In three hours, I learned more about triathlons and triathlon officiating than I ever expected. It all started when a fellow rider called my attention to the Folsom Triathlon organizers looking for SAG support. (Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of SAG, so I won’t go into it here.)
This particular triathlon consisted of a 1.5K swim, a 40K bike ride, and a 10K run – My job was to provide support for the 40K ride.
Owning a larger motorcycle, I was asked to carry an official instead of running SAG, and it seemed reasonable at first. Folsom police had cordoned off a large portion of the course for the racers, so it was pretty easy to stay far left of the riders and out of their way. It became a little more challenging when the lead riders reached the halfway point, turned around, and were using the left lane themselves, but the roads and inter-rider gaps were far enough apart to let me keep my distance.
About an hour into the 2+ hours of riding competition, my official asked to dismount at a strategic observation point. It was then that I realized he had written a lot of rider numbers into his notepad. Turns out he had been recording their numbers and would be assessing penalty points for drafting, littering, riding tandem and so on.
After remounting and getting back among the riders, I realized I wasn’t having as much fun – Now I knew when he asked me to pull in behind a bunch of riders what he was doing. And when he was done and asked me to pass the riders, I knew it was just to record their rider numbers.
I started feeling sorry for the riders - My motorcycle is relatively quiet, but it was almost like the riders knew when I was tailing them and suddenly changed their style – Sorta like I instinctively check my speedometer when a black and white pulls in behind me.
The drafting infraction really bothered me. For the most part, there weren’t any drafters, but when a pack of riders would head uphill, they would invariably get bunched up and one would end up behind another. At that point, the rules stipulate that the rear rider had to pass the front rider within 20 seconds or be assessed penalty points. Didn’t quite seem fair to me.
Toward the end of the ride, we came up on a pair of riders riding tandem. This was near the end of the race and these two were clearly out of contention – And the course was pretty empty so they weren’t impeding anyone. They were just enjoying the ride, the weather and camaraderie. I think they’ll be disappointed when they find out they received a tandem riding penalty.
Weird sport! I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the opportunity to ride support along roads and bicycle trails (!) that normally aren’t reserved just for us. And I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the sights, enthusiasm and skills of the participants … I’m just not sure I enjoyed playing cop.
My rear seat passenger assures me that the riders know the rules – No one will be surprised when they receive their score. I hope he’s right.
And I received a fairly substantial donation for our motorcycle club for my three hours of labor (?). OK, it was a fun day!
Periodically I find myself at a military base and am therefore subjected to their, sometimes amusing, special rules. I guess I don’t mind that they search my motorcycle for concealed bombs, and I’m OK with having my name run through one or more database of “bad” guys, and heck, I’ll even live with the silly reflective vest they make me wear on base. But something I saw the other day just made me chuckle.
