Anyone else competing?
Thoughts on course and equipment choices (Olympic distance race)?
Looks like things are dead flat, so better to take the TT bike? (or else should I be cynical and predict a draft fest, in which case it might be wiser to take my road bike?)
You can do both, take the tt bike and plan to draft your ass off. Seriously, this may be the only race that has more drafting than Clearwater. You have a slightly better class of athlete competiting, a ton of Euros that are comfortable with a draft format, and 20 years of never enforcing drafting. You have ot amke a decision before the race on what you want to do, because the format is a given, so as we say here, no whining about it afterwards. You can do a Dev and ride your watts as the groups go by, and you will have your legit time, but you will also be at the back of the pack at the awards. Or you can just suck up any anti drafting notions you have and just do the ITU style race and plan accordingly…
At the very least, have a great time in a very foreign country, and soak up all the culture you can. Just call race day a good workout and test the Hungarian goulash and beer…
Thanks for that, some very wise words. It is really unfortunate that a result at AG Worlds can be influenced so much by how the bike leg plays out on race day. I think my disillusionment may push me to do more 70.3 races (draft ILLEGAL). I have just started working full time and can’t realistically put in the training hours to have a serious go at ITU racing (a different lifestyle from when I was a student last year and previously).