I had the opportunity to see the elite NYC tri race and I came away with the realization that we age groupers are money spending suckers.
The draft legal racing setup is sooo much simpler. The ITU bikes were all very nice, shallow angle road frames.
The deepest dish wheel seemed to be 58mm and many of the bikes had standard spokes.About 2/3 of the bikes had shorty bars, the others had no aerobars. So, ITU bike setup was very simple. No agonizing over the latest deep dish vs. disc wheel. No need to worry about the virtues of the one piece vs clip on aerobar, not to mention which aerobar innovation is the lowest,fastest, most adjustable etc. Obviously, aerodrink systems weren’t needed. BTW 95% of the bikes went with 2 water bottles 1 each on down and seat tubes with 2 gu gels taped to the top tube.
Why will draft legal racing never be common in the uS? $ talks and the ITU crowd aint spending.
Its us, the age groupers who are spending the $ on the latest aero tech in order to keep up
with the joneses (and who knows if the joneses are faster than the smiths?). My thinking is that draft legal racing would dry up the $ pool for the aero equipment makers. So. they will sponsor/work with the USAT to make sure draft legal racing never happens.
Not that this is a bad thing I love my triathlon bike, but it would be nice to have more $ to spend on races. Not to mention time wasted thinking about which equipment will give me a 4-6 second advantage over a 40k course.
ITU racers have a simple thing going.
Yea, ITU bikes are simpler, why, simply because 95% of the pro’s don’t make any money so we can’t afford all of the overpriced, overhyped stuff that AG’ers will dole out money for. Want proof, ask USAT to a demographic study for ag’ers vs pros. I know on USAT there is a demo study that says triathlete household income is around 90k i think, I am going to take a stab and say that for pros it is around 15-20k, subtract out rent, food, and the rest goes to triathlon-travel, entry fee, coaching, pool membership, then we ask our parents for a loan to just to make it by and try to convince them that we need a new bike since the one your on is used and 7-8 yrs old. I know now I am just bitching and complaining but hey I love the sport and am living out a dream. Besides i love that fact that I out bike 99% of the agegroupers on a bike that is “sub standard” to the current technology and what they are riding. As has been said a million times, its not about the bike its about the engine. I will work on the engine of a car before I get a carbon fiber hood and a spoiler.
I do not know how anyone can say that if drafting were legal on the bike, the race would get boring. No way. There would be much more fun for by the spectators and racers. One of the gripes are age groupers probably do not like to swim. So, if you are a slow swimmer, than drafting would kill you on the bike. So, having drafting legal as a racer I see that I would have to go harder in the swim. I would then have to stay more focused on the bike and never let up since if I lost the pack, I would be done. And, then I would run harder trying to make up any time. It would make the racer much much less “boring” as a racer!!