Question:
I ask whether triathlon discussions belong here because, after tomorrow, it
may be relevant. Or not.
Because if Lance does reasonably well in the NYC marathon, what are the odds
that's not the opening shot in his bid for the Ironman championship? And
what are the odds that people here could actually *not* talk about whatever
Lance is up to?
So... is it relevant to discuss the cycling aspect of triathlons here?
Answer:The important thing is to always mock their curious equipment choices.
That said, what's the feeling: has there been any notable aerodynamic/TT
trick which was pioneered by triathletes before it moved to cycling? My
impression is that the triathletes mostly copy from the pro cyclists,
and with some lag. Apparently bent-up bars are still hot in Tri circles.
Bike brand survey at the 2006 Hawaii Ironman:
http://slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/kona2006/brands.html
They repeatedly refer to certain bikes (Equinox TTX, Cervelo P3C) as
"tri-specific," where we might refer to them as "Zabriskie's weapon of
choice."
That said, I think the tri-geeks have the high ground when it comes to
being the driving force behind the sales of "TT" bikes.
The 2006 survey says that the big drop-off is that fewer road bikes
(with or without clip-on tri-bars?) are showing up, and more
tri-specific [aka TT] bikes are being used.
This makes sense, since a great number of makers are now building
reasonably priced bikes with a tri/TT cockpit setup.
Of note to someone in this discussion might be the substantial drop in
the number of Treks in the personal-best-fest this year. That said, it
was still second most popular, and much of the problem was that nobody
could buy the Equinox TTX in time for Kona.
