Which is why itu was forced to go to DL since it was both the easiest to officiate (no need for officials) and took out any chance of athletes gaming the rules when officials weren’t around; which is where most athletes are on the course, no oversight from officials cus there is 100 pros and 5 officials so no duh it was impossible ask (which is where race appeals were taking hours to work through post race). Which is why RR with its capabilities is such a fascinating product. For all intent purposes it can essentially self automate penalties/rider behavior data.
IE- RR can allow you to write the rules and actually enforce the rules you want enforced vs the previous 50 years of it being more “honor system” that your only at fault if your caught by on course official. Golf works on the honor system as that tradition/value is built into the game from day 1. Tri we probably wanted it to be that way, but we never really allowed self inflicted penalties, it was always only a penalty if your caught basically.
The point I am poorly making is we say “the solution to the problem is X” and we don’t back any of that with actual data. If we are going to make a change, doit it once, based on actual data.
People say “there is 30 watts saving sitting 12m back”. That is untrue.
“There is no benefit at 20m”. That is untrue.
“Herculean effort to pass”, questionable.
…
But take even one step back. What is the outcome we want ? Maybe it’s DL
IM, PTO, WT and pro represenation should sit down, figure out what they want, then hand it to people that can figure out the best implementation based on fact, not old wives’ tales.
I don’t know that having people arrive in T2 closer together would make for better racing. Doesn’t it just mean the runners would always win, like WTCS? I like it when someone with a strong S/B goes for broke, builds a gap, and tries to hang on against the uber runners behind them. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. LCB, Knibb, Bogen, Learmonth, Laidlow—they’ve been passed and they’ve held on for a win/ podium. It’s fun to watch.
But what if wives tales information is what is driving each of those groups in thinking their idea is better than the other, and thus that is what is keeping them from changing. Your not going to get them to come together and group think it for the overall good of the sport, are you at that point?
If one group’s “wants” are different than the next group’s wants, whether it’s driven by wives tales data or real data, it’s almost irrelevant at that point; that’s their pov that is driving what they want/need. I think that’s currently where we are at, are we not with some of the discussion points within these groups (draft zone wants/implementation being biggest point of contention imo).
If you allowed slotting in and allowed people to drop back, someone could draft a foot or two behind someone and then drop back once they absolutely had to. You could try and say you can slot in but you can’t get this close to the person in front of you once you’ve slotted in, but that’s where it starts to get messy. It would put a pretty substantial burden on the ref to see all of the possible violations going on at once when you have that kind of system. Plus a lot for athletes to figure out what’s going on.
I do agree with this. T100 or ironman should do a one off an experimental race
Obviously it would be phased. First start with pros, then bikes for amatures newer than the year the rulevis set. If anything that should help resale and up keep in used bike world
An interactive model-based calculator of cycling power vs. speed makes it to about 10-11% more power needed for those 9.5k/12.5 minutes overtaking, with some guesstimates on reasonable, relevant values. (10-11% more than for the rider at the front of those 30, bigger difference compared to those in “the pack”).
Must be he Nice bike from 2023. His Kona bike was black with gold accents and he had the fully custom aerobars with the cooling material sewed into the pads with the copper underlay for heat dissipation.
