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Ironman Louisville Observations

Old 08-29-11, 06:55 AM
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Ironman Louisville Observations

I rode my road bike out to watch the cycling leg of the Ironman Louisville Sunday. You tri's are awesome athletes. Kinda freakish actually to be able to put your body through that. And there were some less-than-ideal bodies out there that I have no idea how they were gonna ride 112 miles much less get of and run a marathon.

My observations:
  • Amazing amazing athletes
  • Pain. Lots of pain.
  • Why the aero bar set up and time trial bikes? The cycling course was one I often ride - it's rolling terrain with a few good climbs. It's a road course not a TT course? Aero bars and full disc wheels? It was slightly windy. What advantage on a 112 mile road course with wind do disc wheel give you. And aero bars? With the last 1/3 of the competitors, the second time around the Oldham County loop (around mile 65 I think) no one was in the aero bars or drops - everyone was searching for comfortable hand positions.
  • Why the aero TT bikes? It's a road course. It's not a TT course. It's hilly. There are curves. You're usually riding 70%+ of the course in traffic with cars and other riders.
  • #1 bike most used seen = Cervelo. Followed by the Roos
  • I saw more Motobecanes from BD than Litespeeds. Times they are a changin' (and BTW I just took delivery on a new Litespeed M1)
  • Coolest bike seen = steel Serotta Atlanta
  • Strangest person seen riding was chick with lots of make up and bright red lipstick. Not as bright at mile 65 as mile 35 lol
  • The pink women's Roos were cool looking
  • Why don't they close the freakin' roads for an event as big as this? They close the roads for running "races" where main objective of 95% of participants is to get a T-shirt for running 5K. The turn in Buckner that put riders back onto LaGrange Rd was scary as hell. The Oldham County sheiff's tried as best they could but there was a lot of traffic. Almost had several accidents even with them directing traffic. And why did they have a volunteer controlling the southwest bound cars? The guy would gingerly motion cars to aproach but many of them thought he was telling them to proceed through the intersection and then you'd have a car and bikes there at same time and it was scary - why didn't they have another sheriff controlling that way? Why don't they just close the roads - heck this thing generates millions of $$dollars in hotel stays and food and such for the area.

Saddest most disturbing thing (besides the car traffic) was a competitor's family at that intersection setting up to hand the guy a special drink or supplement (milky white) after the turn and talking about how to do it so they didn't get caught, talking about if they got caught he'd be disqualified. I dunno - is that really a rule that you' can't take support from anyone during the race? If you finish and qualify but you cheated did you really finish? Could you look at yourself in the mirror knowing you didn't play by the rules?
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Old 08-29-11, 10:24 AM
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I watched part of IM Wisconsin last September. It was a pretty cool experience. I do triathlons myself, albeit so far just shorter length races.

As near as I can tell (and from what I've experienced) every level of triathlon induces lots of pain. A sprint tri may not last near as long as an IM, but due to the shorter length people pace themselves significantly faster. I'm not going to say the two are equivilent by any means, but both are quite effective at inflicting pain.

Some courses lend themselves better to TT bikes, others lend themselves better to road bikes. However, many athletes own only one high-end bike for racing, and have spent many hours training and dialing in that one bike. Most athletes will compete in more than just one race during their lifetime. I know on race day I'm bringing out my TT bike regardless of the course, because that's the bike on which I've trained myself to go fast.

Ideally it would be nice to close the race course, but that would take a lot of doing to attempt to shut down a 112 mile stretch of road for 8 hours. Shutting down 3 miles of road (5k distance) for 45 minutes is much easier and is why you see that more often. That being said, I've never done a tri or a running race of any distance that had the course shut down to traffic. At best, as you noted, they have volunteers trying to direct traffic.

The person you saw receiving outside assistance was definitely cheating. Even accepting water from a non-volunteer would be considered cheating in most races. Myself, it would always eat a me knowing that I broke the rules, but some people have the ability to live their life "scruple light". Heck I have a hard time even watching draft-legal tris on TV, just because to me it seems like in some way their cheating even though in those races it is allowed.
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Old 08-29-11, 12:11 PM
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Originally Posted by markwebb
Why the aero TT bikes? It's a road course. It's not a TT course. It's hilly. There are curves. You're usually riding 70%+ of the course in traffic with cars and other riders.
The whole point of tri-specific bikes is that they can be set up to use different muscles (run with calves and bike with thighs?) on the bike to try and keep your running performance at it's best.

I'm not sure why more people don't do this (...I do...not as aero. but it's practically negligible at that point) but I have a TT bike with road drops and aerobar clip-ons and it can MOVE. It looks a little strange next to bikes with bullhorn style bars (or just regular integrated aerobars) but it should help a lot on hilly courses next year. I just think it's nice to have a road-racing and tri-racing bike all rolled into one. If I need to I can take off the aerobars in 2 minutes.
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Old 08-29-11, 12:55 PM
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Originally Posted by jordo_99
The whole point of tri-specific bikes is that they can be set up to use different muscles (run with calves and bike with thighs?) on the bike to try and keep your running performance at it's best.
Actually, this is one of triathlon's biggest perpetuated myths.

One of many links about this: https://www.beginnertriathlete.com/di...256257&start=1

You are aero, so it utilizes less muscle power to maintain a given speed, which saves more of your legs for the run. But it doesn't use any different leg muscles.
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