Is there clarity on the 200mm height rule? It’s not clear if it’s 200mm total height of the hydration system or 200mm from the bottom of the aero bars? By one read it seems like you have everywhere from 20mm above the wheel to 200mm above the bars, but by a different read you are limited to a 200mm box anywhere, regardless of pad placement.
I raced Powerman Alsdorf this morning, and they checked the hydration systems for nearly all athletes. Not sure if they were DTU or World Triathlon officials, but they measured the 200mm from my pads.
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From the lowest edge of the pads
"When measured from the lowest edge of the arm support "
Ah thanks. I wasn’t sure if that applied only to the “250mm in the direction of the saddle” bullet point or applied to all.
The other confusing one is that computers are excluded from just the box rule or from the entirety of the new rules? Because if it’s just the box then a preponderance of setups would be afoul of the “arms may not be covered from above by any component”.
Computers don’t cover the arms, they are simply elevated above the arms (unless maybe someone is using an ipad as a computer lol). They don’t want things like Joe Skipper’s set-up where the arms were effectively trapped between the pads and the bottles he had above them.
If you have your arms close together the computer most definitely is directly over the top of the inside or the forearms. I guess the follow up is what does “cover” mean? Is an old-school BTA bottle literally between the arms also “covering”. So many questions
I understand exactly what they don’t want, but that’s different than what the rules say.
Who should be contacted at Ironman to advocate against the DTU rule adoption? It isn’t clear to me from Ironman’s site, other than to use the athlete portal, which I fear is a black hole.
Thinking and stewing on this change, lumping aero toolboxes into the rear hydration allowed dimensions isn’t going to serve the athletes (Ironman customers) well. Looking back through photos of past races, there are a lot of athletes with BTS that are riding a Speed Concept with the add-on toolbox or a Quintana Roo. None of those are going to fit inside a 30 x 30 cm box, except maybe a small bike with the saddle all the way down. Configurations people have been riding for years and years.
Most of those folks don’t follow the forms and won’t be aware of a mid-season rule change. They’ll show up to bike check-in on race day and be told to either lose their toolbox or BTS mount…on a setup they’ve been riding for 10 years. That’s shitty. If you’re going to force a substantial change like that, you’ve got to at least do it in the off season.
What’s worse, is the WT interpretation is very focused on hydration and really doesn’t mention toolboxes, outside of the generic term “containers” which one could easily take to mean a drink container. It was an extremely poor choice by them to release the interpretation before publishing the actual rules in English.
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The rule is strictly to hydration. Rear tool boxes do not apply.
That is not my interpretation, per a machine translated version of the DTU rules,appendix 2, which WT is supposed to be taking on. I would take “aero storage box” to be the same as a toolbox.
This is where not having the English ruleset sucks. WT put the cart in front of the horse with their interpretation ruling.
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In my discussions with IM they are very clear that they are not a governing body. They’re an events company and they contract out for officiating. The TOs are aligned to the relevant national federations who run under WT rules.
So IM don’t want a separate set of rules that the TOs are unfamiliar with. In the longer term it should get easier for athletes as the rules bed in.
Other than need some more clear wording - which will hopefully come with the full rule update. Am I the only one that find these rules very reasonable.
- 2L of water in the front
- Unlimited on the top tube, and in the triangle of the frame
- 2L on back
This seems like plenty
- 30x30cm (~1ftx1ft) is a pretty big area to fit you rear mounts into (especially since the bottle is not included.
- Only bike that is really affected by the rear exception is the shiv tri, but then again isn’t the point of the huge rear bladder there to replace non-aero bottles?
I know we all like to complain about rules and change - but trust me these are way better than the original and what racers had to conform to at Roth last year. Im also a huge fan of there being one set of rule for all races (regardless of if its challenge, ironman, etc.). Get a set up that fits them and dont need to adjust it every race
I thought the rule was nothing on the top tube wider than the top tube ?
Yes, nothing wider than the Top Tube and not more than 100mm high. So no full size bottles.
The rules would allow over 6L of fluid if you have a frame with two sets of bottle bosses inside the triangle and use a PD HSC250 on the top tube.
I don’t think there is a good argument that fluid carrying is restricted by these rules.
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So why doesn’t IM just say “All events contested under WT rules”? Why have their own rulebook?
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This is to protect their independence and not give WT leverage over them.
These things take time. I think IM have been clarifying their role in the sport internally. Past relationships between those orgs were more adversarial from what I understand.
Whether it gets to the point of IM not having their own rule book - I don’t know. IM may wish to always have the option for special cases.
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as a german i can only apologize…one judge had too much time, and invested 350 h to make these rules.
The DTU Claims, Wto was delighted, that this can of worms was opened by them and that all athletes appreciate their efforts?
You cannot have a rear box AND a bottle holder at the same time…as long as they fit in thsi 30 x 30 cm box…
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because they do not want to piss off customers…we have seen customers just finishing the expensive fitting setups and aero testing after the first try of new rules with rolled out 02-2025…with these changes, all of a sudden they had an illegal bike and could not compete last weekend.
The ironman rules are pretty clear and i hope, they will not adot wto or dtu rules…
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nope, you must choose…or both have to fit in this 30 by 30 cm box…
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