Let's start with a general assessment of where we are in the U.S. in triathlon. I was surprised by a story I read last week in BRAIN (bike industry pub). Shimano is down 20 percent in net sales and 30 percent in operating profit in the last quarter, after meteoric growth for 5 straight years, right into and over any headwinds the bike business might be facing.

Why down now, and for the second consecutive quarter? Probably because Shimano has hogged about as much market share as it can out of SRAM; also, SRAM is now starting to ship more 1x and eTap; also, Shimano's penetration into the IBD with shoes, pedals, wheels and so forth has been accomplished to a large degree; so a general downturn in the bike business will finally affect Shimano the way it affects every other bike brand.

It's rough all over. SRAM also announced a layoff of 40 workers, which is rare for that brand. It's an industry downturn, worldwide, and inventories are up while sales are down across most bike categories, including road.

There are some glimmers of light. I've heard from a few race directors that their numbers are up, after having been in a slide for 2 or 3 years. Here's Joe Coito who runs the popular Santa Barbara Triathlon: “The past 5 years have been down from the top, on average, ten to fifteen percent.” However, “My entries are up significantly year-to-date.” I hear this from the Rev3 folks as well, and I just heard the same story from Andre Quirino from Multirace when I was in Miami over the weekend.

I've heard the same from some tri retailers. I asked my surveyed cohorts about their businesses. You see the answers in the graph above. Race organizers are the most badly affected and these are most likely, one assumes, to blame Ironman encroachment on their ill fortunes. But we may be seeing early signs of an end to the slump North American triathlon has been in over the last 4 to 5 years.

When you ask clubs and coaches "to what do [they] attribute their growth" – if there was growth – what they say is in the charts above and below. In the case of this question respondents were able to choose as many options as they wanted.

In the chart below you see the odd blessing/curse of Ironman when I ask race directors what Ironman means to their businesses. Yes, 80 percent of surveyed RDs see Ironman as drawing people away from short course racing, and 66 percent say that the sucking sound you hear is Ironman vacuuming all spendable dollars out of the pockets of triathletes. Yet 87 percent of them say that Ironman has brought new people into the sport. Still, what is the profile of Ironman-inspired newbies?

“Ironman 70.3 & 140.6 creates a one-and-done mindset,” said Michael Cottle, who is as tied into the metro-Salt Lake City tri, club, and coaching community as you can get. Is Ironman creating the proverbial new-Trump-voter, attracted to the shiny object but with a shallow attachment to the history and longevity of the movement?

“I believe the impact of more Ironman opportunities for racers around the world is the best thing about its growth,” wrote Jeff Moffit of Bakersfield Triathlon. “I also believe that the high cost of competing in Ironman is the worst thing about it. It becomes a one-and-done scenario.”

I can't tell you how many times in my 400+ survey respondents' answers I've gotten that one-and-done comment. Either this is groupthink without any attachment to fact, or it is testimony that I suspect is supportable (or not) through either USAT's, Active Network's, or Ironman's own data.

Here is what one race director responded in a survey: “Ironman training plans either from Ironman or coach's tell athletes to not race and we have seen dozens of athletes skip their 2, 3 or sometimes 4 or 5 favorite races they have attended for years because their plan says no racing, train on the weekends. “

Is this true? I asked several business cohorts, and consumers, about this. The responses I got were fascinating, and contradictory, and I'll tackle this in our next installment.