MinnMan

Has it ever been tried? A 2 person race?

They enforce "no drafting" rules in triathlons, so it seems feasible.

Maybe the results would be little different from a time trial, with the Tony Martins taking all the glory, but it would be so much more interesting than watching a TT.

caloso

I don't know if it's ever been tried. And I'm not sure it would be any more interesting than a TT. It would essentially be a concurrent TT.

JerrySTL

One of the most exciting race finishes I ever witnessed was at the College Nationals road race a number of years ago. There was a long, straight, and flat finish. Two women had broke away from the pack. They raced side by side down the finishing straight and it was almost a photo finish.

In track you have the pursuit. Not side by side, but one rider against the other.

MinnMan

Yeah, maybe that's right, but maybe not. A time trialist only has a general idea if they are ahead or behind, and only at the splits. The psychological factor of pulling ahead or falling behind would be, I think, quite different.

One could say that track and field is essentially a concurrent time trial, but there is much more drama of watching the competitors race head to head.

Leinster

Clearly, it'd be dominated by the TT specialists still. Though there would obviously be different tactics to the pacing etc, rather than relying on timechecks, you would glance across at where the other guy is, and try to ride alongside while within yourself, or push the pace when it suits etc.

Course design would be tough; how do you build a technical route, while still allowing 2 competitors room to maneuver around each other? The sprint to get to that first corner of the race would play a significant part of deciding the final outcome.

Thing is, I'm not sure I see how it offers significantly more than a straight up TT on the road, or a pursuit on the track.

DiabloScott

People bring this idea up from time to time - it seems they think bike racing should just be a battle of speed and endurance rather than strategy and teamwork... I think it'd be boring. Those rare occasions where a 2-man breakaway ride the finish without drafting are kind of interesting, but that's usually just the last 500m or so.

gregf83 

Don't see how it would be any more interesting. The guys who are strong TT riders would ride exactly the same as they do now with the same result. There is little change of effort in a properly paced TT.

jyl

A steep mountain top finish is pretty much that - head to head and drafting is of minimal importance.

StephenH

Some of the long-distance races are non-drafting. The main problem is you have to start enforcing rules about how you don't draft. IE, somebody overtakes you, you have to drop back within so many seconds, if you start to overtake them, you have to complete it within so many seconds, etc. For long distance, no problem, you slow down a tad and you got 490 miles to go anyway, so it just doesn't matter. But for a shorter race, that'd be really irritating to start dealing with those technicalities. The 2-person race might be okay, but no reason to make it non-drafting.

Keith99

I'm pretty sure the Giro did this for the prologue a few years ago. Drag race. Fair because it was perfectly straight. Not very long 5 Kms. at most.

A crapshoot, but fun for a prologue. For a stand alone race it would be BS.

EDIT:

OK 10 years ago.

Giro d'Italia 2005: Prologue Results | Cyclingnews.com