I just saw the discussion concerning the Springfield Loop and whethter or not to do it as a time trial or not. Since that thread died out I figured I'd start a new one, since I don't know if its been done yet.

From my perspective I think the best compromise is to ride it as a group but use USAT rules for drafting and passing. In short they are:

-Each rider has a box around them of approximately 6 feet by 21 feet. The box starts at the leading edges of the front tire extending to the rear and is three feet to either side of the rider. This gives basically a three bike length 'no drafting' zone behind each rider.
- When one person wants to pass another the person attacking has 15 seconds to enter and exit the box of the the rider being passed. The person being passed does not have to yield until the person passing gets their front wheel ahead of yours, i.e., if you are passing someone and they speed up so you can't get far enough ahead then you have to fall back to your previous spot.

I think that would provide the strategic and tactical challenges Chris wrote about while maintaining the goal of it being an individual measurement.

J.Z.