Draft boxes still legal?

Triathlon Forum
1

Are these draft boxes still legal in Ironman and Challenge Roth races?

2

Unless there’s some other drama on the hydration front (please, for the love of God, I don’t want to write about that anymore…), those are specifically carved out of the hydration rules and are legal.

3

The ‘final’ hydration WT doc (June 2025) gave an exception to such ‘boxes’ (which are not draft boxes btw, please clean your mouth out) said (edited to relevant text):

Placement Of Rear Mounted Equipment – All attached holders, containers, bottle holders, etc., must fit completely into an imaginary frame [of] 30x30cm. Bottles may protrude beyond this area.

Exception For Rear Mounted Equipment –
[snip]
– Rear mounted storage boxes that are able to contain tubes, CO2, tire levers, and other tools necessary for basic maintenance.

These containers, which have to be able to contain ‘stuff’ and cannot contain hydration, as I read it, are ‘not illegal’.
We can expect revised rules from both World Tri (v soon) and Ironman (later this month in time for New Zealand). I assume the hydration guidelines ‘interpretation’ will be integrated.

4

The draft box on my 2018 speed concept is requesting your home address so it can sue!

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5

Thanks for the clarification. My “seat post mounted rear facing storage box” appreciates it. :rofl:

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6

Trek literally calls them draft storage boxes.

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7

That’s your benchmark for correct terminology?
Ooh good: someone bit.
WHY do they call them “draft” storage boxes? We don’t put drafts in them.
“Aero” storage boxes, maybe.
This is the sort of sloppy language which helped Teutons (DTU) justify banning them in the early iterations of the ‘fairings’ interpretation guidance.

8

I really could care less what they are called. Just providing some perspective on why some may reference draft boxes. I’m pretty sure trek was the first mfg to build one as part of their bike design back in 2011 with the original speed concept.

Not sure why it bugs you that much they called it that. Though I agree with you that it’s a silly term when you look at it now and a bit outdated. But I think it’s pretty low on the priority list of things to get worked up about. Especially since the recent speed concept doesn’t even have one. I believe other msg’s like qr call them storage boxes or some other term.

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9

Was mostly a (for you, failed) attempt at humour, given thread title:
"(which are not draft boxes btw, please clean your mouth out)"
Excuse the care less ‘chat’; it doesn’t “bug” me and of course there are higher pri items which others get “worried about”.
For several spring months these ‘draft boxes’ were illegal: in the DTU orbit, before sanity prevailed.

10

The DTU orbit is where I was most concerned since I’m headed to Roth this year. I don’t want to get over there and find out that they were still an outlier on the subject of “seat post mounted rear facing storage boxes”.

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11

Now now, unless the iteration was aerodynamicly shaped I think you’d need to call it “interpretation guidance on fairings”. :roll_eyes: :face_with_bags_under_eyes:

I think the term draft storage box is defensible, however, if we simply say it’s because it’s a storage box in the draft area behind the rider.

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12

I’ve added a signature to honor your excellent attempt at humor.

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