Duke Liver Center Half (Page 2)

Well as far as I am concerned, you all kicked (my) .  I thought it was a great race,  but a bit too challenging of a course for me to do a good time.

Everyone I saw out there, Homewiz, Nuthouse and Spot picked me up to go on.  You all were great.

And I am in pain from the waist down today.

Dee,

I can't speak for the expensive bikes, but if you thought there was a lack of body fat and slow moving people, then you must have left before you saw me go by.

Good luck with your training.

My first thought on the indecent exposure was that he changed in transition, but if he did that was a quick change given his T1 & T2 times.  He could have been relieving himself in an in appropriate place or something, maybe. 

But how about all those penalties?  I count 3 DQs.  Two of those were for three counts of position violations and one was for unsportsmanlike conduct (and since that's a discretionary penalty, the offender must have been quite unsportsmanlike).  Lots of unauthorized accessories which typically means an ipod (yay!) and even an abandoned equipment penalty which usually means littering.  I wish they'd hand those out more often.  It really ticks me off to see people throw gel packets on the ground.  What, you can't carry that to the next aid station which is almost always less than a mile away?  But mostly they were hardcore about busting drafting.  I count 16 people busted for drafting which were, for some reason, seperately identified from other position violations.  This course seems hilly enough not to be a draft-fest.  How was it out there?

I saw a ton of riding left of center on Highway 42 on the big hill.  When the official rode by on the motorcycle, she had her pen and pad out and was writing.  There were lots of packs of riders coming down and up that hill, lots closer than 3 lengths.

Also glad they're nailing ipods. 

Like "left of center" meaning on the left hand side of the right lane, or actually crossing the centerline and being in the left hand lane? 

there were clumps of riders, but not all were racing. some were out there riding on their own.  I passed one girl just after you take a left at the country store (around 25 miles) and she was racing.  Looked back a little later she was still back aways, but someone was riding beside her talking.  It looked like someone else I had passed earlier that didn't have a chip or body marking.  I wondered if it was a friend of hers.  She wasn't drafting off of him, but he was keeping pace with her.

Other times people came roaring by and they did not appear to be racing (no visible chips or body markings)  I would imagine that someone might have caught on to them from time to time.

Now there was one occasion where cars traveling on the highway were backing up and they couldn't (wouldn't) go around, but the bikes couldn't get around them either and people bunched up.  I would hope that no one got a drafting penalty in that situation because there was really no way to remedy the situation.

In addition to being stupid and dangerous, that should be an instant DQ.   

WLH was a qualifier too.  Looking back and that race was stacked with penalties as well, though no DQs. Lotsa drafting, no surprise.

Cars on the course can really be a problem.  The effect just cascades.  Both years at MAP I've passed vehicles on the right which is probably one of the less intelligent things I've done.  

So did anyone here get popped and care to share?

No penalties here for me.  However, I did slow down a couple of times as I was approaching the passing zone if I didn't think that I could do a fast pass without killing myself.

I didn't see too much pile up on my section of the course.  Of course, with the late start and the slow times, there were fewer people out there.

My next door neighbor and her future sister-in-law both got tagged with unauthorized assistance.  I haven't had a chance to ask them what they did to earn that.