch hunt. Like you, it would bother me when age group times (especially in 40-55) approached or surpassed pros. The only solution is wider wave spacing, or smaller fields. I don't think the former is practical and Ironman does not want the latter.

This is a bit disconcerting for someone who would consider doing this someday.

It's 100% cheating, period. You're holding speed you didn't earn. I would have hoped this kind of thing was a "onesie twoosie" kind of thing. Only a few people. Not orchestrated packs.

That's beyond disappointing.

I bet it's the same kind of person who shows up to a hammer ride with TT bars, and uses them.

Good point, I just went through all males 18 to 55, only 3 went sub 2:25 at all

You're responding to me, who wrote that I've only ever seen odd 1-3 person drafters at Oceanside over 6 races. I do not recall ever seeing an orchestrated pack at Oceanside

I've seen them at IM Canada, New Orleans 70.3, Miami 70.3, etc.

And the metrics don't bear out Monty's conclusion that AGers were drafting their way to pro status. Not even close.

IMO Oceanside is historically a clean race for the most part.

Sorry, I meant in general I guess. Not about a specific event. I forget the quote/response thing grabs the post you're on.

Just in general I would have hoped a super few people draft when not supposed to. Like 4 or 5 out of 500.

I would not do a WTC event if drafting bothers you. It's more common than you think, and some people feel the rules don't apply to you. It's rampant at some races.

You should have seen the draft packs at Haines City on Sunday. It was bad. I tried a couple of times to get away from them but couldn't shake the packs. Probably what killed my run. Anyway, I drop back and a few miles later the bike marshal comes by and I'm thinking great she's going to give all of them penalties. I go by the penalty tent and there is one dude in the tent. I'm like what? There should have been 10-15 people in the tent.

Happened last year and it's going to happen again. That's Ironman. I had a buddy that did Oceanside and he said there were enough hills to pretty much stop people from drafting or for there to be large draft packs.

What results are you looking at?

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blog

Where are all these AG'ers who outbiked Talansky or got within a few minutes?

As far as I can tell, the fastest AG bike was 4 minutes slower than Talansky, 11 minutes behind the top guys. And that guy is a known quantity. The next fastest split was minutes behind that. So the fastest AG'ers were not riding together.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

After the speed trap, I saw my first, and second marshalls within about 20 minutes of each other. The first time, was immediately after the speed trap. I was behind 2 others, and we had been taking turns passing and continuing on, but not purposefully drafting (at least I wasn't). I thought maybe I was going to get a penalty, because the marshall was on my ass for awhile, but i was also pretty far behind the guy ahead of me. Marshall drove on.

About 20 minutes later, people were struggling near the end of the race and I was passing A LOT of people on that last long straight road. I supposed around mile 45?

Anyways, marshall flies by me, and ahead of me was a pack of probably 20 riders all hanging out. He rode with them for quite awhile, up until the point where I caught the pack and tried to pass (which I had to wait for the marshall to realize I had caught them and needed to go through). Marshall then zipped by them all. I don't know how many or if any were given penalties, but he was there for a good 2-3 minutes until I caught up, furiously writing in his notebook. I can only assume he got a few people.

That group of riders looked like they were on a group ride together. Literally 2-3 side by side, and about 5-6 in a row of them.

Where'd you get this info?


Can you show your work, here?

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Jimmy
http://www.Riccitello.com

Would you normally have the fastest AG bike split in a race that competitive? Because it was 2:19 that day. How far behind the "peleton" were you? It's extremely hard (actually impossible) to judge if someone is riding legally when they are a hundred yards in front of you.

In the second half of the bike, how can you possibly tell if someone who is maybe in the top 40-50 athletes on the course swam sub 30? A lot of those guys will be the 34 minute swimmers who pounded the bike. A lot of the sub-30 swimmers will have fallen way back on the bike.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Fastest AG was 2:19 which isn't unheard of. But it's no where near the top guys.

How is 2:08 not considered a slow bike course? These days a "standard" top pro bike split is like 2:04 or less. I was surprised by how slow the pro times were. I'd expect Sanders to be under 2:02-2:03 on a "fast course". Just my opinion.