There is no more striking disconnect between the set-ups used by the pros versus age-groups than in their choices of base bar. By "base bar" we mean the handlebar on which the aero bar attaches.
We surveyed both the brands of aero bars chosen by the riders and whether pursuit bars (cowhorns) or road race bars were used by the Kona entrants. We'll write about aero bar brands in a future installment.
In the chart we're presenting we broke down the riders into four groups, depending on their bib numbers. By "TOP 15O" we're not surveying finishers, but starters. Our assumption is that bib numbers 1-150 contain mostly pros, that 1-50 contain almost entirely pros (and when not, it's usually an age-group champion), and that 1-10 contain the best pros (returning top ten places from last year).
As can be seen, the better the group surveyed the more likely they are to ride with pursuit bars instead of road race bars. Yet the field is close to an even split when you look at all Kona starters.
In fact, if you select out the top 150 and consider the rest of the field, it's 52.5% versus 47.5%. My suspicion would be that if you identified the pros sprinkled through numbers 151 through 1560, and deleted them as well, it would be very close to 50/50.
Why is there such a diversion between so many of the age-groupers and the "pro" set-up. Several reasons. First, I doubt many of the age-groupers know what set-up most the pros are most likely to use. Second, I think the local bike shops don't know that either, and/or misrepresent the facts to their constituents.
Another reason might be that many of the age-groupers use only the one bike for training and racing, and they think that drop bars are a better all-around option.
Probably, though, the single biggest reason is because so many of these bikes are standard road geometry bikes and come with drop bars. There is a lot of inertia to just leave the bike alone. Changing from a road-race bar to a pursuit bar means that beautiful (and expensive) STI brake/shift lever system will have to be sacrificed in place of bar-end shifters and, in most cases, trailer-trash brake levers that were originally built for $200 European city bikes (Dia Compe #188 levers).
The biggest sin of all is in riding road race bars with a steeply-configured bike. The "drops" position is pretty-much unusable, and drop bars combined with the short-cockpit set-up of a steep-seat-angle tri bike is incompatible. That didn't stop Cannondale, though, from offering such a bike over the past couple of years (the MS 800).
As for all the top returning pros, the top eleven men from last year used pursuit bars, as did #15. Twelfth through fourteenth––Luoto, Zgraggen, and Tamura––used drop bars. As for the women, the top nine returners from last year (excepting Susanne Nielsen, who did not start this year's Ironman) all used pursuit bars, as did perennial top-10 finishers Heather Fuhr and Paula Newby-Fraser.
