Why do folks keep saying AG racing with drafting allowed would be unsafe?

Triathlon Forum
23

How do you explain the plethora of cyclist v cyclist accidents at Clearwater? While your small Golden State race works, as you claim it has been safe in the past, it did not work in Clearwater.

I personally saw a major wreck when I was coming back on the out and back portion on the Campbell Causeway. It looked like a crash in the TDF. Multiple people went down, everyone behind had to stop, and nobdy stayed to help out.

I did not see the other wrecks; however, pretty much everyone I talked to saw at least one. So your theory doesn’t work across the board. Especially considering this was not a technical course at all. This was very straight and very flat, with a couple of turns in there. Accidents still happened. I am personally going to stay away from the races where they essentially permit drafting. I see no reason to return to Clearwater until they get it fixed or until I can get my run fast enough to race pro, where it was a fair race.

With that being said (regarding the pro race), if the race is more popular in the pro ranks next year, then expect there to be a huge group rolling into T2 together, and expect it to be much worse than Kona has ever seen, as there are no hills to create any separation. The best runners will win this race. It would be sweet to see a the World Championships rotated around the various 70. courses.

Ralphs would be a pretty sweet venue, especially considering the lumps on the second half of the run.
St. Croix would be sick
Timberman
Buffalo Springs has some legit hills
The Ensenada Mexio 70.3 race looks to be a really really hard course.
Vineman

Those are just a few in North America. I don’t understand the need to sign a 5 year agreement. I can see where Clearwater might want multiple years, but they could still have multiple years, just don’t host the Championship race there every year. If the contract says they must have a race, then have a race but make it a normal 70.3 race, just another qualifier for the Champ race somewhere else…

24

I am not suggesting that all races could do this. But, what percentage of the races are these HUGE events? Very small I would guess.

So, clearly, one size does not fit all. But even USAT today will not enforce drafting on a course if they dont feel it would be safe for everyone.

So, yes, we can always find the corner cases where things are the extreme. If one wants to do these few races, then forget the “spirit” anyways. There is not one race I have done in northern calif thats an issue for needing drafting marshalls, that I can think of. Cathy, think of any?

Oh well, its always easy to have reasons why things cant work. I just love to work towards finding solutions that are improvements, even though may not be perfect in all cases. And for races that are put on in places that never should have that density of bikers at one time, yep, the rules for drafting should stay there, even though they could never be enforced.

Dave

26

I just dont understand. I have done the Golden State Tri with TBFracing for many years. It has always been drafting legal. Lots of beginnners. Have never been an issue. Lots of curves, etc. so its not like you just sit in a flat straight line for hours and hours. So, where is the data that it is unsafe?

In this case (Clearwater) it was plenty unsafe for the Agers. Too many people out onto the bike course too close together to start. Then, it was tight spacing in the single lane with the traffic cones placed on the bike side of the lane divider.

It was quite clear that a fair number of people did not have the bike handling skills for close in riding. I observed considerable swerving and chain reaction swerving when someone responded to the first swervee. People drfiting to close to the cones and overcorrecting. People dropping water bottles and following people having no time to see the bottle or avoid it. I watched a bottle screw top bounce around for 30 seconds between riders before hitting the ground after a dropped bottle was runned over and burst the top off.

I stayed out of the heart of the packs out of fear as much as trying to avoid the drafting issues. When I was in contact with a group it was a very nervous time, and I do have good bike skills.

As far as actual accidents, I saw three of four individual riders down on flat sections of road with no obstacles in site. At the awards dinner, a young guy sat down next to me, having just gotten back from the hopsital with his GF, and moving very slowly. He was in a group that stacked at mile 45 at a turn. He hit a guy on the ground while doing 29 mph. the guy next to me ended up on the sidewalk and avoided getting t-boned himself. He is going to be sore for quite a while. Some else told me later that a rider interacted with the traffic cones on the right side of the lane. Apparently, nobody was quite sure what happened. But the next thing he saw was a city bus running over the bike and just trashing it. He couldn’t see the rider at that point and feared that he might have gone under the bus as well. Turns out the fallen rider didn’t get runned over. The extent of injuries wasn’t reported. The bus never stopped.

I doubt draft legal rides with large age group races will ever be truly safe. At the very least, it would take a number of years to educate people how to ride in groups safely. On the other hand, with the general attitude these days of anyone can do a marathon (given 7 hours) and anyone can do an Ironman (given 17 hours), a lot of people don’t really put in the time and training to become truly profficient at cycling let alone all three sports.

This race was particularly bad for several reasons, which I just finished posting about in a ridiculously long post. Too few waves, set too close together of mostly top level competitors, starting out on a very narrow bike course. A beautiful recipe for a draftfest, intentional or not. Unfortunately, the participants weren’t necessarily prepared for riding in such close quarters.

27

Fourteen people to the hospital at the 70.3 championships (from another thread). Sounds unsafe to me.
Just so you are fully aware, not all of those people are in the hospital b/c of bike on bike, group riding accidents.

28

Parke,

I hate to say it but I have seen all this before.

The strange thing is there are some VERY simple and common sense solutions out there for some of this stuff:

1.** Ejected water bottles**

Simple and common sense soloution: Ban behind the seat holders!

2. Weaving all over the road in the aero bars:

Simple and common sense solution: Learn how to ride a bike BEFORE ever getting aero bars and riding on them.

3. Weaving all over the road reaching for water behind the seat

Simple and common sense solution: See #1

As for the bigger issue here with the big packs and the drafting - I’ll say it again: Too many people on too little road in to short a period of time. The rules of this sport, particularly those that pertain to drafting on the bike were not drafted up( no pun intened) with 2000+, closely matched and competitive race fields in mind.

Fleck

29

The problem I have with it is that it becomes an imbalanced event. Sharks, Cheetahs and Lunch – meaning you have to swim fast, merely hang on for the bike, and run fast. It takes superior cycling out of the equation and makes everybody who’s in contention to have almost identical skills. Fast swim, fast run.
I don’t see anything wrong with that. Cycling takes very little skill to be “triathlon fast”. All it takes is good equipment and hour after hour in the saddle. Being that it is the longest portion of the race timewise, it only makes sense that the so called “superior cyclists” should have a limited advantage.

30

" It’s ALWAYS been the knee-jerk reaction in the hard-core triathlon crowd that it’s unsafe. Or that it’s cheating. Or that it’s unethical or that drafting is something evil." – Fleck

I think that’s a mischaracterization of the opposition to drafting. One of the real problems is overgeneralizations, like the one Fleck made. The other real problem is that drafting and wave starts don’t mix.

31

Hello H2ofun and All,

It is a tawdry thought; but a race of 2000 athletes that is draft legal and filled with crashes would soon put triathlon racing on live TV and fill the coffers of the promoters (and lawyers and insurers). A difficult cycle portion of the race could be in a stadium with hefty prems to promote unbridled competition.

New equipment would be required, extremely light and ventilated body armor, stronger bicycles that could survive a crash with out taco’d wheels.

Now that we have man to man fights in a cage this could be the future of triathlon.

http://www.rollerball.com/trailer.html vew the trailer of this remake of an old classic

What do you think?

Cheers,

Neal

32

“I am definetly turning to more races that have more climbing in them where drafting cannot be an issue.”

You have to learn how to climb first :slight_smile:

For Dave, I’d say no crashes at Golden State is pure luck.

33

Would anyone in the triathlon business, with the exception of cycling coaches, want triathlon to become more like the sport of cycling?

34

“Would anyone in the triathlon business, with the exception of cycling coaches, want triathlon to become more like the sport of cycling”

I can see it heading in that direction, but not right now. It will be a few more years.

Fleck

35

I hope not. Cycling is a great sport, but IMHO USCF cycling is definitely not as inclusive or friendly to newcomers as triathlon. A large part of the current growth in triathlon is fueled by the fact that a newbie can sign up and do an Ironman or a national championship in his or her first year in the sport. Whether that is smart or not is another topic, but that has benefited everyone in terms of growing the sport.

If triathlon was ever to become truly draft legal at the AG level, race directors would likely need to go the route of USCF to ensure the safety of the competitors. Triathlon would never be the same after that.

36

I don’t have a problem with certain races being draft-legal. I probably wouldn’t race those events, but let the market decide. Of course, if a race is going to be draft legal, the competitors should have to use draft-legal bicycles, i.e. road bikes with shorty clips ons vice pursuit bars and full-length aero bars.

Equipment requirements alone would probably cut the number of competitors, at least initially.

37

Fleck said: “People do it all the time when they are training…”

I disagree with this. Depending on where you live and how you train you may never ride with a group, or not with a group that does real paceline drafting. For the first 7 years of my tri racing I never rode with a group in a paceline. Many triathletes can only afford one bike so they only have a tri bike and therefore never learn to ride in a group.

I am in the definitely in the camp that thinks it has the potential to be extremely unsafe.

38

Actually, I’ve done only one (out of about 55 races) draft legal race - a sprint. Luckily, I was going the other direction, but watched about a 8-10 bike pile up going around a corner.

THIS is why I steer clear of them. Wel that…and this continued notion that I like the idea of a race where it is about my personal performance (luckily, I suck bad enough in the swim I couldn’t draft off a sea turtle, so it negates this discussion for me).

Even in a supposed non-drafting race, I watched a bunch of people go down who were close together at St. Anthony’s in 2000. Aid stations are dangerous enough in a non drafting, I can only imagine if you roll through with a pack of 20 inexperienced pack riders :slight_smile:

39

Do most USCF events take place on closed courses?
How many triathlons can say that? Oh yes, ITU races.
Alex

40

oh, by the way, in the pro race in 2000 at St. Anthony’s, someone went down hard in a corner (I want to say Tim Deboom was doing that race?) and took out another bike or two. I just remember it because it caused a split and Ryan Bolton had to chase down the leader who had something like a 3-4 minute lead off the bike.

…and I have seen a number of pack related incidents over the past 20+ years of riding…with both roadies AND triathletes (probably an equal amount). Of course, the one I miss is the most classic - a triathlon club president going aero in the middle of a pack. I guess he was subscribing to the “do as I say, not as I do” methodology of educating newbies :slight_smile:

41

…put down the crack pipe and back away…slowly…