In regards to bike aerobar rule… make bike rules similar to the shoe rule, as in have the single sport main body set the rules. So UCI legal TT bikes
No.
Just no.
(Then we are into the all the dimension restrictions with the associated exemptions for tall people that then turns it into a lottery). I’ve also bought my bike for the next 12 years, so would be the end of my tri career if they introduced this.
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The trouble is that age groupers need to also race on whatever course IM puts out, so the break up dynamics are almost wholly dependent on the draft distance rules.
As I said above on the “pass the whole group” dynamic is that RR allows you to allow for slotting in and it becomes less of an issue.
Even at 12m in a windy location in Kona last year, Thorsten shows us clearly the impact of the main chase pack on the race dynamics - with the main spine being athletes in position 3-20ish and don’t get broken up until the last 20k of the bike.
RR is going to help a ton, but I still think it’s only truly effective if the entire data can be analyzed not just in real time and only if you have an official beside you to hand out a penalty. Again non draft has made no sense in our capacity to officiate the sport. They literally have less than a half dozen officials for what 100 pros on avg (not even talking about AG race) over that real estate. Shocker that so many pros RR data shows them riding so often illegal (and yes RR has also shown pros who can ride it 100% “clean”).
RR just needs something that can be automated. Download quickly in T2 and assess penalties within a few mins.
The logic could be easy to understand, with plausible buffers that make it so most people aren’t affected. Adjust as necessary.
“After so many yo-yos or some amount accumulated duration time in illegal zone, assess penalties at (some conversion rate)”
It doesn’t even have to be 3 or 5 mins as a standard penalty. You could have non-standard penalty times - the athlete could accrue penalties at a 1:1 rate (time in zone), after the min threshold has been reached.
All it needs is something to disincentivize pushing the boundaries when no one is looking, and if it’s automated, most of the poor behaviours will go away.
Just get rid of the drafting rules! They only folks who really complain about needing are the bikers who cannot run. Why is drafting allowed in the swim, since again, most bikers cannot swim.
The sport is slowly dying, not really that hard to see why. This stuff is supposed to be about having fun, not another Type A activity with some trying so say mine is bigger than yours. When was the last time an age grouper paid a house payment with their winnings?
Sorry I made you do the math, but you are a good sport for playing along.
I won’t bore you with the details. It’s a lot of watts, but it is not Herculean. For a guy like Magnus, it’s below threshold. So for a minute or two, no problemo.
The reason I asked you was you, like me, like podcasters are throwing out all the solutions to drafting without actually considering the real data behind it. This is what I am challenging. We are throwing out what we “think” or “heard”, not what “is”.
There have been technological advancements, for example RR and others, that would allow us to understand the facts and come to the best possible solution. It’s not just a draft distance, it’s pass time, it’s slot in rules, it’s drop back times, it’s how it will be enforced. The optimal solution is multi-dimensional.
These are all things that need to be considered. I know some people are taking this seriously and doing something, others are just making noise.
All the noise PTO made about 20m. But they yoyo more than teens in the 90s. They don’t enforce the rules in VERY significant percentages of their courses. And the lead pack have figured out how to play the game. Sam had a good race in Frejus. Good power, decent aero, yet he lost what ? 5 minutes ? Why is that ? Has T100 figured it out ? I’ll challenge their drafting rules are as tight as their shoe rules 
So rather than people offering up solutions without actual science to back it, their time would be better spent lobbying to have the science done. Rather than throw the head ref under the bus and say he’s just set in his ways, maybe ask him what he is actually doing. Sorry, that podcast pissed me off.
As the data we have access to evolves, let’s use it to make the rules better than go by the seat of our pants.
Sorry for the rant. It’s my pet peeve on the current crop of podcasts. Some of the claims are ridiculous. But the rest is fantastic.
And no, 8m is a terrible idea
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The runners want draft legal or a smaller draft zone. Bikers want a 20m draft rule.
The best solution is to double the swim distance and call it a day.
/pink
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They are yo yoing no worse than any other recordable races at current 12m draft zones.
Which is why I say RR as only a “recording device” (unless around a ref where the athlete can then be penalized) is only a half measure. When they can create a policy to enforce any illegal behavior then you’ll suddenly have less illegal time regardless of the draft distance zone.
What I am hearing is that some of you want some UCI all up in your business. 
I say adopt UCI position and hydration rules but allow triathlon bike fit position rules. Hydration in so much as it has to be a hand held bottle.
Regarding draft zones, does the distance need to be fixed? Could Race Ranger allow athletes to stay within a certain distance for a set period, then issue gradual warnings to increase their gap until they’re at a less beneficial distance?
For example, racers could be within 8 meters for 2 minutes, after which they would receive warnings to back off to 10 meters, then 12, 14, 16, and 18 meters.
This approach would encourage either passing or dropping back, creating space for athletes wanting to move up, so they wouldn’t have to pass a large group all at once.
This is part of the structure, ergo not a fairing. If you want to change that interpretation you are opening up a huge can of worms. A tube that isn’t round has excess carbon “added or blended to the structure”. Who’s decision is it when structure ends and fairing begins?
If bars are the concern you could just adopt UCI TT rules.
Innovation is agnostic to the spirit/intent of the rules. If it’s explicitly or defacto allowed then people will find a way to exploit it, that’s just the way sport (and life) tends to go.
I mean, the thing is, obviously the move is going to take less than the time described in the example at a steady X pace, right? So the math gets more complicated, and for a shorter period. And I’d also suggest that there are far fewer athletes capable of making that kind of move and still having, well, the rest of the race.
I think part of T100’s “yo-yoing” is that the smaller fields, combined with shorter distance and longer zones, sees people try more things. But it’s also why I think over the long haul it becomes the WTCS Graduation Series (see Wilde, Hayden as example one) – people used to big, explosive moves and then running dumb fast. It’s not something you can quite see when you get to the full distance.
I will die on the hill of shorter draft zones and making aerobars be, you know, bars again.
The issue with trying to pass a large group definitely needs to be solved. If Sam Long ends up getting a penalty trying to do it, then very few can.
I go back and forth of whether a shorter draft zone or allowing some sort of slotting in with a larger draft zone is the best way to go about it. But I think just about any form of slotting in gets messy real fast.
A third solution would be to just give people a longer time to pass with the same draft distance.
If you really want to put an end to drafting, make EVERY athlete serve a penalty equal to the total amount of ‘illegal time’ they accrued during the bike…Simple as that. As we saw from Challenge Roth, the Race Ranger data is there. (I just don’t know if you make them serve it in a T2 penalty box type thing, or just tack it on to their finish time) It’s absolutely ridiculous that so many people racked up 10+ minutes of illegal time and upwards of 251 YoYos. All the while, this is with a light telling them when they’re getting too close AND knowing the data was going to go public…Seems pretty easy, if someone wants to cheat big, then they serve a big penalty. Play fair and nothing to worry about.
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What about letting riders slot in? They get X seconds to drop back to legal distance, and the rider they passed also has to drop to legal distance behind them. This way riders can leapfrog through the pack without having to make one long push, and it also incentivizes more position shifts in the pack.
One of the problems with the existing drafting rules is that they were drawn up as if there are only two riders in the equation: the lead rider and the passer. When applied to larger groups, it’s a mess (ex. a rider trying to pass only to have the person in front of them pull out and also strat a pass).
Issue is:
Legal chain gang of 4 riders happily at 35kph. New rider rider slots into #2, and so rider #2 has become #3 and so needs to slow down to create the gap. Let’s assume 10m gap in 20s = 2kph speed reduction.
So now either riders 3 and 4 keep pace and slot in ahead of the rider that now has lost 30m and 3 places, or they also have to slow down.
Current rules make more sense in terms of not disturbing other people’s races, indeed I think the drop back rule is the issue. Rider that overtakes has the responsibility to create the gap at the front, and not just roll through using the draft then get found out once in the wind…
And whilst I think Raceranger is a great tool. I think if we change our sport rules to REQUIRE the use of rangeranger then I think we’re moving the sport in the wrong direction for grass roots from complexity, affordability and pure practicality (ie when you don’t have transition/road closures to give time to install ahead of the race).
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I’d go one step more and make non draft racing use draft-legal road bikes.
It would get rid of this arms race and also cure some of the cost / inaccessibility issue of our sport.
In this system, every rider that got passed ends up having to drop back. So if the passing rider went by three riders before slotting in, yes all three would have to drop back 10m (or whatever the legal draft distance is).
Riders that were already behind the rider before he/she decided to pull out and pass wouldn’t have a need to drop back…unless they moved up to close the gap created when the rider pulled out.
But that’s where this doesn’t work, as then what if it’s two riders that are passing, second is legal 10m behind, So then all the rest drop back two places? But what if one doesn’t want to decelerate but to pass the riders they have been legally following? And what if they aren’t exactly 10m back but 15m back, so then they are simply keeping a steady pace to then legally overtake.
Really draft rules are like democracy. They are a dreadful way of providing parity and safety to the bike leg, but they are the best we’ve got.
With all the rules, it’s not how you can write and enforce them to get the intended consequences, it’s how you limit the consequential effects to a level that you can accept.