Forums >Racing>Ride N Tie
A tri-friend and I competed in a small Ride-N-Tie yesterday. It was the first time I've done such a race, and it was lots of fun. For someone that doesn't bike, like me, the running was made much more difficult by not having any experience transitioning from the bike to the run.
I went into this thinking the biking time would be a recovery time. I couldn't have been more wrong. We finished the 9.5 mile trail course in 51:20. I figured that was nearly 5 miles of speed work, with virtually no real recovery...
I did have one nasty spill, very lucky actually, on the bike which added to the excitement. I should have listened to my wife and wore a helmet :-(
Anyone else do these races?
Where I live, ride-and-tie involves a horse, not a bike.
From what I understand, that IS how it got its name.
What's the difference between a biking "ride-n-tie" and an off road duathlon? Personally, I find mountain bike racing to be very intense so I'm not surprised you didn't get much recovery. I'm also surprised they let you race without a helmet. I haven't been to a cycling race/event since about 1989 that allowed participants to ride sans helmet.
This was a very small event (10 teams). I too was surprised that no one was wearing a helmet. I asked about it before hand and was told "wear one if you want..." I think most were doing this just for fun and weren't pushing it. My teammate and I just happened to be duking it out against another team and pushing it hard the whole way. That's why I took a spill.
With the ride n tie, there's only one bike. Obviously, while one person is biking the other is running, and we could switch as often as we wanted. Is that how a duathlon works?