Jordan Rapp interview
July 6th, 2009 by Nikola
Jordan Rapp is a perfect combination of a strong cyclist Ironman PRO, aeroposition connoisseur and community leader.
Jordan, please write a bit about your triathlon background, interests and goals. You are not only a PRO Ironman triathlete but you also work with SlowTwitch as a CTO and you specialize in custom aero positions though FIST workshops… Tell us your whole triathlon story? First why triathlon and then everything else…
There isn’t really too much of a “why” triathlon in particular. I don’t come from a background in any of the three sports. I did a bunch of sports in high school – American football, squash, and lacrosse. Then I college, I spent four years competing as a lightweight rower. Rowing was my real passion. I thought for sure that is what is what I’d end up doing as far as a long term pursuit of high-level sport. All I knew about triathlon was from watching the Ironman broadcast in 2000. Chuckie V was the only triathlete I knew, because of his mohawk. But then in the winter of 2002/2003, after graduating from college, when I was training to compete for a spot on a World Championships crew for the USA in the summer of 2003, I got injured. So that sort of put an end to me feeling like I’d be able to compete well over the summer, so I thought maybe I’d take a break from rowing and do something else to stay in shape, so that when I went back to rowing, I’d still be fit, but maybe with a bit more balance. I had a bike that I used for cross-training, so I went down into the local bike shop and asked one of the guys there about bike racing, since I thought I was an okay cyclist. The guy there said there was a local road race during the week in the town where I was living. I asked him how fast they usually went. He said the good guys (I’m guessing Cat1/2/3, though I didn’t know what that would have meant at the time) went 26 or 27mph for an hour. I knew nothing about drafting or pack riding, so I thought that meant you had to be able to ride that fast on your own. The fastest I ever rode was like 20 or 21mph, which I thought was pretty good, but when I heard how fast the guys went in the race, I thought to myself, “well, I guess I’ll never be a bike racer.” Triathlon seemed like a neat challenge, and I figured that with swimming and running, triathletes probably didn’t ride so fast. So I bought a set of clip-on aerobars for my bike and then my mother saw an ad at the gym near my parent’s house for a guy who was a triathlon coach, and so I wrote to him, since coming from college and high-school sport, I was so used to having a coach. Having a coach was just normal for me. The guy was really just a guy who’d done a couple Ironman races, but it was okay for me. He gave workouts to do, and I trained for about two months or so before I did my very first race – a little sprint race in a state park near where I grew up. It was a great race for me, since it is a long – and very hard – bike course, so I actually did quite well. Even though I wasn’t a competitive swimmer, I knew how to swim and grew up swimming in lakes, so I was really comfortable in open water, which I found out later is scary for a lot of people. I had a good bike ride, but then the run seemed to take forever, even though it was only 5km. I think my longest run ever at that point was probably 10km. I ended up finishing 6th overall and first in my age-group. And from there, I was pretty much hooked.
Like many triathletes, I became obsessed with the sport. And, pursuant to that, I ended up spending a lot of time on the Slowtwitch.com forum. I volunteered to do some work analyzing data from Kona for Dan, and that’s how I fell into working for Slowtwitch. It was sort of like everything else with this sport, I just sort of fell into it. I was a mechanical engineer in college, but I taught myself a lot of web-programming skills, which I find funny, because it was basically a hobby and side interest of mine which is now what employs me.
Teaching the FIST bike fit workshops with Dan was also a lot of coincidence. I have family that lives in Los Angeles, which is quite close to where Dan lives in the Antelope Valley. I knew there was good riding up at Dan’s, so I made some trips up there to ride. Then, in 2007, I had been living in Flagstaff for about four months, but I only had a lease through early May, and I was going to spend the summer in Victoria, BC. So I needed somewhere to train for about two weeks in between when I moved out of Flagstaff and my next race in Northern California (one of the races in the now-defunct Tri101 series). So I went up to stay with Dan for those two weeks. During that time, he was conducting one of his workshops, so I sat in, because bike position was something that was very interesting to me. I’d found my own position through a lot of tinkering after getting an initial starting point working with a fitter. I am a person of strong opinions, and I’m not afraid to speak my mind, so while I was sitting in on the workshop, I guess I just made it clear what I thought about positions that I thought looked good or bad. I must have struck a chord with Dan, who is much the same way, since afterward he asked me if I would be interested in helping him teach the workshops.
So through all that random luck, I’m now fortunate to make a living working for Slowtwitch and racing as a pro-triathlete. A lot of coincidence. Sometimes people ask me for advice on how to pursue a career in the sport, and I always tell them don’t try and follow what I did, since it was about as random a path as there could be. But I’m very happy with all the decisions I made. I trusted my instincts a lot and just took every opportunity I could to be involved with the sport.
Do you feel your work both as a PRO triathlete and as a specialist in aerodynamic positions in FIST threatened by the drafting problem?
I do on both counts. I think people are frustrated by the state of drafting during many of the bigger races. When packs are so large, you’d actually be better off just doing the race on a road bike, which would be safer and more comfortable if you are never going to be in the aero position. So that affects my work as FIST instructor, though indirectly, since I am teaching fitters, not actually fitting people. But I think bike position becomes a lot less important if you are stuck in a group of 20 or 30 or 50 people, and that will certainly affect me.
As a pro, it’s sometimes frustrating because the draft zone is usually around 7m, which still offers an advantage, even if riders are obeying the rules. If there is a group of riders, all riding at a legal distance, there is still a big advantage to be had. But it’s hard when there are so many good swimmers to say that the draft zone must be 15m. I think 10m is much better than 7m, and I don’t like races where they say “10m front wheel to front wheel,” since that is just offering the illusion of a bigger draft zone. I’ve also never seen a bike with a 3m wheelbase, so I don’t know how 10m front-to-front becomes 7m, but that is a pretty regular occurence in pre-race meetings. But the rules are the rules. If they want a 7m draft zone, that’s fine with me as long as they enforce it, which many of the good referees do. I don’t like it, but I understand they want to keep the races exciting and don’t want them determined by penalties. You have to adapt your racing to suit the situation. I pick courses that suit my strengths, like Wildflower, where the hills will kick the crap out of a rider whether he is 7m back or not. Generally, I try to avoid racing in Florida, or any where else that is flat. I know the rules. It’s not a surprise. I just hope for consistency which I find is pretty good at most races these days, at least for the pros. Overall, I feel much worse for the age group athletes, who often don’t even seem to get 7 *CENTIMETERS* of space between bikes.
What is your opinion on drafting in age group and PRO ranks? What are your experiences? Do you think there is difference between age group and PRO drafting (cheating)?
Drafting in a pro race is active cheating. There is no race I’ve ever done where you can’t easily keep 7m between yourself and the rider in front. I don’t think there is much blatant cheating in the competitive pro races anymore. They always have good officials – like Charlie Crawford, Ed Cheetam, or Jimmy Riccitello – and those guys take a hard line. So if a pro drafts, it is because he or she is choosing to cheat, and I think they will (and do) get caught much of the time. Pros are never forced into it. Age groupers, on the other hand, often are forced into a pack. They have to choose *not to* draft, whereas the pros have to choose *to* draft. If you put 2000+ people on the start line together, there are going to be huge packs, especially in places like Panama City Beach or Clearwater. That’s not really fair to the age-group athletes who want to race the clock. When I raced Clearwater, there were packs of 100+ riders in the age-group race. I don’t know how you wouldn’t draft unless you had been a pro cyclist or something and could breakaway. But even then, you’d hit pack after pack because of all the waves starts. This makes it very tough for the AG athletes who are the ones who fund this sport. But people are aware of the situation, and they can choose to vote with their wallets, which is the only thing that will change races in terms of capping the number of participants, choosing courses that break up packs, etc. I don’t ever expect age-group races to be policed the same way the pro race is, and they shouldn’t be, because nobody’s livelihood is on the line, but I do think that races should do their best to prevent drafting from happening through logistics – timing of wave starts, course topography, and limiting the number of competitors.
How would you describe sentiments towards drafting on USA Ironman scene?
Everyone will pick on WTC (Ironman NA) because these are the big races. But Ironman gives pros a circuit on which to race, offers prize money, and has the big races, so I don’t think it’s the pro’s position to criticize Ironman on this topic. I don’t see eye to eye with the WTC on a lot of things, but that’s part of a bigger discourse on the general state of professional long course racing. Ironman is a business, and as such, they are focused on making money. So until age-group athletes stop doing Ironman races because they are unhappy with the situation, then nothing will change. Businesses need to cater to what their customers want, and right now, people have not indicated that Ironman needs to change anything. People say they are upset by what goes on, particularly at Clearwater, but the race still fills up.
What do you think needs to be done to solve or at least minimize the drafting problem?
Sign up for the races where drafting is not a problem either due to the course or to the size of the race or both. There are a ton of great small local races – the races that this sport was built upon – that are still a lot of fun. If you’d asked me at my very first race if I thought people riding together would be a problem, I’d have said no way. But that’s because there were about 300 people, in two waves, and a hilly bike course. And many of these races are really great with post-race food, awards, etc. Some new companies like the Challenge Group, that puts on Roth, and Rev3 are offering 140.6 and 70.3 distance races, and that competition will give people other choices for well run, big event races. But if people are angry about drafting, they need to act, not just speak up. Money talks the loudest, so if people put there money into the races that do a good job of keeping the race fair, then that will make the biggest impact.
Do you have any advice for other triatheletes?
Support your local races. And get involved in the sport beyond just racing. This sport is growing so fast that we all have a huge ability to influence where things go. Look at BlueSeventy and Cervelo. These are companies with roots in triathlon that have really started to make an impact outside of the sport. I think that shows you how fertile a ground triathlon is. And I think it really shows you how much opportunity even a small group has to make a difference. Whether it’s bikes, wetsuits, or even something like this project – Say NO to Drafting – if you care about something, you can make a go of it. I know lots of people who have found a real calling as a coach, with a club, volunteering for a race, etc. So get involved. You can make a difference.
Any advice for Say NO To drafting project? How can we make more impact?
Find races that you want to work with. Perhaps give certain races a “Say NO to drafting” seal of approval. And likewise maybe a wall of shame for the races that are really bad. Help people to find the races. I think many people just don’t know. if you help people pick races, and they come away with a really positive experience, that will help the movement grow. Empower people to take action in the way that will speak the loudest – by influecing where they choose to race.