and here’s you passing the girl in pink. It difficult to watch people going around that corner… people unclipping the wrong pedal, going too slow, too fast, too much traffic, almost getting run over by an SUV… and we were only there for about a half hour.
That’s the only view I had of Dev when he passed me on the run!
That corner was really busy, there was really no way to avoid drafting/blocking people at some point on that little out and back section.
I think it was a really great bike course though with so much variation but for people trying to win their age group it would be frustrating.
oh that’s funny…I came around the corner and nearly slammed into her back end (pic 1) and then swung way wide (pic 2) to get around without being a nuisance…and Mikey looks way too happy to be actually racing…after all those hills out of T1, I just had my tongue hanging out trying to get ever milliliter of exta Oxygen!
I saw him cross the center line twice. The 2nd time was when we were coming out of the out and back section and turning back onto Brunell. He swung wide and over the center line. The OAT official was right there and followed him for a little bit and then was talking to him. He appeared to be arguing with the official for a while also. I saw him after the race and he was trying to get Mitch Fraser to overturn the officials and let him take an IM spot.
can the race director overturn an official’s decision?
does this depend on whoever is running the race and who is sanctioning/officaiting?
hmm. maybe he just said the wrong thing to the official… i think that can result in a DQ.
No, I don’t think the RD can overturn an official’s decision. Especially if it’s an ‘official’ official, like OAT, or USAT. I was just pointing out what I thought was a very poor attitude from the young man.
A lot is up to the discretion of the official. I know if I was an official, if someone starts arguing, or uses any kind of foul language, they’d get a penalty for anything and everything I could find.
hmm. maybe he just said the wrong thing to the official… i think that can result in a DQ.
I remember hearing over the loadspeakers that crossing the midline of the road would result in an immediate DQ.
That would be in line with section E.1.1. of the rules:
E.1.1 Dangerous Behavior
****Competitors must obey traffic laws unless otherwise directed by an official. This includes not crossing the centerline of the road (OAT Mod.) whether the line is indicated or not. Any competitor who appears to officials to present a danger to themselves or others may be disqualified and removed from the competition.
I think this is where things are a bit grey. I believe that it is perfectly acceptable to have a discussion with the official on course in a civilized manner. Let’s face it, many of the officials don’t have that much racing experience and I’d guess the bulk of the age groupers at the pointy end of the race, actually have more real world experience than some officials that have done 2 races themselves (or zero) and taken a clinic and got certified. Explaining a situation to an official is reasonable. Arguing takes the athlete to the point where they run the risk of a DQ. Officials have to make some pretty quick decisions in a dynamic environment with rules based on tape measures (distances) when they don’t have said tape measures nor do most have stop watches (which they need to determine time in draft zone). Bottom line the officials are there to keep the course safe and the game fair. They won’t always make the right call, because they have to interpret on the fly at high speed. Crossing the yellow line is a no no. Swearing at officials= no. Anyway, not sure what this young guy was complaining about. Where he was in the race, the road should have been relatively clear enough that crossing the yellow line on the out and back even for safety reasons (pass 3 abreast riders with high closing speed) would not be an issue.
The bottom line is that most of the problems go away if you just split the waves up by 5 min and just go youngest to oldest. When officials get fancy and try to interleave M70+, W60+ or W20-49 ahead of any men’s age group below 50 you are going to get a mess on the road. If you just put down the race results after the race, you’ll see the firm evidence of this.
All you need to do is start with Pros, then go sequentially M20-49 in 5 year chunks (this alone will account for 2/3 of the field). Then you could do a 10 min gap and just as easily do a mass start of all the women and M50+ and it would all be self seeding within 500m (likely 1/3 of the field in this group, but they will get spaced apart pretty good in 2K).
Dev
The bottom line is that most of the problems go away if you just split the waves up by 5 min and just go youngest to oldest. When officials get fancy and try to interleave M70+, W60+ or W20-49 ahead of any men’s age group below 50 you are going to get a mess on the road. If you just put down the race results after the race, you’ll see the firm evidence of this.
All you need to do is start with Pros, then go sequentially M20-49 in 5 year chunks (this alone will account for 2/3 of the field). Then you could do a 10 min gap and just as easily do a mass start of all the women and M50+ and it would all be self seeding within 500m (likely 1/3 of the field in this group, but they will get spaced apart pretty good in 2K).
The problem this seeding creates for RDs is that it maximizes the amount of time that the bike course has to be open if you have the slowest groups starting at the end. Only saying that there is no perfect solution because it must be miserable to be a fast cyclist and be stuck starting toward the end of the race.
…well you can start the race at 7 am instead of 8 am. Lots of races do this. I realize that keeping the course open is an issue, but if you start earlier, it does not get in the way of locals and you close at the same time. Volunteers will be available whether it is 5, 6, 7 or 11 am! The race start at St. Croix is 6:30 am! Also, I see no issue with a more aggresive cut off time to close bike courses. These are races, not tours.
I couldn’t hear what the he or the officials were saying, but I assumed that they were discussing the fact that he had crossed the center line twice in the span of about a minute. I thought it was pretty much a no brainer of a call, especially when he did it coming out of the out and back, where there could have been cars coming, etc.
The kid was fast, and certainly didn’t need to take chances with safety or getting DQ’d if he was concerned with getting a IM slot. I was really taken aback when I heard him talking to Mitch about still getting a slot. I heard the discussion, and checked the number on his arm which I remembered from the bike (he was the only person to pass me on the bike), and I had a hard time feeling bad for him.
With his swim (37:28), he is still going to have problems with having to pass a lot of people on the bike.
Seem like good ideas to me.
In my opinion, the one rule which should never be a “grey area” is the yellow line rule. I’m sure as an RD, car/bike collisions due to yellow line infractions are right up there with a swim drowning in terms of their worst nightmare.
No matter how crowded, that turn is not the place to try and make a pass. Touch the breaks and wait till the steady uphill grind out of the turn to make up time.
The yellow line thing drives me crazy in bike racing as well. I’ve done a few Cat. 3 races this spring in ON and no matter how many times the officials say “DO NOT CROSS THE YELLOW LINE” guys continue to do it in order to move up. Only when the start to yank these guys from the race will the problem go away. I’ve heard it’s handled better in the US.
“…and Mikey looks way too happy to be actually racing…”
That’s because my race effectively ended 400m prior to this point. It wasn’t the flat that was the problem, it was the way the valve extender came off on my pump after half-inflating the spare. It was one of those wee little ones (I used 2 in series the outer one came off), and I couldn’t screw it back on so I got to choose between trying to take the spare off and start the whole process again, or ride 45k of hills on a soft tire.
I chose the latter as you can see from inspecting my back wheel in that pic. The whole thing was absurd enough that I just had to laugh which is why I look so “happy”. Plus, I was at my min HR for the race.
So did I make the right choice? Well, considering that my bike split was more than 17min slower than each of the last 2 years (6min on the side of the road)… I’m thinking no. I can say it was pretty wierd to ride the course like that though - flats and non-technical downhills were reasonable but I felt like I was dragging a truck tire up the hills. Plus my technical descents weren’t excactly aggressive.
On the upside, I got to pass people on the run for a change 
I’ve done a few Cat. 3 races this spring in ON and no matter how many times the officials say “DO NOT CROSS THE YELLOW LINE” guys continue to do it in order to move up. Only when the start to yank these guys from the race will the problem go away. I’ve heard it’s handled better in the US.
At the local Rochester club races they have a ZERO tolerance policy to crossing the yellow. Not only does the person who crosses the line get DQ’d but the whole peloton. This has really stopped the number of people from crossing the yellow.
You’re right, and he wasn’t even passing anyone when he crossed the line the 2nd time, he just swung wide to carry speed up the hill.
“…well you can start the race at 7 am instead of 8 am…”
Yeah I was thinking this as well and started to wonder why they don’t do that. Plenty of daylight. Then I remembered that these past couple of years were the exception and that Muskoka can be bloody cold in June. Maybe global warming can help us with that earlier start time.
Sorry to hear Mike. I kind of wondered why you had a spare tire in your back pocket. When I saw the results last night I kind wondered if you had a flat or something.
You can see that your tire is flat in this picture, and the spare on your back…
