Here's what you expect: Mediterranean Europe—France and Italy—are going to be ultraconservative: lots of shallow-angled, 700c road race bikes. Same thing in Australia. Central Europe, and by this we mean the German-speaking countries, would be the most avante garde, wiith a lot of steep bikes and more than your average number of beam bikes and small wheels. Then you expect North America to straddle the middle.

The German countries, especially Switzerland, were more conservative than we expected, and the sorts of numbers we'd have thought we'd see in Germany were generated by Canada. Judging solely by what is preached on the Slowtwitch.com bike technology and fit pages, Canadians seem to really have it together.

60% of its riders ride in a steep seat angle configuration, and as opposed to Germans, who tend to often ride this way on a road race base bar, Canadians (rightly, in our view) mirror this by choosing pursuit bars over road bars 61% of the time.

They are split right down the middle when it comes to wheel size, half choosing dual 700c, half dual 650c.

As is the case among the field in general, half the riders are riding aluminum bikes. A fourth—somewhat less than the field as a whole—are on carbon bikes. One out of six was on a ti bike, a much higher rate than the entire field, in which only out out of ten road titanium.

Syntace was the choice over Profile, but out of the 81 riders Canada sent to Kona 41 chose this German aero bar maker, narrowly beating Profile Design's 37.

As one might expect, Canadians were loyal to the "house brand," and rode Cervelos at a rate even with Trek. Each company outfiitted eleven Canadians. There were eight Litespeeds, six C'dales, and four each Quintana Roo and Softride. There were also four Aquila bikes, and this is a Canadian-owned firm, and there were also a pair of Dion bikes (another Canadian bike maker). One might've expected to see the occasional Guru in the race, since this is also a Canadian maker, and since a Canadian rode won in his Olympic gold medal victory in triathlon, but we didn't spot any. Maybe next year.