depends on the race...sometimes they're used for raffles and such, sometimes to determine if you finished or not

I always tear mine off.... about 5 or 6 years ago i did a 5k where they had people at the finish with a long thin rope that they were putting all those things on (since they have a hole) Cant imagine that it is an accurate measure of finish order!

I even see people who cut just the number out and pin that on.

The numbers are made to handle a wide variety of races.
If a race is smaller they may not have the money to spring for sophisticated timing equipment.

If you have a timing chip it won't make a difference.

Personally, I'd leave it on, Chunky. I've had to use them at a lot of races. A tri that I did last weekend that had a chip asked for them at the end of the swim.

I'm assuming that what they would do is look at anyone who DNF and cross-check that with the physical tags they had to make sure that there wasn't an error with the timing chip. Likewise, if there was a chip that crossed, but no tag, they may want to look into things further.

I've seen them used as your ticket to the post race food tent.

They were used in my first tri this spring. It was a small race with only about 250 people in it, so they didn't have the money for chip timing. They tore them off as you crossed the line and wrote on your finish time then did the fancy math using that and your start time to calculate your total race time to determine your finish place. Even with such a small number of racers, it still took them about 2 hours until after I finished before they posted my results.

It is for races without chips as another person noted. They do pull them off and put them in order and somehow, not sure how, can determine your time/pace based on when they pull it off (guessing they have some scanner vs the timing machine)...but in the road races i have done, it is very accurate..so if you have a chip, you probably don't need it unless they use it for post-race food etc.

Why do you have to be such a nonconformist. Just leave the flap alone.....why do you always need to question authority? I think they should give you a DNF just for being so dang obstinate!

So what's the family connection, b/c I am sure you wouldn't be so mean if you weren't related

chunky defends us from spam, the least we could do is defend him from rude (hopefully) family members

HAHA. Thank you all for defending me. Clyde S. Dale is another one of my brothers, perhaps more misguided and angry than Cap'n Mal, but he's family nonetheless. They make fun of me, but they'll still always ride with me because I'm pretty awesome to draft behind.

I wish my brothers would tri with me- at this point there's only the teasing part

clydesdales are draft horses, right?

So... are there just three of you? Because I think there should be a brothers category at the Trifuel Man-Tri...

It could be the Dukes vs. the Lietos... You guys have got your work cut out for you.