FAQs

No. We are 100% here for the age groupers; they are the foundation of our sport. We beileve every triathlete deserves a better race experience, not just the pros.

RaceRanger is currently being used on professional fields of athletes while we are hard at work improving and making the system scalable to the thousands to be used by everyone, and building more and more devices.

This requires expanding the system beyond just a system of flashing lights, to have a lot more capability, that will add value to a number of areas of the athlete’s experience of doing a race.

We have done an initial test race with 280 athletes in 2025, and have 2 scheduled Pilot events with 800+ athletes at each. At these 2 events, both in New Zealand, we will demonstrate our vision for the future use of RaceRanger at large scale fields of 3000+ athletes.

See the FAQ: How will RaceRanger work on fields of 3000+ Athletes?

The ultimate solution, as a conclusion of our market research, to best grow our sport, and bring the benefits of RaceRanger to the age groupers, is to move to offering 2 categories of entry for amateur athletes.

A competitive group, where the focus is on racing, competing and measuring yourself against your peers. For these athletes fairness of the competition is really important. They want to be able to stand on a startline, shoulder to shoulder with the athletes in their category they are about to do battle with. They want to know that the race will be operated as fairly as possible, and that any awards or qualifications to world championships are earned cleanly and are deserved. These athletes would have 2 devices on their bike, just like the professionals currently do.

Then secondly, a General Participation group. Here the focus can be more on having FUN, staying safe, overcoming a formidable physical challenge, or perhaps achieving a personal fitness improvement milestone. For these athletes their connection with their supporters is a big part of their day, and this engagement is how we inspire a lot of newcomers to triathlon; they follow someone they know along their journey, and think “I’d like to give that a go”. These athletes would have just a single rear device on their bikes. It wouldn’t light up its drafting lights between groups of athletes from the general participation group. But if one of them were to ride in front of some, of the competitive group, then they would light up in that case.
   

Seeding athletes between competitive and non-competitive groups will allow the swim start order to be improved. Instead of a random rolling start, with fast athletes mixed in with slower athletes, spread across a 45min to 1hr window. Faster athletes in the competitive category could be set off in their age group waves, ahead of the rest of the field.

The fastest age groups can be released first, followed by the slower age groups. The 1 athlete per second rolling start rate can be maintained. For example 50 athletes in the 25-29 men can be released, then 50 seconds later the 40 athletes in the 30-34 category can be released. This maintains the operational timeline, but also places those faster athletes out on the course, ahead of those slower than them. With RaceRanger in effect out on the bike course, and drafting rules being actively policed on a smaller group in a more focused way – the same as for the professional – there should be enough space out on course to avoid riding in packs.

The rear devices have orange, blue and red LED lights, which point backwards at you from the rider ahead, where you are already looking. Just like a normal bike light, but in 3 colours. The lights give 3 different signals. If no-one is within range the lights are all goibg to be off.

The system can be adjusted to different distances as required by the event, but for this example we’ll use the base of 12m, which is the standard age-group draft distance rull / zone.

SIGNAL 1 - When you reach a threshold distance eg 17m behind the rider in front, the first light signal comes on; a solid ORANGE light. This gives you an indication that you’re in the early warning / safe zone.

SIGNAL 2 - When you cross a second threshold eg 14m, the signal changes to a solid BLUE light. This tells you that you are now getting close to the drafting zone. Specifically, when the light is blue you are within 2m of crossing into the draft zone.
If you get much closer, you’ll find yourself in the drafting zone and need to make a pass.

SIGNAL 3 - If you then continue to progress towards the rider ahead and cross over the 12m threshold The colour of the light changes to RED, and it also goes from a solid to a rapidly FLASHING light. That’s all it does for now.

Once you’ve racked your bike and headed out on your run, the devices are carefully removed from your bike by the RaceRanger team, recharged wirelessly, and taken on to the next event.

Yes, for the system to work fairly and effectively, RaceRanger will become a mandatory requirement to compete in an event, just like race numbers and timing chips.

An alternate concept is for the event to offer 2 categories of entry to its age group field. A competitive group and a more general participation group.

In this scenario, only the competitive athletes would have 2 units on their bikes, the general participation group would only have a rear device. Those rears would only light up when that athlete goes in front of a competitive athlete, not vice-versa. This way the bulk of the field would not be lit up like a big christmas tree of flashing lights.

UPDATE August 2026
2 races have signed up in early 2027 to deploy RaceRanger on their entire fields;

Loan Market Oceanside Tauranga Half (23rd January 2027)

AND

Challenge Wanaka 100 (20th February 2027)

RaceRanger will be deployed to the bikes of all Triathlon individual, aquabike and teams entrants.

Entries are open!
Will we see you there???


Beyond this, we anticipate further events to be added to the calendar through 2027. A wider rollout is expected from 2028 onwards.

Distance measurements in the range most relevant to the drafting rules - between 0-30m, are highly accurate. The accuracy of RaceRanger’s distance measurement results in an average error of just 10cm or less at 30m apart, with this measurement being made and updated up to 10x per second.

There are two parts to ‘accuracy’ in this case really. There’s the accuracy of the distance measurement, but then also the level of accuracy related to the latency from the moment a distance threshold has been crossed, to the moment the light indication turns on and is visible to the rider.

The RaceRanger team have literally spent years in R&D to make the system’s distance measurements as accurate as possible, and any indication latency from crossing a threshold to the moment the light signal changes as imperceptible as possible.

To be worth the time, effort and investment to bring RaceRanger to the market, it must reach ‘the masses’; the age group fields, not just the professionals. At that stage, the cost of the RaceRanger service will be included as part of an athlete’s entry fees.

We do not want to put a specific price figure on the system at this point, as production costs are still being worked through.

However, the amount will be reasonable….significantly less than common event entry website processing fees, added as the final step of entering many races today. Or for example purchasing a set of your raceday finisher pictures.

Initially no. RaceRanger is delivered as a complete system by our team at events, to ensure it’s operated successfully and gets good uptake throughout the sport.

We do plan to offer devices for sale as a consumer direct purchase in future. As we all know, you should never try anything new on raceday, so we expect athletes will want to train with the RaceRanger system on their bikes to get used to it. We already get a lot of requests from pros for this!
Athletes would of course need to have a friend also running the system on their bike for them to be useful in training.

For a number of reasons, the initial RaceRanger system consists of 2 devices per bike.

The current system functions best when there is as clear a line of sight between two devices as possible. In this case the view from one rider’s rear unit, backwards to another’s front.

Measuring the distance between 2 riders is important, but just as important is accurately detecting the moment an overtake is made.  In combination with other sensor inputs, RaceRanger uses the 2xF, 2xR devices of 2 riders in an overtake scenario to determine with high accuracy and reliability, when one rider has passed another.

Having 2 devices allows us to position the rider indication lights (which tell a following rider how close they are), on the seat post / seat tube of the bike, where the following rider is already looking.

To prevent an athlete from attempting to tamper with the system, having the front device (which measures the distance to the rider ahead), mounted midway up the fork, means that to reach down and try to cover, or remove the unit would be counterproductive to pushing watts, easily noticeable to an observer, and of course quite dangerous while riding along. Triathlon rules are being expanded to detail that attempting to cover / remove the RaceRanger devices during an event is considered serious misconduct and a disqualification offence.

We triathletes are a particular bunch. Practically every rider has a different handlebar / cockpit area set-up. We did not want to place any extra equipment in this area. As every bike has a different cockpit and there would be a number of mounting challenges to achieve a workable solution for all.

Having the light indication of following distance on a rider’s own handlebars would distract them from where they should be looking – up at the road ahead. This is why we put the light indication on the rear of the bike ahead, where they should already be looking, for safety.

We are working on making it possible to use the system as a mixture of 2 devices for competitive athletes, 1 rear only devices for general participation athletes.

REARS

Rear devices drive the interaction with front devices of following athletes. They determine which front devices are; heading in the same direction as themselves, behind, not in front of themselves close enough to want to get a highly accurate distance measurement between the 2 bikes.

After making its ‘rangings’ (distance measurements) the rear device then determines which light signals to show the closest following rider.

If the following rider stays within the illegal zone over the allowed time, or enters the zone and then drops back out again, this information is recorded onboard the devices for review afterwards. In an upcoming feature release, this data will be transmitted, live to the local motorbike referees within a workable range ahead and behind the offending athlete. The referees will then be connected with each other via the RaceRanger cloud app, which connects and shares all their officiating activity amongst themselves, the penalty tents, and race HQ.

FRONT

Front devices ‘advertise’ their location to ‘listening’ rear devices.

They then engage in distance measuring activity (ranging) with the rear of a rider ahead as directed by that rear.

Our current units weigh 50 grams for a front and 100 grams for the rear unit.

As a comparable product, the Garmin Varia radar bike light systems are listed as weighing between 70 and 150grams.

Yes. The LED lights are similar to common modern cycling lights, designed for use in all light conditions to improve rider visibility and safety.

Through our competition trials and work with pro athletes, we have arrived at the present 3 colours and solid / flash patterns & brightness levels. It has been important to ensure that the lights are well visible, but do not overly annoy the athletes. As potentially they will be looking at them for hours on end.

Reducing the reflected glare of sunlight from the device lens has also been something we have had to account for.

At times the lghts do not appear that bright on the television broadcast, but rest assured, in real life they are nice and bright and are visible from up to 400m away to both athletes and referees.

One full long-distance race day’s use for even the slowest of competitors. Batteries in all devices are wirelessly recharged after the event before the next race.

In the IRONMAN length events we’ve tested at, none of the devices have dropped below 60% remaining charge by the end of the bike. (albeit this was the pro field, so they aren’t out there all day)

Our initial objective is to service long-distance races, as this represents the pinnacle of non-drafting racing in our sport currently. Generally courses are more openly spaced with less tight turns or sharp corners for these longer races.

Also, because the entry fees in longer distance events are higher generally, the additional cost of the RaceRanger service will make up a smaller % increase to entry fees than it would for shorter events.

That said, the system has been used successfully at top level Para triathlon events including the Pairs 2024 Paralypics, which are contested over the sprint distance, and are non-drafting events.

No. The devices are pre-programmed to only ‘wake-up’ on race day, and once the bike is moving and the rider gets out on the course.

The system is pre-configured to the rules being applied on the day, such as drafting distance, time allowed to pass, penalty time, number of penalty tents etc.

RaceRanger can be configured to be effective at whatever distance is required, including the 20m distance used at most pro events currently.

In fact, as an edge scenario, if it’s a direction the sport wants to go, devices can be configured to intermingle some athletes racing at one draft distance, and other athletes at another. The lights will just continue to show the draft distance relevant to the closest follower.

Every athlete will have the 2x devices on their bikes, so no-one will be competitively disadvantaged. It’s the same for everyone.

We have worked hard to make the device enclosures as aerodynamic as possible, within the constraints of the technology required to be fitted inside. We plan to test the drag properties in a wind tunnel setting and provide this information to athletes.

Initially we had mild objections from Pro athletes when we first introduced the system back in 2023, but these quickly disappeared after they saw the improvement it made to their racing, and the fact that it’s the same ‘disadvantage’ for everyone.

In essence RaceRanger does not require the rules of the sport to fundamentally change.

Referees still give penalties, and they still show the rider a penalty card.

Penalties are still served on the roadside in tents, removing athletes from the drafting situation.

Minor edits / additions have been made to the rules to account for events where the system is in use, such as;

• Making it illegal to intentionally tamper with or try to manipulate the system.

• Adding the requirement that adequate space must be left / made available on the rear edge of the seatpost / seat tube area of the bike to accommodate the rear units

• While the system is simple and intuitive to use, referees will require some adaptions to their training programs to educate them on how to best use RaceRanger to ensure a fairer race for all.

We have been working on RaceRanger with World Triathlon and IRONMAN since 2018, and these considerations are continually being worked through.

Beyond currently just seeing the same lights signals on the back of every bike on course, referees will soon receive live drafting data into the RaceRanger Officials App.

What would the referees like to see on the tablets in front of them? This Is a genuinely novel concept to ponder! We have consulted on this issue with World Triathlon’s Technical Commission, and referee representatives from other event organisations.

The outcome is that through the RaceRanger App, the referees will be shown the activity of a handful of the worst offending athletes in their vicinity ahead and behind them along the course. They will be ranked in order of their ‘recent illegal time’, which will be an addition of all reported time over the allowed passing time, within a rolling period of for example the last 15minutes.

For these athletes identified, their total ‘Illegal Time’ so far in the race will be reported, as well as their ‘yo-yo count’ the number of times an athlete has entered a draft zone, but then dropped backwards out of it.

Their position in relation to the motorbike, ahead and behind will be shown as a graphic, so the referee can direct their driver to proceed forwards or drop backwards to take a closer look, or communicate directly with the athlete(s).

If the referee wants to give a penalty, they apply it directly through the RaceRanger app, and it goes straight to the penalty tent official.

One of the founding ideals of the sport of triathlon of a pure and individual effort are held close to heart by the majority of triathletes. We don’t think non-drafting triathlon is going anywhere in a hurry.

That said, short distance events, such as the elite level competitions showcased at the Olympic Games did move to draft-legal racing in the 90’s. Drafting had become too hard to police fairly over the shorter races as margins between athlete abilities narrowed. It was also argued that draft legal racing would make for a more entertaining TV product. Draft legal racing has not extended beyond the Olympic Distances (1500m/40km/10km)

The event market is a free market space, so if there was demand from athletes for a long distance, draft legal event, it would surely have become a popular format by now?

The main reason is that founding ideal of a pure individual effort, but triathletes are not known for our bike handling skills, especially in the age of indoor training. Allowing drafting in a long-distance race with athletes on time trial bikes, would be a health and safety nightmare for any triathlon event organizer.

In fact, could RaceRanger be an avenue for the sport to fairly and credibly add a middle distance non-drafting event to the Olympic Games one day?

It has taken the RaceRanger team over 8 years of R&D, trial and error and product development to get to this point. We believe that many have likely looked at it in the past, but perhaps the investment to get to the point we have reached with RaceRanger outweighed the potential benefits.

Technology is always advancing, and generally becoming more capable, smaller, faster, cheaper. Perhaps the right combinations of technologies have only just become available recently?

Maybe we are plain crazy and overly passionate about our sport to have pursued the project to this point? Highly possible…

What we do know, is that technology will fix this problem, there is a bunch of value tech can add to the athlete experience and to grow the sport, and we believe we on the path to the right solution.

Tough biscuits my friend. Long Distance triathlon is an individual sport. You can still intentionally draft if you want, but unfortunately for you, the referees will be able to see what you are doing, even when they aren’t riding along with you.

Events may also choose to publish the drafting data after the events. This has been pioneered by Challenge Roth and the T100 Series in the pro ranks, and acts as a major deterrent in the back of athletes minds as they race.

RaceRanger will still provide the athletes with the light indications, so they have clarity over whether they are in the draft zone or not.

Secondly, The information shown to the referees on their tablets, still prioritises the worst offending athletes. Even in the busiest of races some athletes make more of an effort to avoid drafting than others, so they will put themselves lower down the priority ranking that is shown to the referees.

As they do today, the referees still make the judgement calls.

We believe there is potential to split age group fields into ‘competitive’ and ‘participant’ categories. Competitive athletes would have the full pro experience with drafting lights, and focussed refereeing ensuring a fair race.
Participant athletes might not have the lights elements but would get the base functionality of enhanced live tracking, athlete management safety tracking, and new data insights after the event.

We have addressed this split category model in the 2nd FAQ: “How will RaceRanger work for fiels of 3000+ athletes?”

The current definition of the drafting zone typically describes a rectangular box from the front wheel of the leading rider, out to each side, and backwards.

RaceRanger devices measure the following distance in an arc from the rear device backwards, so the back end of the current rectangle becomes rounded to follow that arc.

After a rider has crossed this arc, we really only want to know a couple of things. Did they continue to progress forward and complete a pass within the allowed time, or not? Or did they drop back again? (yo-yo) which is also technically against the rules.

So the effective RaceRanger drafting zone looks like this below;