In providing this coverage, which is now in its eleventh year, I don't believe I've ever thanked anyone who has helped me count bikes. And I wouldn't thank them this year either, except this was not your ordinary year. Maybe it was '94, if memory serves, when rain came down like this the night before the race. But never throughout the entire survey. The rain did not start until the precise minute we started counting.

The problem was not the rain on our persons, but the rain on the paper on which we tried to write. The pages got soggy, the pens wouldn't work. We didn't have umbrellas, because the rain has never been an issue. We'll make accommodation for this next year.

For this year, however, I must thank race official Steve Blum and his survey partner (one calls out, one writes down) and Mark Andrews (who is one of Trek's engineers). They are not pictured. Kestrel's Preston Sandusky is to the left, then Lloyd and Paula Eldredge from Salt Lake City. My trusty editor Amy White is next, and behind her is her husband Dave, and far right is Ian Murray, coach for the L.A. Tri Club. Thanks to all for braving the rain, which was coming down hard and steady as this photo was taken. If you're wondering why the crew is standing in front of the port-o-potties, it is because those with pen and paper were hunkered down in there scribbling away, as they were the only dry spots in the place.

OVERVIEW OF THE TRANSITION AREA

The Germans must think we Yanks are loony. The whole 26"-wheel-steep-seat-angle thing started in the U.S. and back then—a dozen or more years ago—the Germans called it the "American Position." By mid-'90s it would more rightly be termed the German Position, as they'd all gone over to it while Americans had cooled off on that idea a bit.

Now I look in the transition area and while I haven't collated the numbers, it occurs to me that a great number of the German bikes were of a more standard road configuration, while I saw a lot more Americans on steeper and smaller-wheel bikes than I seem to remember seeing two or three years ago. The single exception to that is Trek, and these bikes are predominantly road bikes. Take Trek out of the race and the U.S. riders are again trending to a more aggressive position, and this is typified by the influx of Cervelos and tri-specific Litespeeds.

Meanwhile, the Deutsch uber-riders—Stadler, Zack and Hellriegel—continue to ride steep, as they've done since the late '80s, and it will be interesting to see what the rank-and-file Germans are riding two or three years from now.

On the subject of seat positions, there is a flowering of new ways to achieve variable relative seat angles. Cervelo (P2K and P3) and Kestrel (Talon) both have clamps atop their proprietary aero posts that allow for forward and aft seating, each using its own methodology. There were a fair number of Profile Design posts built for making a shallower bike steep, and quite a few people have discovered that you can turn a Thompson set-back seat post around and it becomes a "set-fore" post. I did see one old, original seat shifter in the race. There are enough individual riders and bike companies employing this idea that I would expect to see an explosion of the "new" M2 Racing seat shifters next year.

I also expect that both Trek and Giant will have some O.E. system in operation for their customers, since both these bike makers are trying to get triathletes to buy road geometry bikes for triathlon. Many of Trek's own sponsored pros—at least DeBoom and McRae in this race—required forward seat posts for their Trek TT bikes, so Trek must make this utility available for sale with this particular model.

I didn't count saddle models in the race. I've never surveyed them here, but last year there were a terrific number of Selle Italia SLRs, and prior to that there were a lot of Selle Italia Flites in the field. This year there were a ton of Selle San Marco Azoto Triathgels—so many so that I asked one of our counters who'd finished early to go back and do another run-through, just to get a total on that particular model. But as the rain came down harder I thought better of it and put him out of his misery after he'd gotten through the first 300 bikes. I've got no saddle numbers as a result, just my impression.

THE TALE OF FIVE COMPANIES

Trek again rules. They're never not in the hunt for the top bike brand in the race. They've also stuck their finger in the air and detected which way the breeze is blowing, which is toward triathlon and away from MTB. That's why they're no longer just sponsoring one man and one woman, which was the case all during the 90s (Pigg and Smyers). Whatever they're doing it's paying off, as they've gained five bikes in the race from last year, and with it the top spot in the survey.

The big drop came in Cannondale's bikes, which proves that this company has made the strategic move of gaining IM licensee status none too soon. Look for C'dale to reverse this trend next year, as the licensee always gains in numbers, and C'dale is also (like Trek) taking this category much more seriously.

Cervelo is the big gainer. They seem to have gotten what C'dale has lost, if you just take the numbers at face value.

Litespeed has dipped a slight bit, for the first time in quite a few years. It could be that its sister company, QR, has gotten ti sales that would've otherwise gone to Litespeed.

Kestrel has also dipped, though it was not our impression that it has stopped selling bikes into the tri market. There were quite a few Talons and newer KM40s in the race. We'd have to investigate further, but it might be that Kestrel's standard road bikes that might've been in evidence in this race in years past—like 200s and 500s—aren't here in quite the numbers they have been.