I’ve never understood this, and the pictures on the main page made me want to inquire.
Your bike is going to get wet 30 seconds into your ride if it’s raining or the ground is wet. Why bother putting a tent over it in transition?
It’s a bike. It can take a little water.
Furthermore, your saddle. I don’t know many people who ride a Brooks on their tri bike, so I’m pretty sure the synthetic saddle can take a little water. Again here, it’ll be wet in 30 seconds of riding anyhow. Do you really need to put a plastic bag over it?
I guess if you had a saddle with a bit of padding then if it was exposed long enough it might just get soaked through and weigh a ton, where as it will take a good portion of the bike leg to actually get that soaked. I don’t know. I tend to race short distance stuff so I don’t care. I do turn my shoes over for T2 though as I hate starting with a shoe full of water.
In races where it was legitimately downpouring, I have left my run shoes in a plastic bag, but that makes sense to me. The grocery bag over the saddle, not so much.
In an Ironman where you have the option to change clothes entirely, I can see the benefit not being wet/chafey in the crotchal region right off the bat.
In other race where you aren’t changing I’ve never been able to figure it out. I asked someone at Gulf Coast one year…they said they totally didn’t catch the ‘my butt will be wet so the seat can too’ observation and snatched if off the bike.
I have noticed bike tourists engage in the same behavior. When people rode on leather saddles it was a common practice, as the rain wrecked them. Since most of us switched to plastic three decades ago, perhaps this practice needs some examination.
In an Ironman where you have the option to change clothes entirely, I can see the benefit not being wet/chafey in the crotchal region right off the bat.
In other race where you aren’t changing I’ve never been able to figure it out. I asked someone at Gulf Coast one year…they said they totally didn’t catch the ‘my butt will be wet so the seat can too’ observation and snatched if off the bike.
Maybe I’m the exception, but I’ve never come out of T1 even remotely dry.
I’ve found that the cooling effect of damp cycling shorts keeps your crotchal area nice and cool, delaying the onset of potential hot spots and chafing. Whether it’s sweat or sea water, I never expect things to be dry down there … so a damp saddle is really the least of my concerns.
i’d be inclined to cover the chain if i was going to leave a bike out in the rain overnight, perhaps the headset too.
I personally would just park the damn thing and walk away. My experiences with triathletes has suggested that many are utterly awful when it comes to maintaining their bikes, parking them in the garage with a filthy chain, sweat from the trainer leaking down into the headset, drink mix dried on the paint, etc.
Given this, wonder why the seat gets extra concern above and beyond?
My guess is somewhere along the way people stopped understanding what they should be covering. With steel bikes you’d want to cover the seatpost binder area and around the headset to stop water from creeping into the frame. The saddle and handlebars make a good perch for a plastic bag/cover to protect those areas.
I haven’t done it, but if I were at an IM where rain was forecast, I’d cover the saddle for the overnight. Maybe an abundance
of caution, but the small chance of a soggy sponge of cold foam under me would not be welcome as I sat down.
for a normal race where you stage you bike an hour before you get on it…not so much.