Bike Packs

So this past weekend I was racing and was doing really well on the bike segment when I saw a pack of riders up the road ahead of me. I eventually caught up and figured that I could pass them out. Unfortunately, they were all trying to pass each other and were taking up the entire road. I didn't want to get into the middle of it and get caught for a drafting penalty but I also didn't want my average speed to drop too much.

I decided to work my way through the group and out the front. I had to put in a big effort to get off the front and put 20-30 ft between us. I settled into a nice rhythm again and then about 3 mins later they all went flying past me just after we came to a corner, in which I needed to slow down as there was a line up of cars on the road.

I decided to let them go and just stay 50 - 100 m behind them for the rest of the bike segment as there was only 5 km to go (it was a total of 30 km), but what should I have done?

Should I have just sat off the back of the pack for the last 8 km or so? or put in a huge effort to put some distance between myself and them (after working through the pack) and hopefully stay away knowing my run would suffer a bit?

For the record I was not trying to win the race as I am a MOPer but was able to place 2nd in the Clydesdale division. Overall, I'm not really happy with the way the situation went but I know it will happen again and I was just wondering what I should have done?

Edited by e3landy 2009-09-08 12:09 PM