Amen!!

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"which is like watching one of your buddies announce that he's quitting booze and cigarettes, switching to a Vegan diet and training for triathalons ... but he's going to keep snorting heroin." Bill Simmons, ESPN

Last year an entry level athlete did his first race. He bought an installed aerobars on his bike. He tried negotiating a corner on them in the race. He couldn't. He rear-ended a parked car at over 18 m.p.h. damaging the vehicle, sustaining injuries and causing huge headaches for everyone, mostly himself and the race director. As a result, the race is not being held in its original location. That is why safety is an issue. It is not a matter of people being "too serious". He he gone into an oncoming lane of traffic with a vehicle approaching the corner it is not too much of a stretch ot imagine he could have been killed. Minimizing the risks by acknowledging our sport is a hobby (it is) do not make the risks go away. You can die just as dead from a bike crash as you can from a bullet.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

"This is St. Anthony's"... a race where people come from many different states and countries for the sole purpose of enjoying a well-run, beautiful, highly competitive age group race. They sign up many months in advance and pay $100 for entry. It is not a small local race like say the Top Cop Triathlon that draws people from up to an hour's drive away.

Cyclists swerving and riding in bunches at 17mph represent a hazard to people riding 18+ mph. This would not be the case if people were following the rules and the course wasn't so crowded.

I can always pass as long as people stay to the right. With 3 sports some will be very strong in one and very weak in another. The only suggestion I have (again) is to have a last heat for people who just want to do the race and have fun. This would take alot of intimidation away for some. Race results could start when the racers are finished and have special awards for the participating crowd. I still think anyone wanting to race no matter what level should be able to inter the "race" Beginners could even have a race partner to go along and asist them on the 1st one!!!!!!
I LOVE NEWBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that t-t-n is trying to say that slower racers are going to be a fact of participating in our sport and that we should deal with them. I am a 16 MPH cyclist (at the best of times). I try to be as safe as possible but by the simple fact that I swim better than most I will be ahead of many faster riders and they may be slowed up a bit as they pass me, especially if it is at a sharp corner where I will slow down more than most. His point is that everyone has to deal with it. He is not against being safe. He is against being elitist and wants us to be inclusionary.

Enforce the rules, try and keep everyone as safe as possible. But don't do exclude us slowpokes from the races. As far as I know, not may non-IM races require you to 'qualify' and there will be a lot of newbies out there.

Zinc, your other post came across as elitist. I agree that safety is important but you need to acknowledge that some people have different skill sets. Sometimes the swerving is because of a pothole in the road that you can't see from behind, bear that in mind. Whenever you are passing anyone anywhere (i.e. in your car) you (as the faster vehicle, bike or car) have a responsibility to be able to react to that person's erratic behaviour. In an automobile accident the police will find the person who rear-ends another car at fault in a significant majority of accidents for this very reason.

BTW, Guys passing on the inside at 21 MPH are just as dangerous.

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"which is like watching one of your buddies announce that he's quitting booze and cigarettes, switching to a Vegan diet and training for triathalons ... but he's going to keep snorting heroin." Bill Simmons, ESPN

denewone i think that is pretty good idea. coming to tri from cycling and mt biking, i have often thought that tri would be better served with an ability based system moreso than a total AG structure. most of the issues zinc raises would be thus solved - there is a certain level of expertise expected from a guy racing as an expert mt biker, for example. if he is in the way nobody feels sorry for him if he hears about it from the other racers. conversely the citizen class has all manner of guys wobbling around and falling over and not following the rules and it is fine and good. it's not gonna happen, and it's not perfect but i bet it would work pretty well.

i also agree with tom - but when i said " safety is as safety does" i meant that safety is a personal responsibility. i didn't say it wasn't an issue. in the case he notes the course sounds plenty safe and that guy with the lose bars left of center sounds like an idiot. the topic of that idiot reflecting on, or influencing the race itself is a whole 'nuther topic and not what i was talking about.

zinc and i do not see eye to eye on this one tho - that is clear. ok by me.

I think it's fairly clear that most of this unbearable wanking is generated by people who think that because they can ride fast also think they ride well. Very few "group rides" are needed to observe that both qualities are, unfortunately, often exclusive.

This is, sadly, the SUV Syndrome hitting the tri world ...

"Hey, I have nothing hanging in my underwear, but my car is 19 feet long, so get the eff out of my way"

If Walmart were selling testicles, we wouldn't have this problem.

Dre'

Oh, and the entry fee was $100? I mean, *one* hundred dollars. Yes, this is a local event ... I doubt that many newbies are willing to cough up $300 for their first race.

"If Walmart were selling testicles, we wouldn't have this problem. "

ROTFLMAO - that's very funny. I'm going to remember that line..

The big question with seeding based upon ability is What ability do you seed based upon? Swimming, biking, or overall time? If overall time you'll still have the fishes out there that you'll have to pass and then are you going to start complaining about them?

Personally I swim like a freaking rock, but can ride and run pretty well. That forces me to have to pass many people who swim faster than me and leads to people in front of me slowing me down on the bike. If you swim fast, ride slow, run fast where do you seed yourself? If by bike ability then the people who swim fast get screwed swimming through the crowds.

The way I look at this is until I'm one of the first out of the water from my wave I have nothing to complain about when slower riders are in front of me. I just need to learn to freaking swim fast.

I don't want to see triathlon go to an ability/category system. I had enough of that when I was a swimmer and dealing with the pressure of the clock and making your state/zones/Y Nationals cuts. I can remember being 16 and bawling my eyes out for missing a cut by 0.03 of a second. I don't want to go there again.

It's been a bit liberating to get involved in tris and running and not to have the stupid clock having over me like the friggin' sword of Damocles. And I like the eglitarian nature of the sport.

And yeah, I feel like I've gotten pretty good at staying right as the non-fish fly by me on the bike. :)

I personally think that the speed cat's would be the way to go and clearly the way to do it is based on overall time not by individual sports.

Clearly the fastest athlete is the one that swims bikes and runs the swiftest therefore you could break it down somewhat as follows.

Proven Oly Times

sub 2.00

2.00-2.10

2.10-2.20

2.20-2.30

How you get to these times be it at 17 min swim, 1.30 bike and a 42 min run or what ever this would solve a huge number of problems.

In addition they should consider this for the Olympic qualifying like the marathon and every other sports instead of the stupid qualifying races that they have.

Thats my 0.02.

I'm not a big fan of the whole time seeded idea, I think it will create huge problems with drafting. If there is going to be seeding then I think it needs to be done by overall time, as one of the major lures of Triathlon is the whole chase on the bike and run after I cede 5+ minute on the swim. I know that for one of my friends, his game is to see how long he can hold me off after he swims 5 minutes faster.

The problems in safety as I see them are

1) having too many people on the course.

Solution - Put fewer people on the course at any one time.

2) people not following the established rules.

Solution - Educate people about the rules and then enforce them.

3) novice athletes on the race course (which is many of the TNT racers)

Solution - Have a novice/Team in Training wave that starts after the age group racers

Tom,

Excellent point. Safty IS an issue.

I will likley ruffle some feathers here, but here goes.

For 15+ years in triathlon I raced at/near the front. By and large "up there" people knew what they were doing. The rules were respected. People knew how to ride their bikes in all kinds of different terrain and it all kinds of conditions and race traffic.

Last year in a fit of madness, grossly out of shape, having not raced at all for 5 years and with very little training I deceided to jump into a local race. I did the duathlon, but we merged with the on-going triathlon mid-pack in a multi-wave event with over 1,000 entries. From every perspective this race was extraorinarily well run by the best event managment people in the business. I have no fault with the people putting on the race. What they can't control, is what goes on out on the bike course. For the first time in my life I was really scared on a bike in a race. People where riding ALL over the road. Fast mixed in with slow. No respect for keeping right or any of that. People riding on aero-bars who clearly should not have been( to your point, Tom). People weaving all over the road to reach behind the seat water-bottles. People coming to a complete stop in the middle of the road to change a flat! I gave up counting the centre line violations after 5 minutes. My self included - as I had no other option to avoid hitting some one walking their bike up a hill!! In a word it was, indeed, madness. I felt lucky to have made it back to T2 unscathed and in one piece.

My question: Is that what it is like back there all the time or was this the exception?

I know that I am gong to get hammered for this, but from what I saw in that race, what is needed is some time learning the basics of bike handling on a regular road bike.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Fleck, that's the way it is... not all the time but over half the time. Great Clermont 2002 was pretty bad, but St. Anthony's was much worse.

I don't think that is always what it is like in waves that contain a lot of beginners, but I remember being a beginner too back in the '80s. In 2000 and 2001 I spent a lot of time on the back of a camera motorcycle shooting photos of races. I took photos of elite athletes at the Olympic Trials in Dallas, age groupers at local races and first timers- a lot of first timers. I shot thousands of photos and watched a lot of people. There was tremendous diversity in experience levels. To refocus on my point about TNT, look at the "Wetsuit Question" post on this forum main page right now. An athlete had an understandable problem using a wetsuit in a race for the first time. Had they been able to experience using a wetsuit in a TNT training clinic and receive some basic instruction they would have had an easier, less scary experience. The situation could have been worse. TNT is a potential resource for the sport- raising money for a cuase and also being responsible about developng safe, knowledgable, fun-loving athletes at all experience levels. It would be great if the resource were optimized.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

>>y question: Is that what it is like back there all the time or was this the exception?<<

Even though I have been doing tris since 1987, I still am quite slow, so am very well versed in what the back of the back is like. And unfortunately, yes Fleck, in most races, that's what it's like. Before I ever did my first tri, I spent a lot of time with a really good triathlete and a cyclist learning how to ride. And the first year I did the team thing, so I knew how a race worked before I did it solo. I think now, too many people jump in and "just do it", without much forethought into the how/why/history. It's the everybody be happy syndrome.

And, what might be even worse than a tri in NorCal is certain century rides out here which have been taken over by TNT. It's scary. And, the secondary problem is that when a ride happens on a popular route and there are masses of riders riding 2, 3 or 4 abreast, it really pisses off the locals. Then, another time, another day, you are a cyclist riding along like you are supposed to but Joe Pickup remembers that day when it was a huge mess and a hassle and hates all cyclists. (Of course I will admit that other groups, roadies or horror, maybe even triathletes, might ride more than single file.)

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

well i only meant to mention the ability based thing as a sort of " what if" - but i thought i might revisit it in light of some of the above commentary. first off FL jill, nobody need cry or stress over this sort of system. here in wisconsin there is a HUGE, popular mt bike series that uses an ability system of 4 different categories - you seed yourself in whatever class you wish. you can race as an expert your first time out, or stay a citizen and sandbag/cherry pick every race from now into eternity. to their credit - most everybody puts themselves in the right category. the main benfit, as i see it - is kinda safety or "smoothness" related - and one of expectation. if you enter the citizen category and people are in your way, and you think they are freds and don't belong out there until they have a basic skills class the n everybody will tell you to shut the hell up and move up to sport or expert where you belong. let the cits crash into each other, they are having fun. conversely, if you are in the expert class you had best be riding with some skill or at least have sense enuf to get out the way, or people will yell at you. all in all everybody is happy, each race is run in crowded and hazardous conditions with riders of roughly equal speed and things go smoothly. the parrallel to tri is to me obvious. the TNT crowd could rule the cit class, or maybe send some of their ranks up to sport. hardcore tri-heads would be up duking it out on their own. the average joe/schmoe is likewise immersed in a cohort of similar ability - and if he can get to the podium a time or three he can enjoy that taste of success before self-seeding himself up to expert and starting over.

by way of finding common ground with "zinc", whom i called out earlier, i think this system would address most of concerns, is doable, has a successful precedent - and would work right dandy well. that is, of course - unless our man zinc signs up for the sport class, puts in a time which would put him in the top ten of the expert field, and T-H-E-N starts complaining about tall the people around him. at that point we can all rally 'round and go " SANNNDDDBAGGGGHAAAAAAAAA" at him, which is always fun.

I think the things you saw are fairly typical though I think it will obviously be more noticable on courses requiring better bike handling. You want to see some real action, go enter a criterium as a category 5(newbie category).

As I posted before in the clydesdale thread, this would mostly be solved with ability/experience level categories. The first category is the true beginner category that you only need to complete a certain number of races to move up from, then after that you need to place to move up. This is different than running type seeding according to clamed running speed you see at some running races. With running type of seeding you have guys claiming to be able to run a 33 min 10k positioning themselves in the front, actually running 43 minutes on race day.

Zinc, I was in the same wave as you, not going as fast naturally, but it just wasn't that bad from what I saw. Yes, I had to vary my speed to avoid people, but the number of times I had to hit the brakes was minimal. I sped up or slowed down to make sure I was not next to slow riders entering a turn. I didn't see 3 and 4 abreast anywhere for an extended period. I saw two abreast chatting away, but only a couple of times. I did have to pass one person on the right, and I did have one person unexpectantly swerve to make things interesting. She apologized.

Are you sure you just aren't cranking those 20 year old pistons you call legs faster than you can handle safely in a pack while trying to make up for a relatively weak swim time? I don't have that problem since legs like that are a distant memory for me.

I don't like the idea of speed based seeding. I measure my performance relative to my age group. If we don't start at the same time, we are running different races. I want the field level for everyone in my age group even if that means there will be a few exciting obstacles.

I didn't see that many purple shirts there. Does anyone know how many TNT people competed?

indeed ncooksey - but it need not be that hard. in the system i note, it is entirely self-seeded. race where you want. there is no incentive to lie about your ability. if you race in the lowest class, and win by 15 minutes a few people will probably hiss at you at the awards or something - and you deserve it. and, if you are in the middle category and winning all the time people will similarly put peer pressure on you to move your sorry cherry-picking a$$ up a level. you can ignore them if you wish, and some people do. this system puts 1000 people on a 4 mile long trail for multiple laps up to 500 at a time here in wis. every other weekend. think of that - over 100 people per mile of very tight, single file, twisty and slow close trail at race speeds. it works very well indeed.

Well, if that/this is typical then I had better:

A) Avoid racing completely

B) Upgrade my life/health insurance significantly

C) Get my sorry ass back in shape so that I am back near the front!

It was a real eye opening experience at that race last summer. I kept asking myself all these questions. Why would someone get aero-bars for a bike when they barely knew how to ride one? Why would someone put behind the seat water bottles on their bike when they could not access them safely? Why would some change a flat in the middle of the road( they would not do that with their car!!)? Why would someone spend $4,000 on a super-aero bike to ride at 15mph? . . and so on.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

You're right, it doesn't need to be hard. I was trying to summarize the USCF road racing ranking system for people who don't know anything about it as an example of a category system that combines ability and experience. You're right though, the self seeding system used in some mt. bike races is would be better than keeping track of licenses and I wouldn't think you get too many beginners entering expert class and getting in their way. However, voluntary down grading is fairly common in order to place better around here, especially for mediocre fish looking for a smaller pond.

All this is great but since the acronym AG if firmly entrenched the vocabulary, it's probably all moot. The numbered categories in road racing are better in one way though: they keep you from having to explain to your friends why you haven't moved out of the "slow category" up to the "mediocre category" yet after 10 years of racing.

I've had opportunity to race the entire scope, from back to front to middle. I think if your seeded in one of the last waves or even in the middle, and can bike, it requires a different mind-set. Getting a clean trip where you can jump in the freight train lane and just put the pedal down is not likely. However, your experience seems to me extraordinary. I haven't encountered that much trouble in one race. Back to the approach. I think you have to strategize your surges and passes. You end up sitting in, going to max effort, settling in, holding back, surging, and refusing to let the man-made obstacles get you off the task at hand. We'd like to TT in the middle or bop but in some situations its just nor possible. I like your approach, though, if the chaos in the back gets you back to your A game, it was a good race after all.

Regards

Chappy