I raced a tri in Palm Springs this morning, first of the year. Since our pool has been closed I gave up 3-4 minutes to the fast swimmers in 500 meters and thus started the ride with plenty of people to pass. I rolled through onesies and twosies for 6-7 miles before spending about 10 minutes trying to catch a pack of about six riders that were only about 100 meters in front of me.
Now, I resolve every race not to let drafting bug me, that I will just do my own race, but of course I lost my mind again and when I finally caught and passed them, I yelled at them as I went on by. Of course, the effort of yelling “Why not just form a paceline” and other stuff (no obscenities), as well as riding at 350 watts to get by them, gassed me and they rolled up on me in about three minutes.
That’s how it went for the rest of the race. Back and forth. One guy in a Navy uniform even had the nerve to say, “Hey Devil Dog (a Marine nickname), you need to chill out” as he rolled by in his paceline. I ended up rolling into transition in the middle of the string, which of course broke up in time to near the finish. Fortunately a fast transition left them all behind, but it still irritated me.
I swear every time this happens it will be the last, but I never hold to it. Drafting always turns me into a raving lunatic.
Yeah, me too. Always makes me get angry and pedal too hard when I see it. Saturday at Mulletman sprint on beach at Florida/Alabama line, two guys passed me. The second guy was 5 feet behind the first and had been for a while. As he passed I couldn’t help but say something, fortunately, the words that came out of my mouth with a smile were reasonable: “Good morning, mind if I draft with you guys?” The drafter looked at me and laughed out loud, but stopped drafting. In a mile, I passed them both, never to see them again (victims of poor pacing). Later passed a number of drafters from waves in front of me, but they were going so slow into a headwind that I was happy they could draft to diminsh their suffering as they were BOP from waves in front of me.
It makes me mad to see this. But when I think about yelling at them, the thought that keeps me from doing it is “They don’t care what I think so why even make the effort”.
I was actually in the same race and witnessed the drafting Chad was talking about. This is the first time drafting has ever really bothered me (in about 30 races), because I usually only see athletes who are not in contention for a high placing doing the drafting. Witnessing the drafting definitely rubbed me the wrong way and actually gave me a boost of adrenaline that allowed me to eventually past those who were breaking the rules. As I went by I said something like, “Come on guys, 3 bike lengths.” It seemed to do some good because it seems that one guy dropped off almost immediately and another started following a more more respectable distance. I see no problems with reminding people of the rules. They will usually stop. I guess it is just important to do it in a respectable manner. This is all just for fun anyway.
Most of the time it doesn’t bother me because I’m never in contention for anything so it’s usually a “race against myself”. Normally I either “pass the pack”, which is a rarity, or the pack “passes me”. Either way their usually “outa sight outa mind” in a few minutes.
The only time I got pissed was when one guy was actually “wheel hopping” and was staying at about my speed by “wheel hopping”. Seemed like no matter what I did this guy hung around drafting various people around me or passing me for about 20 miles. A couple of times jumping on my wheel as I passed his “current ride”
To my glee this individual recieved 12 minutes of penalties. Not that the time mattered as much as the “scarlet letter” factor.
Since then I haven’t really cared…but then again that was my last race of last year so I guess we’ll see this year.