It is often the case that the Swiss closely mirror the Germans in terms of cycling trends among triathletes. That was not at all in evidence in Kona in 2001.

There was only one statisic remotely similar about these two countries' habits, and that was Germany's 55% choice for drop versus road bars, This was mirrored by Swiss riders, who chose drop bars 59% of the time. Otherwise there was considerable divergence, with the Swiss much more conservative in their trends (isn't that usually the case with the Swiss?).

They rode with shallow saddle set ups overwhelmingly, with 42 of their 66 riders choosing this set-up, which totalled 65% compared to 45% of the Germans, and 48% of the riders overall. Seventy-three percent road on 700c-wheeled bikes, compared to Germany's 54% and the field's 56%.

Whereas the Germans chose Syntace by a margin of better than 2-to-1 over aerobars by Profile Design, among the Swiss it was about 50-50. No other bar maker had more than three units in the field of Swiss riders.

Aluminum bikes won out, 56% to 36% over carbon, but this was almost precisely in line with Kona's field in general, not the 70% to 12% that was evident among the Germans.

As was the case with Germany, Principia was the premier brand chosen, but just by a hair. The wealth was spread around, with eight for the Danish bike maker, seven for Trek, while six chose Cannondale, and four riders each were on Cheetah—including women's winner Natascha Badmann—and Coppi.

Cheetah is the innovative Swiss maker of custom futuristic carbon bikes, and if you count Badmann's wins and one a few years ago by Lori Bowden, this company has a lot of Kona victories it can boast.

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