Yesterday I volunteered at the Philly Tri, carted water (about 1500 gallons) and ended up as a bike marshall. I have a tremendous amount of respect for race directors and anyone who works an event. I really had no idea of all the things that need to be done to put on a race. Some of the people there had gone without sleep for two days.
The stuff I seen -
I was posted at the corner of Kelly Drive and Sedgley, the bottom of Lemon Hill. As I said, I was wearing a red cap. The first rider came whizzing by about 40 minutes into the race, with a motorcycle escort. About 5 minutes later, two guys cmae by, aboout 15 feet apart. I later heard the winner was complaining about them drafting, but I think the hills broke up the packs pretty good. I was really surprised that it wasn’t more crowded. The only two bad incidents I saw were about an hour in, a group of roadies decided to ride right into the course. I was yelling at them, about half stopped, but about 15 jerks just rode right into the race like they owned the road.
A little later, two guys came down the hill into the turn, one yelled “on your left”, and the other guy promptly cut him off into the corner. close, but no wreck.
Observations :
A lot of Bianchis, Treks, and Elite bikes. Most of the discs appeared to Zipps (cool noise - whoosh. No tri spokes that I could see. This suprised me a lot.
A huge amount of people with aero bars, riding on the base bars or hoods - what’s the point of having areobars? Send them to Chip!
Aero postion - most people really have horribly form/fit. Most of them were almost sitting upright, with the bars pointed WAAY up. I saw one guy decked out in an Orca one piece race suit, riding a nice looking Guru, with his hands on the elbow pads. When your position is “correct” you do look very fast. Most people looked all squished on their bikes.
I saw a woman lesurely pedaling, with a large basket up front. I was about to shoo her of the course when I saw her race number.
Many pople looked very intense, many more had huge smiles as they rode by. A lot of people said thanks as they rode by.
After about three hours, things slowed way down. A woman came down the hill, really struggling. I jogged toward her and as I came near her, I said “Ready? I’ll race you!” and started running alongside. She laughed and started pedaling faster, yelled “Thank You,”, with a big smile.
a guy rode up to me, dismounted, and asked me how to put his chain back on.
I spent a lot of time yelling “LEFT TURN!” and “GO GO GO”
Indoor plumbing is nice.
a person walked up to me and asked if this was the Ironman, and where would they run the marathon. He was very upse when I told him it was not an Ironman.
I rode back to the finish and yelled ecouragement to the runners who seemed to need it.
As I was walking around the finish area, I heard a person say, "that one there really helped me by cheering me on.
A great morning, overall.