What I would be for is enlisting the help of a roadie team, college cycling club, or other roadie organization that we could train and turn into race marshals.
Put them out on the course at various intervals and have them ride along side of us.
They wouldn’t pose the hazard that these motorcycles pose.
They’d blend in and catch more drafters.
Probably could recruit more marshalls this way or supplement the motorbike crowd.
There’s an incentive for them to come out…they get their training in…and help us at the same time.
Been there, done that. As president of the former Flying Tigers Cycling Team, we marshalled a local duathlon (The War at the Shore) for a number of years. It was quite fun hammering up to a racer perilously close to drafting and yelling at them. Since we could ease up later, we were always able to catch even the fastest racer. Great interval training, to boot.
Nobody would draft of us, to be sure. For one thing, we’d go fast, then slow. For another, the drafter would be busted in an instant.
The problem with this proposal is the difficulty in finding a cycling team that has both no attitude towards tri-geeks and no racing that day.
Would these guys be USAT officials, or just a bunch of roadies with nothing better to do on a Sunday morning? Race marshals need to exude a certain level of professionalism and authority. Are you throwing real referees at the problem? Or just throwing more warm bodies at it?
Need to shame them. Something along the lines of a big scarlet “D” on their backs. Or shoot them with a bright orange paint ball. This way during the rest of the race and after the race everyone will see them and know their disgrace.
Last year, Muskoka Long Course seemed to have marshalls on cycles. I remember slowing at the base of a hill and having two guys pass me. The second guy very clearly indicated he was a marshall and pulled over the lead guy.
Just before the marshall pulled the guy over, I puzzled a why a rider would have a jacket loosely stuffed (i.e. non-aero) in a jersey pocket.
I recounted this story to a guy at our pool. He laughed. Turns out he was one of the marshalls at last year’s race. Small world.
To be honest, I put this out there mostly in jest. Just venting. But I do think that these people who were drafting at the Camp Pendle Du would have cheated if there were 100 competitors or 1000. They just had that attitude. Hell when I yelled at them during the race they just laughed at me, they clearly didn’t give a shit.
The best revenge is to train so hard that they can’t afford to suck your wheel for fear of blowing to pieces!
Actually, they weren’t drafting off of me. They passed me…I yelled at them…then I got pissed and surged past them…they overtook me again laughing and joking (my bad, I should have kept my cool). The sad thing is, with as big a group as they had, they should have blown me away. I literally sat up and rode no-handed for a while, I was so disgusted, and I still had to soft pedal so as not to get in their draft zone. But the group was a little too big for me to try to pass again, and with only a couple of miles left, I figured I’d save some oomph for the final run.
They already do this at races in Ontario. A friend of mine who does it told me that he busted more that one guy for drafting off of him in his first race as a marshall.
I second shooting the bastards with the paint gun! Also, make all entry payments by credit card only! When the orange paint ball bastard comes in to T2 charge is credit card another $500 and I will guarantee that he/she will not draft again!
I have always preferred the extra sticky gatorade over the shoulder trick. I nice fresh bottle and a little upwards squeeze and the offending person is trying to explain to his buddies why he has a head full of orange gatorade.
Hows this for a slowtwitch fundraiser. We print jersey that say “Smile, your on the draft cam” and we all stick a used co2 painted black on the side of our helmets. The money raised goes to pay for more draft marshalls…actually the paintball idea sound like more fun.