What are your tips and tricks for efficient transitions?

Some type of bungee lace system like Yankz (I prefer the 4.95 lace locks from trisports.com) for your running shoes.

Walk through and evaluate  your rack position in transition for each stage and if possible/allowed move to the optimal position.

Focus, have a plan, mentally walk through it over and over while you are waiting for the race start.  Also, practice it at home.  You'll feel like a dork doing this in your yard/driveway/whatever.  It's worth it.

-Get a top you can wear during the swim (wet body+dry shirt=not fun)

-Baby powder in socks

-Figure out your on/off the bike situation...nothing worse than eating it trying to jump off the bike coming into T2

Two towels --

1 to mark your territory and serve as the resting place for your shoes/hats/gear

1 to wipe the sand, grass, etc off of your feet and hands as needed

Those and practice will make the biggest difference.  Go through your perfect and worst transitions in practice and then you can know what to strive for/what to avoid in the race!

MY secret. I know this may sound silly, and I am in no way affiliated with this company, our BT store should carry this product, WILL make you faster, easy to do, VERY cheap time to $$ ratio, and one of the best kept secrets out there is. . . .

 http://store.mdwsports.com/transitionhook.html

It's called the transition hook. I know a lot of people can make these, I know I did before I found out about it, but this is SOOOOO easy to use, idiot proof, and FAST.  

Lay out your gear in the order that you're going to use it.

Relax and slow down.  It sounds counterintuitive but just try to make everything smooth and easy and you'll be faster.

You can take in nutrition out on the course.  There is no need to stand around having a feast in the transition area. 

Try this link.

http://www.mdwsports.com/

It's a rubber band system for your shoes. 

T1:

• Wear a tri top that I can wear for the entire race
• Helmet upside down on the handlebars, with sunglasses inside
• No socks

T2:

• No socks
• Yankz laces
• Put on race belt and hat as I run out of transition

Mark

KISS and practice mount/dismount with bike shoes clipped on!

helmet & shades on aerobars, nutrition on bike (aero bottle plus one down tube bottle - for Oly/HIM >> gel flask and salt pills on bento box - you can carry the gel and salt tablets for the run),  bike shoes (clipped on), running shoes, socks rolled (for HIM), race belt & cap.

I use a two pice tri suit and put my race belt with # on and have it under my tri top with the number in back before the swim. I've never forgot my number this way, OK at my HIM I forgot to pull it down until I was already on the bike but no biggie. On some tri's you have to have a number on the bike as well as on the run.

The other thing is practice practice practice.

Lots of good advice above ... the guiding principle, though, to all of this is less is more.  In other words, the more stuff you bring into transition the more time it will cost you.  Look at the pros' transition area - pretty much barren as everything they need is already loaded onto the bike (nutrition + hyrdration) or in their helmet (sunglasses).

I race with socks, so I make sure that I have an extra water bottle to squirt the dirt off my feet and a towel to dry them off.  I half fold my socks (put them on and then peel them back so all you have to do is put your toes in) and put one in each shoe.

Other than that, I put on my sunglasses (contained in the helmet), put on the helmet and then run out of transition with the bike.

Remember, less is more ... no piece of equipment is going to make you faster, your training did that.

I second this.  I always remind myself that 20 seconds of extra time in a T zone quickly verifying that I have done everything that I need to do for the next discipline can be the difference between forgetting something important on the bike or run and being screwed.  I also make sure to take maybe 5 seconds at the beginning to scan the T zone for any other competitors that may be running around like a chicken with their head cut off in an effort to get out maybe a minute quicker than me.  I figure I'll catch them on the run

I woke up to all these tips.......

Between yesterday (did I post this yesterday????) and today, I've got so many great tips to try out!!

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

My theory is that BOTH hands should be doing something at all times. In this pic, you can see that I'm taking OFF a cycling shoe, AND putting ON a running shoe at the same time. I practice it a lot.  I've also found that it helps to have a girl checking you out in the process (your mileage may vary here) for extra motivation.  You can see her on the right side of the pic.

~B

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If you want cheap speed laces, go to a REI or any climbing store, and get "shock cord". It cost $0.10 a foot at the REI I went to. It's just thin elastic cord. I got 2 5-foot pieces and made laces out of them. Worked great.

tom 

For fast T1, have nutrition & other stuff loaded on the bike (or in your pockets if it's a wetsuit swim). I would put a sweatband, my HRM watch (I don't like to swim with it), and sunglasses already on the bike. Just practice putting them on in training so you don't crash - and wait until you're well clear of the congestion right out of the gate exiting T1. Also, for T2, I attach stuff to my race belt (mainly my hat, but you can also safety pin a gel to it). Then, just grab that and start running (or walking) and put them on as you go.

If you can learn a fast dismount it will save good time. I think the fast mount is not as time-saving and harder to get right. But it's easy to get your feet out of your shoes during the last bit of the bike. I then just swing my right leg over my bike, bring it in front of my left foot/pedal, and hit the ground running. After a couple practices, it's easy. 

I think transitions are free time,  in most of my recent races I've earned up to several minutes (half-iron distance) over my age-group competition.

enjoy,

tom