Seventy-seven Americans recently made the trip to Ibiza, Spain, for the World Long Course Triathlon Championships. Many of them took bicycles over that did not comply with the rules according to the Spanish triathlon federation. In particular, competitors aren't supposed to race bikes in a triathlon in Spain with bar-end shifters that make up the most forward protrusion of the bike.

Many Americans took bikes thusly outfitted to Ibiza, however, and they did so without much worry. Since this race was a World Championship it was held under the ITU's rules, and these are a less restrictive set of rules than are the case for many of the World's national federations.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the ITU rules—and only the ITU rules—will all be followed, or that other new and novel rules (and attendant infractions) won't pop up. In the Edmonton Worlds of 1999 several of the better swimmers who exited the water early were handed 15-second stand down penalties if they took their wetsuits off at water's edge. "We were never told this would be disallowed," said USAT's Tim Yount, "It was never in any pre-race meetings, no explanations were given. What made it really troubling was that only our good swimmers were given stand downs. When the big packs came in there were too many swimmers to keep track of. The officials gave up giving the penalties."

For this reason Yount, who has accompanied every American team at every World Championship of every sort of more than a decade, always counsels his athletes to keep their cool throughout the race. "You just never know what's going to happen at a race. Not just in pre-race meetings, but during the event."

But the Edmonton episode was a blip in what is otherwise a good record of compliance with ITU-only rules. A few federations, particularly in Northern Europe, have a "blocking" rule that is enforced during the swim leg. It was an official from a European federation that correctly enforced the "no blocking during the swim" rule according to his federation's rules, but the race was supposed to be contested under the ITU's rules, which had no such rule.

For obvious reasons the ITU is attempting to bring all its worldwide national federations into comformity with the ITU's rulebook. "We want to be like soccer," said Loreen Barnett, chair of the ITU's technical committee. "If there's a good reason for a national federation to have a specific rule, then let's all adopt it. If not, then we'd like them to consider omitting that rule, so that we can all compete under the same set of rules."

Just because it's a race that might be attended by a lot of international athletes, don't assume it's not going to have quirky rules enforced. Several European countries do still have rules prohibiting shifters as the most forward protrusion of the bike, even though the ITU has no such rule. A variety of Americans have had problems with this at Ironman Germany over the years.

By the late '90s, however, the commissaires were more helpful and understanding of foreign bike configurations. "Melissa Spooner showed up with a Cervelo with a standard bar-end shifter set-up," said Cervelo's Gerard Vroomen. "The commissaire just had us bend a coat hanger around and stuff it under the handlebar tape. Was the bike safer? No, but Mel could race. I think the commissaire realized the rule was not really important, and he actually gave us the idea for how to get around the rule. There were plenty of bent coat hangers at that race."

A pattern therefore emerges. If it's an Ironman race, it's held under each country's national federation rules. If it's a World or Regional (e.g., European, North American) Championship, it's held under the ITU rules.

This is something with which World Triathlon Corporation, owner of the Ironman, wrestles, and it has tasked former Ironman champ and liaison Greg Welch with the job of smoothing out the rules under which the athletes must compete. All the race organizations worldwide have submitted their rules to Welch, and he's working with each organization to come under a common rules understanding.

As for the ITU rules, yes, these are a less restrictive lot than various national federations. But there is one curious holdover, the front/center rule. This is a rule from a former age, and now many national federations in both cycling and triathlon have abandoned a minimum and maximum distance between the bottom bracket and the front wheel axle. The ITU still maintains that this distance must be between 54cm and 65cm. But it does allow for the "morphological exception," which means that very short or tall riders can have bikes with front/centers outside of that range. That shouldn't be a problem for most riders. I'm 6'2" tall, and my bike's front/center is 63cm. One assumes that someone 6'3" or 6'4" is tall enough to qualify as being overly tall. Still, some bikes brush up against that measure. Kestrel's KM40 Airfoil in the large size is right at 65cm.

It could be worse. Fifteen years ago that measure used to be 63cm. At 65cm it's probably not an issue, and I've never seen that rule enforced.

One other rule that could be somewhat restrictive is the "nose of the saddle" rule. It can't be more than 5cm in front of the bottom bracket. If you ride very steep, and you're not too tall, you could be close. A bike with an 80-degree seat angle for a rider shorter than, say, 5'7", would come close to exceeding this 5cm distance. Again, however, I've never seen this rule enforced.

The only sticky asterisk to this is for juniors. Many junior races, both in America and overseas, are held under the draft-legal rules that pros race under. If you're a traveling junior, or if you're a senior packing junior along for the trip to Canada or Europe, find out what sort of race your son or daughter is entering. Even if it's the same "event" you're entered into, the junior version of the event might be under a different set of rules, requiring a different kind of bike.

Fortunately, both the WTC—which has its international races sanctioned by these NGBs—and more importantly the ITU—which governs these NGBs—are both working toward a conforming set of rules. It's less and less likely that traveling age-group Americans will have to scramble to come up with a legal bike set-up at the last minute of an international race. But pack a wire coat hanger just in case.