As a head Ref here is the quickie answer

It's ok to pass both of them with two caveats

1. You enter the draft zone and your front wheel passes theirs in 15 seconds

2. you don't cross the center line

and of course after passing you return to riding on the right side of the road as soon as it is safe to do so.

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"on your Left"

Thanks for the post. Another q for you. If you pass and the person you passed was actually drafting, say two bike lengths, then you pull around and are only one bike length behind the guy in front of you, what is the rule? Would you be required to pass since you entered the three bike length zone? If so, at what point does the 15 second clock start ticking?

ok tough call

first off you can only be in "a" riders draft zone for 15 seconds so technically you could be entering the lead riders draft zone before passing the first and the rule is written that you must complete the pass once you enter the draft zone so yes your are committed to a double pass

chances are that unless the rearward of the two riders ahead of you is in the act of passing [and its obvious] the ref is going to put him on the clock while your ride merrily away

I've passed two riders in a similar situation and the best advice I can give is to slingshot off the first riders draft and fly past the second leaving yourself with many seconds to spare

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"on your Left"

Thanks again. The double, triple and quadruple pass was quite frequent at Ralphs and IMCDA since I swim a bit slow. Frustrating to have to pass drove of slow bikers drafting, but I suppose it is innevitible when you throw 2000 people on a course at once.

"I've passed two riders in a similar situation and the best advice I can give is to slingshot off the first riders draft and fly past the second leaving yourself with many seconds to spare"

So, under certain circumstances, it's OK to draft then, even in a race that does not allow drafting.

Forgive, me but I have always found these no-drafting rules rather curious things. OK on the swim, OK on the run and apparently even OK under certain circumstances on the bike! Interesting.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Safety is a huge concern on the bike. Would you want a lot of those folks on your wheel?

The rules definitely need to be defined more extensively.

Agreed.

But if you go mid-pack at any triathlon these days on the bike, you see all kinds of strange and bizarre things going on.

If those folks are on my wheel, I am not the one going down. Typically it's the trailing rider who goes down when wheels touch.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Guess I just need to keep chipping away at the swim!

The guys (not all but a lot) who were faster swimmers were also drafting. I saw it first hand on the tunrarounds. Total bullshit.