Ultracycling

Drafting is such a big deal in cycling that a draft-legal ultra would be a very different event and impossible to organise from a safety or logistics point of view.

PBP is basically a draft-legal ultra. What happens is that people set off at high speed to stay in the group. All the groups go like this but the front group, which is the real race, is more extreme. I haven't ridden in the front group but people who have say it is the most elbows-out competitive event they have ever ridden in. People come off and break bones, or scrape skin and get back on again. The only thing that matters is holding your wheel as, if you lose it, you are not going to get it back again. The group tends to gradually slim down as people can't take the pace, then there is a break a few km out, or even a sprint for the line, from those who have stayed together for the distance. Last time was very unusual as Bjorn managed to break 700km out and stay away. Finally the route has been selected and risk-assessed for safety.

Imagine the TCR with those rules. Everyone starts off and fights to get into the front group. If you miss it, your 2-week race is over in the first 10 minutes. Let's say 5o get into it and the rest plod along behind in 1s, 2s and 3s. PBP has a race car and motorbike riders (plus French drivers who respect the event and give way to it). They ride ahead and warn drivers to keep clear of the bunch. TCR would not have those so there would be conflicts with oncoming cars and also following cars trying to overtake.

The group gets to a junction. You see the guys ahead go one way but your route is the other way. What do you do? Follow the wheel of course! No way your slightly better route could make up for losing the group. The guy whose route it is rotates off, so now you are in the front but you don't know the route, so you have to just guess and see if the others follow you or not.

After a few hours, the group agrees that they will stop at town x for 5 minutes. There is no organised control like PBP so you hit a supermarket. You are stuck in the slow queue behind a housewife doing her weekly shop. Some guys got served straight away. Are they going to wait?

And so on...

It would be such a different event and, totally unsafe and probably illegal in many countries, to have a big group bowling along without any organisation behind it. You might as well say why can't I pick up the ball in soccer when it is ok in rugby - it would be that different!