We don’t need comments for this pack in IMMoo…
Some more…
.
I wonder how many of the athletes in these pictures will feel good about heir finish results knowing that they cheated blatantly. The “too crowded to avoid it” excuse is bullshit as far as I’m concerned. Last year in Florida I dropped back out of the pack every time I got caught. You don’t have to draft if you don’t want to. I’ve never ridden the IM Moo course but if any of the riders pictured decided to throw in a good solid surge they could get away for a while at least. That is what I did repeatedly in Florida last year. You’ll probably see the pack again though since I opened up 4 minutes on one group that caught me last year and then they all came by me again an hour later.
I will point something out here.
I did Moo the first year and I suck as a cyclist. What happens if you are anything but outstanding on that course is that because it is an out and back with 2 loops, the loops become ridiculously crowded.
Now I just dropped back, it was no skin off my nose, I just wanted to finish but if I had been trying to ride in the 6 hour range it would have been murder unless I got out of the water in the high 50’s.
What happens if you get out at 1.15 but are a 6 hour biker is that you end up trying to ride through half the field, thats a 1000 people over 100 miles (ball park) or 10 people / mile.
In reality it becomes way more condensed than that because the 1000 people are spread out over only 5-10 miles (the difference of a 1 hour swim to a 1.15 at 3 min’s a mile is 5 miles). If you have a 1000 people spread out over 5 miles all riding at varying speeds this is what you end up with.
200 people per mile all moving forwards and backwards at varying paces, you are inevitably going to end up with packs, intentional or otherwise especially when you are all going to be on the 2 loops at the same time and have people on lap 2 lapping those on lap 1.
Yup. Huge problem. They need to hand out a million penalties. But, of course, it won’t happen.
I don’t know the circumstances of the photo, and neither does anyone else except Luiz, assuming he took the shots. But I can tell you that the first ten miles of IMLP was like that, and it wasn’t people intenitonally drafting. It was 1500 people trying to get out on the race course at the same time. I don’t approve of drafting, but it’s pretty hard to obey the USAT drafting rules at the bike start unless you’re willing to stand down for about 45 minutes. (I’m assuming that you didn’t swim sub-1:00, because you wouldn’t be in this group if you had.)
Before we all jump on the bandwagon and call these guys drafting scumbags, let’s find out if it wasn’t that the course was crowded for the bike start. Then, if this was a pack riding together at 70 miles, we can call them drafting scumbags.
That looks an awful lot like the scene at my driveway during IMCDA.
I’m not defending drafting, but I don’t see how it’s possible to avoid being caught in a crowd while climbing a hill, for example.
I agree 100%. I think it is impossible to avoid it. If I were there, I know I’d be in the middle of it.
How would I feel after I finished knowing how much drafting I did. Not really as good as I would feel if I knew I didn’t draft.
I’m racing my first IMNA event next spring - Ironman Arizona - and I’m hoping to avoid being caught up in the pack/drafting problems. I worry that I’ll still be swept up by the packs. How will a 55-60min swim set someone up to avoid the packs?
Thanks
It all depends.
If you can swim 55 and ride 6, you’ll avoid most of the ball ache. You swim 50 ride 70 you’ll get swamped.
Swim 1.15 and ride 5.45, think Steve Larsen.
You will avoid some problems by swimming that fast.
I was in that situation at placid and that was the hard part of the bike: constantly slowing down so I am not cheating… but it’s hard, I got caught in a pack and was thinking about how to get out… shouldn’t be that way… I should be able to race without slowing down… I didn’t cheat… but am a good climber and packs were inevitable… I agree that something needs to be done for that. It is very frustrating…
I totally agree with Allan in his first post. I too rode Florida in 2002 in the same fashion and was passed by pack after pack. I refused to draft and it cost me at least 30 min.
The real questions is when is something going to be done about it? While I am not a huge fan of IMNA- I did enjoy most of IMFL!- this is more of a USAT problem. Are we a draft-legal sport or not? Are we all playing under the same rules or not?
I will throw out my 2-cents worth of a solution:
Swim safety has always been my number one concern so lets wrap this all together. If we all went to the time-trial starts- ala MIM every 3-seconds- the bike course would be more spread out and the swim course would be MUCH safer. Even in a big event like IMMO you could organize 3-4 ‘start block’ style point and have everyone in the water by 7:35am. Remember we still have chips on. And, this would make the bike course more spread out. Now, drafting is drafting. I am not saying there isn’t room to improve the way we monitor the drafting on the course and am still open to suggestion.
Sorry for the rant, it must be close to dinner time.
Steve
Don’t you think a million penalties for a situation beyond the rider’s ability to control is a bit harsh?
Are wave starts the only way to prevent this problem, at least in the early miles?
The real questions is when is something going to be done about it? While I am not a huge fan of IMNA- I did enjoy most of IMFL!- this is more of a USAT problem. Are we a draft-legal sport or not? Are we all playing under the same rules or not?<<
I would say it’s an IMNA problem. They aren’t going to go to wave starts (I’d bet money) and they aren’t going to cut down on the number of entrants (see each race where it’s announced “And this is the biggest swim start EVER!”) Sure, it would be nice to have a few hundred draft marshals out on the course, but that’s not going to happen either. I think the problem is two-fold, first you have too damned many people on the course and innocent people are either getting caught up or being screwed by losing time trying to stay legal. Second, there ~are~ some people who are @#$&$(#$*#$ scumbag wheel suckers. Penalizing the first group isn’t right. Knee-capping the second group is one idea.
My questions:
-
How many people who complain about the drafting in the IMNA races still run to sign up for them? If you take your checkbook/credit card someplace else, that will make more of a statement. And, let IMNA (nicely) know why you don’t want to do their races until changes are made.
-
How many people volunteer their time by becoming an official and work a race or two each season? I know out here, the same group of folks work all the races (thanks Eric, Steve, Gerjon, Ruth especially). Or, volunteer in any capacity?
clm
From my view somewhere in the back half of the field, IMCDA04 was pretty clean. You’re right about people bunching up a bit on the hill by your house and that is hard to avoid. I think there were a few turns leading to the hill that tend to cluster people up a bit as well. Funny thing is the decent after those two climbs by your house seemed to spread people out again probably because they are pretty twisty.
There is negligible advantage being closer than 3 bike lengths behind up a hill or around a sharp low speed turn anyway. What really gets me is seeing big packs of riders hammering away on the flats wheel to wheel. The worst I’ve seen in my massive four years of tri was the Cali 1/2 IM in 02 and that was mostly fixed by the revised bike course the next year.
It looks like the pack in the first picture is going up some kind of hill. In the second picture it looks like they are all sitting up and braking around the turn so hopefully they’ll spread out. For packs on the flats there is no excuse.
Paul
Yes, I would have to agree that it looks like a disgrace, but hard to fix. I too feel that this is a product of way to many people and riding on a fairly technical course. I think many out there feel like they can climb hills, but when it comes down to it, they really can’t and it really bottlenecks and creates huge packs. From what I have seen, forget my trek tt for that race. I would be better using my 5200, and no clip ons. Looks like the TDF. I think to truly ease the pack problem, close the road and them ride all over the road. I know when I did the ride across Iowa(ragbrai) last year, our group got caught in the main field when we did the loop section for the 110 mile route. On any given day they have 10,000 people riding and that was terrible. Now condense it into one lane, it is not possible. I feel for these people. Blame the race organizers, not the racers. In my instance, we barely found enough room on our ride, and I can’t imagine what it would be like had we been racing. I think had everyone in these photos and on the course followed all the rules to the ‘T’, you could easily add 2 more hours in time to 3/4’s of the field.
IMFL '03 was the same way.
The milion penalties should be given to IMNA. As in $.
If USTA had any cujones, they’d act like they were the governing body of our sport and NOT the B**** for IMNA.
Change will come, but what will the price be and who will pay it?
-Robert
If anyone drafts you they’ve got illegal motorized equipment and are presumptively taking drugs.
But, be sure to take a shower race day 'cause just being downwind from an unwashed Gaul can kill more people than did Hurricane Camille.
-Robert
I was just looking at the results and I’ve come to the conclusion that for many of the people that are in an ironman to just finish it the drafting is probably not as big a deal. 200th place at IM Moo was 11:16 and the guy placed 21st in the AG so well off any Hawaii slot. I would suppose that there are a few AG (I noticed 2nd in women’s 25-29 is in this time range) where being able to draft would be an asset but I think that if you concentrated the marshalls near the top 250 - 300 places (and have them really crack down on the cheaters) that they would have to spread out and the differences in abilities would enable more space. You would also take away the ability to draft your way to a Kona spot or a podium finish. Hopefully, the spacing at the front would trickle on down so that riders further back wouldn’t follow suit and pack up. When a group of riders who are cruising along a 7-8 hour bike pace all hit a hill and get bunched up it doesn’t really impact the race as a whole but does have some impact on an individual’s sense of accomplishment. My sense is that at this pace the draft packs might actually be more of a pain than an assistance to the riders that get stuck in them.
I had this discussion with an athlete today reading about how many started … he is now worried about that many people at IMCDA next year! The majority of people are coming back from these races talking about getting beat up on the swim & huge drafting issues. Today & IMWisco you have 2500 (yeah 2500) signed up & almost 2200 start? Same thing will happen in Florida … that will be a trip to see the athletes lined up wheel to wheel for about 60 miles on the flat roads there. These races use to fill up & start 1800 people … “only 1800”…now they are starting 2200! My discussion/question today was: What do we do? What can we do? Is this the amount of people we want mass starting in our races? Is it safe to have this amount of people?
I’m really not sure … would love to hear what everyone REALLY feels!