Should do yeah, easily get popped and get the fine.
But it’s only five foot outside, it’s only one epo cycle.
Either have rules and follow them or don’t take part in sport.
2.01 (j) Not dispose of trash or equipment on the course except at aid stations or other designated trash-disposal points. Intentional or careless littering will result in a time penalty or disqualification;
3.01 (b) Race Referees will notify athletes of a rule violation by showing the athlete a colored card in combination with a verbal directive. Penalty card colors and their associated penalty are as follows:
- Yellow (IM) 60 secs
- Blue (IM) 3 mins
- Red DSQ
3.02 (b) Race Referees are not required to give athletes a warning before issuing a penalty;
3.02 (e) Run-course time penalties will be served at the point of the rule violation, under instructions from a Race Referee (there are no PTs on the run course);
3.02 (f) A blue card will be used for drafting violations and intentional littering, and a yellow card will be used for certain other rule infringements;
(but elsewhere careless littering is specified as a ‘blue’)
6.01 (f) Athletes shall not dispose of trash or equipment (including, but not limited to, water bottles, gel/bar wrappers, broken bike parts, clothing items, etc.), on the course except at aid stations or other designated trash-disposal points. Intentional or careless littering will result in a 2:00 or 3:00 Minute Time Penalty (as applicable [70.3/IM]) or disqualification.
Ok so is this new or has there always not been penalty tents on the run? I swear I’ve seen them in the recent past but maybe it’s the Mandela effect in full force.
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IM has been run penalty served at the foul for a bit.
T100 has penalty tents for the run, typically around transition.
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Not sure how I ended up in this thread, I wasn’t even in Frankfurt! But hey, here we are.
To answer your question: the wider bar setup is simply to suit my broader shoulders and allow for a more comfortable elbow position. I know, I know, cue the sceptics calling BS. I’ll save us all a debate and just wish you a great day instead 
For those genuinely curious: if you scaled elbow width proportionally to shoulder width, you’d find my setup is actually in line with the “less broad” athletes. Aero-wise, no difference at all between narrow and wide for me, I even covered how there is not much difference to my front end between various setups and positions in a YouTube video here:
The real benefit for me is comfort. A wider position just feels better to hold for long durations. And the mono bar is slightly more forgiving than dual bars. It gives me room to shift around a bit, and yeah, it pairs nicely with the bottle setup too which is admittedly an aero benefit but just about every pro out there has that setup since they banned down the suit bladders.
Hope that clears things up!
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Your bar set up was part of a larger discussion regarding the ban on rear hydration and tool boxes on the back of bikes. Many of us felt that rule was absurd, and has since been modified, and that this new generation of monobar extensions were more in violation of the fairing rule than a rear toolbox. You are well within the current rules, fair play, although it does seem to be pushing that rule to it’s maximum.
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Adding to Bryan’s comments, there is a general discussion, with input from some recent front page articles, on wether these monobars are fairings or not.
There is an impression some are giving that these bars are more aero, which as you discovered they are not. They can be, they can also be slower.
As you discovered, fit and comfort come first. You had the brilliance to dial in your shoulder/head position before committing to the monobar which allows 0 configurability : those elbows are locked into place. No widening to get head down. So if you are going to do it, you did it right. Many don’t.
I hope comments here are not perceived as criticism of your choices. You obviously did things right. .
PS : love your head position 
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Thanks! I first went down that road in 2018 and have been tweaking ever since. It’s always been a balancing act of aero vs. comfort. Sure, for a 10-mile TT you can grit your teeth and sacrifice comfort, but for 112 miles and then a jog, you need something a bit more forgiving.
We dabbled with a mono setup back in 2021 and again in 2023. Not faster.
Then came the ban on down the suit bladders, and the bottle setup evolved. So we gave mono another look. This time, with a proper 3D-printed mould from my sponsor + bottle configuration. Turns out marginally faster with the bottles, slightly slower without. So, situational gains.
Without giving too much detail, another rider on the same bike as me hasn’t adopted this setup, which just goes to show how personal the comfort/aero equation really is.
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A bit of a false equivalence to suggest a cup beyond the sign is the same as “just a little EPO.” There are certainly rules more strict than others. Littering is only a penalty when intentional or careless - there’s a gray area already baked into the rule. I would suggest that a reasonable observer would not find Ditlev’s actions reach the level of careless or intentional. This was a total nothingburger.
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It does make me sorta laugh at the notion that within the parameters of aid stations at races like that, someone can’t dispose of their litter within the proper time/place. That we need a “gray zone” for that seems a bit silly with the length of aid stations at IM events. So it can kinda go both ways, but I get it, he wasn’t “intentionally” trying to litter, he just missed it by what a few paces.
What do we tell people on the bike on aid stations- slow down enough to make sure you can get the bottle replacement, you aren’t riding through there at max effort. So if you need to “slow down” to make sure you pour all the water on your head or take ice etc, to dispose of your trash by the zone, that’s what you need to do.
If we call this a silly penalty it is as silly to not make the litter zone by the athlete as well. The “discretion” I’d have likely used is to simply advise the athlete to get it disposed of quicker…the same way TO’s out on the bike “advise” athletes to make sure they aren’t drafting or not encrouch, we’ve seen that many times TO’s communicate to athletes without actual going to a penalty (discretion).
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the aid stations in total are quite long, but if you grab some ice at the last desk and the “end” sign comes right after it that might be too short to put the ice properly into your suit or wherever you would want it without spilling most of it and dispose off the cup before the sign. My local Frankfurt area Tri Club we run an aid station on the run course every year at IM Frankfurt, this year there was some discussion with a ref and some age group athletes who dropped their cups a bit after the sign while walking late in the race. One guy of our aid station witnessed that and thought it was pretty ridiculous, then took the “end” sign and carried it 20 meters further down the race course. Ref stunned, athletes snickering, problem solved. The aid station incl. signs are set up arbitrarily by the aid station crew, there is no instruction that I’d be aware of like how much distance between last desk of the station and the end sign. So why not give some more wiggle room.
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I would like to meet this Real Man of Genius.
Perfect problem solving.
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Well it depends, if you don’t slow down enough to get the aid you are taking, then yes it is “too short”. But guess what you do, just like we advise athletes on the bike feed zones…slow the F down. If your running to fast/quick to take the aid and dispose of it within the zone that the race has defined, you simply slow down. Look how many steps he took once he took the ice before the line, it wasn’t as if he took the ice and 1 step later the “end” of the aid station was there. He had more time than what is being suggesting.
slowing down a bit - fine
forcing athletes to substantially slow down or even stop … contradicts the purpose of a race a bit too much for my liking. Esp. if it can be easily remedied by setting up the end sign a bit more thoughtfully
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Sure but if it works for 2980 out of 3000 athletes according to your example, it’s not really that complicated. Again they didn’t set it up where it was directly after the ice. You had time/space. How you make that work will be up to each athlete. The same way we apply pretty much every other rule in the rulebook. So again this should again be a “hey don’t do that again” discretion type of call, but I’m just not buying that the aid stations are setup in a way that they can’t NOT litter.
By default if you extend the line (20m like your Real Men of Genius example) aren’t you just going to always run into this issue because people will then be able to go faster as they have more time, so then it just becomes someone or some dump it still past the line? So do you just essentially make the line so arbitrary out of the way, you can’t have this issue?
I know I am derailing the conversation and we may never solve if a paper cup three inches after the sign is bad for the sport…but I have to ask…
Was your head position something that came naturally, or did you have to work it ?
i have to say this is one of the best posts i have read in a while !!! kudos
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I haven’t seen a good explainer of what rule Lange broke in T1 at Frankfurt, something about not removing his swim skin? I’d never heard of a penalty given over that. What am I missing?
When did he have to serve that penalty? I was listening to the TTH podcast, and they seemed to suggest the “group” never even really tried to drop Lange, he sorta had a momentary brief point where he lost contact from almost inattentiveness not some tactical move to drop him (like over half way I think?), and then poof…off the group. This was one race I found out there were rules and rules enforcement I’d never seen. I’ve actually never seen an on the run penalty enforced before. Had no clue you just stop at the spot the ref tells you to in real time. I guess the only real rules you can break are outside assistance and/or littering, so it’s so rarely called or atleast on broadcast. I “learned something new” this weekend.
The PTN podcast boys this morning also mentioned the ice being at the end of the station and suggesting in a hot race like this, it should have been at the start to allow people to do whatever they intend to do with ice.