Originally Posted by
lhbernhardt
Are teams allowed to do madison-style handslings on the exchanges? Would seem to make sense, especially when you consider how fast they ride when they do the water bottle pickups (they don't slow down to pick up bottles, why would they slow down & lose time on the exchanges? Or does the handsling fall into the category of "pushing the rider," which is verboten in the rules?)
Haha. I wish. My race resume going into the 508 was all track stuff, including a lot of madison. Unfortunately Ultra riders tend not to be so comfortable with such things and the rules require you to be at a standstill for the exchange. You have to exchange an actual "baton" or other artifact of your choice.
Watching some of the videos, I'm also surprised at this running with the bottle while handing them up. Nobody in racing does that anymore. You should be able to pick up a bottle at 40 kmh from a stationary helper. If the rider drops it, just go up the road and try again; there are no designated feed zones after the first 40 km.
The recommended style of bottle handup is odd to me, too--they recommend that the hander-up be running, while I learned a zillion years ago how to hand up bottles to riders at speed while the hander is standing still. I've handed bottles to people at upwards of 60 kph while I was standing still. Two of us standing 15 feet apart were feeding a rider 4 bottles per lap once at 45-50 kph from a feed zone on a hot day once. This year we had a few dropped bottles (small tired hands in gloves) and just went up the road and did it again. After dusk on day 1 you can do them all from the car if you want.
And speaking of bottles, do the officials look for "sticky bottles" on the bottle pickups from the car window? This would seem to be a useful strategy, especially on the long 2% grades!
It would be more likely to be noticed by another team than by an official. You could probably get away with it, but it's just bad form in an event like this where so much is really on the honor system.