It’s been a hot minute since we last checked in on Race Ranger, and last week they made an announcement that I think is pretty notable. For those not familiar, Race Ranger is essentially a sensor system that’s used in triathlons to reduce drafting. In endurance triathlon races (think iron-distance), drafting is illegal, and if caught by an official, it will result in various time penalties. Whereas in shorter-distance triathlons (mainly ITU Olympic Distance, such as at the Olympics), drafting is a part of the race strategy.
With this announcement, the Race Ranger system is going to be leveraged/available for age group athletes at the upcoming Challenge Wanaka Race on February 15th, 2025. Challenge Wanaka is actually a pretty well-known race in triathlon circles. The location is awesome, and many Northern Hemisphere athletes will use it as a season opener of sorts. It tends to attract big names.
Quick Overview:
The Race Ranger system uses two pods, one that affixes to the rear of your bike and the other to the front fork, and thus includes a crapton of sensors and connectivity. Those pods can then detect the exact distance between your bike and the bike in front of you. The entire thing acts somewhat like a mesh network, and has many applications beyond just drafting (such as athlete tracking, potential crash detection, etc…). But today, it’s used for assisting athletes and officials in figuring out the draft zone.
The system has been used in countless professional-level events over the past few years, and is generally quite liked by the pro scene, as it brings clarity to the draft zone. The ‘draft zone’ is essentially the distance you have to stay behind the rider in front of you. This varies based on the race/organization, but is usually 10 to 20 meters.
I wrote up a big post on how it works a bit over a year ago, based on spending some hands-on time with the system out on the roads near me.
There are essentially two big reasons athletes thus far tend to like it:
A) Most people suck at knowing exactly how far 10 meters is, both athletes and officials included. You, as an athlete, may have ruler-like precision, but if the official on the moto next to you needs their eyes checked, you could still get a penalty. By having the light system, everyone involved is clear on the current distance
B) It reduces cheating. All the evidence thus far from pros is that they are largely racing to the lights. Meaning they’re looking at the lights and staying as close to that edge as possible. Thus, some of the ‘probably more like 8 meters right now’ drafting that was going on, isn’t as prevalent anymore.
At the moment however, the system isn’t automatically flagging penalties for athletes. That still requires an official to be present and see it with their eyes. The system is capable of doing so, but nobody at this point wants to cross that policy line. Though, it does sound like the reporting is still happening, in terms of being able to know which athletes seem to be pushing the boundaries more frequently than others. That knowledge can be given to officials to more closely monitor those athletes.
In any case, at this juncture, with plenty of pro races having already happened, none of this is really debatable anymore. We’re past the point where a few years ago people had lots of doubt about the technology, or how athletes (at least pro-level athletes) would like it. Everyone seems to like it.
Age Group Introduction:
Except, up until now, ‘everyone’ hasn’t meant age group athletes.
That changes, though, with this announcement. The Race Ranger system will be available for athletes racing in the half-distance triathlon, which is Swim 1.9km, Bike 90km, Run 21.1km. The Challenge event has a gazillion other races as part of their festival, but it’s only the half-distance that gets it. Which makes sense, I’m not sure we need 5-year old kids with draft sensors on their bikes. Except Billy, don’t trust him.
In the case of Challenge Wanaka, Race Ranger says they’re bringing 300 units to the event (Race Ranger happens to be based in New Zealand as well). So they said to expect that they can equip about 295 bikes or so, accounting for a few spare units.
Of course, there’s going to be a bit of a learning curve for everyone involved, from the athlete to the organizers, to Race Ranger. When it comes to understanding the system/lights, Race Ranger has a little sticker you can put on your stem or top-tube, which reminds you what the light colors mean. Frankly, after just one or two people pass you though, it’s pretty easy to remember.
As with the pro side, there aren’t any automatic penalties being used here. From the conversations I’ve had, this is being looked at more like a large-scale trial than anything else. Understanding how to continue to scale it up. After all, while 300 people is impressive, that’s an entirely different beast than a 2,000 or 3,000 person race. Both in terms of pre-race logistics (affixing to bike seatposts/etc), as well as mid-race technology (ensuring that on a crowded course, the lights remain useful).
In talking to James Elvery, the founder of Race Ranger, he noted:
“It’ll just be running the same as it does for the pros, but we are working on modifications to make it more relevant to age group use down the line. We don’t want to cause a whole lot of chaos in those big 3,000 athlete fields. So at that point it’ll likely be a drafting tool for the competitive age groupers, and more of a live tracker / crashed athlete detector / post race data file gatherer for the rest. The lights might only come on for the competitive ones, no matter who they are following, but the whole field would get the other benefits.”
The second half of that snippet above is basically alluding to ways to make the device more palatable for bigger race organizers, from a cost justification standpoint. Obviously, Race Ranger is a service that race directors pay for, and in turn, those costs are baked into the overall cost/expense of an event. No different than numerous other race expenses.
There’s been some discussion that ‘regular’ athletes don’t want to subsidize the cost of the system for drafting. And while I understand that, I’d argue regular athletes already do that today. After all, they pay for the cost of race officials/motos/timing systems/etc… All of which are there to prevent cheating. In 2025, a timing system is hardly just a finish line and chip. It’s numerous timing mats spread throughout the course, sometimes for race tracking purposes, but frankly, often to catch people trying to cut the course.
Assuming I don’t care about purposeful cheater’s opinions (and really, I don’t), I think most athletes do want a fair race. And that’s especially true the more forward in the rankings you get. Triathletes, in particular, spend incredible amounts of money on not just equipment, but also in traveling to races to qualify for other events. Likewise, they spend even more amounts of time training, to get faster, to in turn work their way up the podium. Illegal drafting takes away from that. It’s as simple as that.
But back to the point James was making, there are a lot of other benefits of the system that can increase the overall race experience (in the same way race organizers pay other vendors to increase the experience). Live tracking being a big one. Most ‘live tracking’ today in races is simply athletes crossing timing mats every 5-20KM. That can be a lot of time in between for spectators/family. Likewise, the system could do crash detection, which is especially useful in triathlons where races span vast distances that might not have anyone nearby for some time.
I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘if’ race ranger will become standard issue in endurance triathlon races, but just a quick of ‘when’. The cost piece will slowly take care of itself. Costs decrease with scale, especially for a small company like Race Ranger, and the more races that the company can enlist, the more it can spread out the underwritten cost of the devices.
In any case, I think this is cool stuff, and I’m eager to hear how it goes down in Wanaka (both the good and the bad). As always with expanding new tech, it’s less about if there are stumbles, but rather how things are fixed and addressed for the future.
With that – thanks for reading!
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Quick comment:
In short-distance ELITE triathlons drafting is legal. For agegroupers, it’s not!
And, maybe it’s worth mentioning that World Triathlon just days ago reduced the penalties for drafting. Up for discussion whether that’s a good or a bad thing.
“In short-distance ELITE triathlons drafting is legal. For agegroupers, it’s not!”
There are plenty of draft-legal triathlons in Europe for age groupers. Example: link to dcrainmaker.com
Ray, once they do make the device able to penalize a rider without an official seeing it, how would that work? Would it beep loudly? Does it have a speaker? How would the rider be notified?
In their past videos, they showed an electronic board a short distance ahead of the penalty tent. Given they can tie that to approaching racers (since they know where you are), they simply flash your number/etc up on the board, to go and serve your time in the penalty tent.
I’ve wanted this to come to AGs since you first posted about it. I’m far from competitive but nothing makes my blood boil more during a bike leg than when a group of clearly strong cyclists go by me in a pack. I could draft my way to the finish much easier too!
But there’s the other part of it too…I don’t know what 10 meters is by eyeballing it very well (I should practice more of that) and I’d like to push that limit better. If its legal to be 10 meters back, I want to be 10 meters back! Because then when I start my pass, I know when my 30 seconds start and I can take as much of it as possible rather than pounding my way through it.
I’ve never understood this strong non-draft-lobby. I really don’t care if somebody hangs on my wheel and has a nice day doing his favorite sport. I’m just minding my own business and work hard.
We may draft in the swim (significant beneficial) and we also watch the heels in front of us during running.
Finally the pro’s show by example how our sport is advertised
It’s not so much that people are anti-draft as a concept, just anti-draft when the rules say drafting is illegal.
Races with drafting allowed are a boatload of fun. But it’s fundamentally a very different sport. It’s a massive dynamics change that lessons the importance of the bike and substantially increases the importance of the swim & run.
Point is, every sport has rules. If we pick and choose which rules we do/don’t like, there’s no point to organized sport or entering a competition. Instead, just go for a swim/bike/ride and save yourself a bunch of money.
1000% this. I have no problem with drafting. I love drafting. If it was allowed, I’d do it. But it’s not and I don’t like cheaters!
That’s not what I mean. I don’t draft myself, but I also don’t mind what somebody else does to have a good time. I’m just a serious age-grouper and don’t have to earn money with my favorite sport. By default I have difficulties with people who have the tendency to correct others and then drive 60 km in 50 km-zone with their car.
In some courses with multiple bike laps and competitors, you’ll need 20km just to have 2000 people on the course, which isn’t practical or probable.
It does look like useful tech though. Even being able to count the seconds you have to pass us hard.
That‘s a very good point. A couple of Ironman races are well known to tolerate a lot of drafting (worst example: Barcelona) and/or have courses which make it mathematically hard or impossible to avoid drafting (length vs. amount of riders). I am really curious how this will be solved when introducing Race Ranger.
As an age grouper, I think it’s a good idea. However, I fear two things:
1. It’s one more bureaucratic thing to keep an eye on (get in in your race package, attach to the bike – I can imagine that the presence of Race Ranger devices on the bike will be made a part of the mandatory bike checkup), make sure it doesn’t fall off, detach it from the bike after the race and hand over etc)
2. The devices and their infrastructure aren’t free and given the fact that neither Ironman, nor Challenge are charities, these costs will be passed down to the athletes, which means that the already quite expensive events will be even more expensive. With all the talks of “Is triathlon becoming prohibitively expensive” it doesn’t really help.
Couldn’t all this be assessed by using the data/sensors from a modern bike computer together with a bike radar like the RCT715? Just turn on the red rear light when someone is to close, the RCT can even take photos of any cheeters….
Not really.
1. Radars aren’t that good at detecting modern bikes where the amount of metal is increasingly small (as midrange and high-end bikes are almost entirely made out of carbon).
2. Radars require pairing to the head units to view data. You can’t (and, as an athlete, you don’t want to) pair to every sensor on every bike.
3. Not all radars have a light – 3xx series radars don’t have it, for example. And only RCT715 has a camera (which isn’t a very good camera either).
4. It’s not centralized which means it gets more difficult to argue against or enforce.
Great news, I do hope that it is going to reduce the amount of draft packs!
Unfortunately Challenge Wanaka is in a world of hurt. Despite being in a beautiful part of the world and a perfect season opener, there’s no pro race this year. There simply isn’t the $ to cover it. What a shame.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘if’ race ranger will become standard issue in endurance triathlon races, but just a quick of ‘when’ ”
I think you wanted question rather than quick.
Interesting to see this steadily getting traction – long term it does seem inevitable to the point that you wonder about the resistance right now.
I’m not necessarily against this, though I do think they need to come up with more options for mounting the pods, especially the rear pod. Unlike the elites a lot more age groupers are going to have saddlebags for carrying emergency tools. On my bike for a long course race I have a rear hydration rack with 2 cages and a saddlebag with my tools and tubes in it. There is no available seat post space for the something like the rear pod (I’m also not super tall so the post isn’t raised as high as some might have it either). I imagine I’m not the only age grouper that would have this issue. Hopefully if it does eventually become mandatory they’ll have multiple options for mounting it, maybe onto one of the seat stays or use zip ties and strap it to a rear hydration system.
I also hope that even if it is eventually used to automatically flag possible violations that an official at least has to look at the data and confirm before a penalty is assessed even if they aren’t actually observing the violation. That would still reduce workload since it could be one or two officials at a single point just reviewing them as they come in. That way they could look at where it occurred and decide. I’ve been in races where there are long hill climbs and the officials usually let the bunching go since it’s hard to avoid and isn’t really an advantage.
This is very cool!
I liked the thought of it when you posted about it the first time.
I’m surpsised it doesn’t utilise some kind of lidar sensor as well.
Also… it would make a lot of sense if the data was broadcast on ANT+ or Bluetooth and supported by head units! That way you could look back on the event and see where/when/how long you drafted for.
Sounds great on theory. However, as the pros are realizing that when you have a long line of bikes spaced exactly 10m apart it requires a herculean effort to pass everyone in one go. I think the rules need to be modified.
And grammar police here: “front fork”. As opposed to the rear fork? LOL!
The pros already complain about the pack effect that race ranger has. It would be even worse in age group races. I would be happy if they just kept people from passing on the wrong side, riding two abreast, and taking the middle of the road.
This is very welcome news.
As a FOP age grouper, trying occasionally to qualify for world champs or get on a podum, I tend to skew to the “makes my blood boil” opinion in the comments below.
Usually I find that a “misplaced” squirt of the sugary water in my bottle discourages close following behind me but if that doesn’t work I’m out of firepower to fix the problem as an athlete.
Using technology should help. Its not going to be perfect, but a bit like VAR, it will catch the most obvious mistakes & cheaters.
On a similar note, I’m quite suprised no-one has used “mystery cyclists” to catch the most egregious offenders before, I for one would happily pose as an athlete in local races to go and ruin a cheaters day or impose time penalties on those trying to get away with 5m rather than 10m or coach those at 8m out to 10m distance. (I once was in the latter category & had a motorcycle referree do that with me in Roth – my very first long course race) – In the moment coaching & education works well.
I was also once penalised for sitting 10m behind a pack of 6 athletes blocking the carriageway ahead of me. Only 2 of the “pack” got busted. (Yes, that’s you referees along the river road in Lake Placid).
Aside from that, across numberous spring, Oly, 70.3 & 23x IM distance races I’ve been penalty free, mainly beacuse I’ve been the legal distance behind the bike in front.
With rolling starts and AG waves (even better) I don’t think there’s any real excuse for drafting outside of the first 5km of the bike or on steep hills (outlying races apart, where they try and put 3000 people on a long course in the same day – but most races aren’t like this).
Interested to see how it plays out.
I’m obviously commenting on this article long after it was written, but as an above average cyclist and a way below average swimmer, I spend most of the ride passing people.
In the back and middle sections of a 70.3 ride there is no way to enforce drafting rules. If you tried to space out bikes 10m, you would have a long line in transition just to start the ride.
I do my best not to draft, but at the same time, on the rare occasion I am passed on the bike—maybe 5-15 times throughout the race—how much should I fall back when I’m still blowing by people on my right? I’m certainly not riding anyone’s tire, but there are times when I may be only 6-8m back rather than the full 10.