Surveying the bikes––at least the way we did it this year––takes about 20 man-hours. We've gone back and forth between surveying the bikes as they enter the corral, and surveying them after they're all in. We chose the latter method this year, because it's usually slightly more accurate. We are not allowed much time in the bike corral––generally two to three hours. We therefore have to bring quite a few people in. When done this way the survey consists of two-man teams: one who calls out the result of a particular bike, and the other who records the result. The teams move through the bike corral row by row, and it's a wearying process.

We did find some interesting configurations, some of which we've recorded. We also took a few photos of some of the particular riders' bikes, or parts of their bikes. At left is the saddle and seat post mechanism on the Lotus Steve Larsen rode in Kona. We found that interesting because if anyone would've been inclined to ride a slacker-angled bike, one would've expected it of him, but his relative seat angle was probably in the 76-degree range.

This was also the range we found for both the DeBoom brothers (Litespeed and Cyfac) and Peter Reid (Trek), all of whom ride traditional geometry bikes with seat angles that are in an intermediate range. Same thing with Spencer Smith (Sigma). I was surprised to see that Ryan Bolton's Dean was set up quite traditionally, like an ITU set-up. I found the same with Luc Van Lierde's Storck. I haven't spoken to Ryan or Luc about this, but it is almost always the case that riders who have one bike for both drafting and non-drafting races feel faster and stronger on their non-drafting bikes (both have been doing a lot of mass-start racing over the past few years). Upon experimentation, though, they generally find that a steeper bike will almost always go faster in a timed race. The one exception to this is Ken Glah. Don't misunderstand, he is not the only pro who rides a slack-angled bike in the race. He is just the only one who, in my estimate, rides it faster than he'd ride a steeper bike. I believe this is the case for one particular reason––Glah rides a slow cadence, and he has for many years. It's just too late for him to change. Steep bikes just don't perform as well if they're ridden with a slow cadence. Kenny is probably on the right bike for his riding style.

Pros make up the first 150 or so race numbers. Almost everybody in the race below that threshold is a pro, and while there are pros who have higher numbers than 150, they’re few and scattered. We thought it might be interesting to show you what the first 150 were doing.

First off, 11 of that first 150 didn’t show––including Peter Sandvang, Susanne Nielsen and Joanne King––so now we’re down to 139.

Kestrel and Trek were the best-represented, with a dozen bikes each. Cannondale had nine in the race, and Softride and Litespeed had seven each. Look was next with six, and we found that surprising. We knew that Normann Stadler rode Look, but we thought he was their lone hero. Not so. Also on a Look was Nicole Leder, along with other pros from Germany, Argentina, and the U.S. There were also six Griffens, and five each from QR, Cervelo, Specialized, and Cube, a German company. No other company had more than three bikes in the race and, overall, 40 different companies had at least one bike represented among these 139 riders.

Eighty-three were riding 700c wheels, and 56 were on 650c. No funny bikes among the pros. Seventy-seven were set up in a steep seat angle configuration––which we say is 76 degrees or steeper, and 62 were set up at 75 degrees or shallower.

Carbon has always been a very popular material at the Ironman, but aluminum is really taking over. Eighty-four of the first 139 were made of that metal, while only 36 were carbon. Twelve were titanium, and four were steel.

We thought we’d look at some handlebar set-ups. We noticed that 92 of the 139 riders had pursuit bars, on which their aero bars were mounted. Out of this first 139, only 12 of the steep-seat-angled riders had road race bars on their bikes. Keeping in mind that the numbering system generally follows how one places the previous year (it appears to us that numbers 1 through 38 followed closely the men’s finish rank of the prior year’s race), it wasn’t until we got into the upper 40s that we found the first person who chose to ride with a steep seat angle and a road race bar. In other words, none of the top men chose that set up. None of the men and only one of the women who placed in this year’s top 15 had that set-up.

Perhaps it is clear we don’t think this is a good way to ride a bike, and we’re proving a point using this year’s survey as our baseball bat. The top five men from last year––Peter Reid, Tim DeBoom, Normann Stadler, Lothar Leder, and Thomas Hellriegel––all rode essentially similar set-ups: aero bars mounted on pursuit bars with a medium steep (e.g., Reid and DeBoom) or quite steep (e.g., Stadler) seat angles. Road race bars and steep seat angles are a bad match.

As aero bars go, Profile Design is the lead outfitter in the pro racks, outdueling Syntace 69 to 47. These two have it pretty much to themselves. Our counters could only number five VisionTechs, which was a bit of a surprise. We thought they’d have more. But their five included Spencer Smith and Steve Larsen, so they were well represented.

Our bar count totals less than 139 because there were a pair of Cheetahs, and the bars are integrated into the frameset, and there were some Japanese riders with bars our counters couldn't identify. Perhaps they were additional Shiromoto bars, in addition to the two we could identify and counted. The bar maker––Norimitsu Shiromoto––is a 48-year-old powerhouse athlete and designs and sells his own wetsuits and bikes, all very nicely done.

Our counters found one Aerolite handlebar––a product that was way ahead of its time–– and, finally, there were only two lonely Scott bars in the pro racks, quite a turn of events for the company that started the aero bar craze in ‘87.