“ The draft zone is a rectangle measuring 7m long by 3m wide that surrounds every cycle on the cycle course. The front edge of the front wheel defines the centre of the leading 3m edge of the rectangle.”
WTF?
How far back from the bike’s rear wheel do I need to be!?
The bit that annoys me and some people struggle with it
I’m sitting bang on the draft zone.
Dave comes round me
Dave in theory has nowhere to go as if he passes me, he is now in the draft zone of the cyclist I was sitting 10m away from and needs to now go past them
Dave doesn’t do this and slots in forcing me to drop back
In my experience, Dave goes right up to the back wheel of his mate Mike and they 2up until the next incline where I start to catch so decide to push past. I then realise they have been sat on my wheel as they TTT past on the decent.
Front wheel to front wheel. Didn’t realise the width restriction had gone, doesn’t make a lot of difference unless you are on wide closed roads anyway.
Yeah, that annoys me too. The official rules only really ever get enforced for the Pros. At AG level, a moto is not going to see action long enough to see all that occur. It’s infuriating when people do that, as sods law a moto arrives at that point and it looks like you’re sitting on “Dave’s” wheel and 9/10 you’re the one getting pinged
On the subject of getting pinged. At Blenheim I was going through a downhill twisty section through a village, I was descending ok but the guy in front was slowing down quickly so I entered the draft zone, went round the next corner and there was someone there waving a red flag at me. I passed the guy and carried on.
Rode the next lap not sure what to do, when I got there again I realised it was just a marshal warning of upcoming sharp turns.
They handed out a sheet at registration with the corrected draft zone
Visually I’m more used to 12m zones so I’d expect more space but I don’t think there was any drafting going on. What appeared to be the “serious” pace line looked legit to me, and I couldn’t keep up with them anyway
But if you’re 10.1m back, then he does have room, and you do have to drop back, so he just needs to time his pass at the appropriate point. I’m with Dave.
I wasn’t blaming the motos or race officials. There’s only so many pairs of eyes, and so much road to cover. It’s ultimately on the athletes to stay fair. But at the same time, if I adopt my American football officiating philosophies, we only call a penalty if you “see the whole act”.
Eg. Blocking in the back is frequently illegal, but not always. And if you see someone block in the back you can only call a foul if you saw all the action leading up to the block.
A 5min penalty in long course is for some people race ending. And whilst there’s a whole load of people who should get done much more regularly, in the same way as the judicial system, I’d rather see violators get off than an innocent person get penalised.
Maybe tri officials do adopt the same approach in general, but I have see in one race the situation funkster described occur about 50m up the road, and it was the person riding legally who had someone drop in right in front of them in the line that got carded.
That’s not the rule in Ironman at least. To only partially overtake a paceline, you have to have a gap in which you can enter that leaves you sufficiently behind and in front of other riders. Eg. There has to be a big gap in the paceline.
If everyone is at 12m, give or take a bit, you have to overtake the whole line, otherwise its officially a drafting penalty.
and this is where confusion also lies - the rules I’ve been quoting are WT/BTF and IM have a different set so if you race both organisers events you really need to be aware of where the differences lie.