As you might expect, aluminum is the dominant material, by more than double over carbon, the next best-represented material.
But what about trends?
Actually, aluminum is falling a bit and carbon isn't the recipient, titanium is. Last year titanium was ridden by 11% of the entrants, and that has always been about where titanium has been (we've not polled titanium at greater than 11% of the field since 1995, but never lower than 8.5%). This year titanium was ridden by 14% of the field, 40% more than the average titanium presence over the past decade.
Another big change is in the number of both titanium and aluminum bikes that have some sort of carbon in them. Only last year one in forty aluminum bikes had carbon seat stays or some other carbon structure as part of the frame. Now it's about one in eleven (85 of the 905 aluminum bikes had carbon in the frame). Likewise, only one out of a hundred titanium bikes had carbon in the frame last year, now it's one in twelve (19 of 224).
Titanium not only has a head of steam, it's probably not going to ease off. Last year I wrote of titanium's presence in Kona: "I fear that it won't soon exceed [11%] and may dip a bit under 10%, because the historic availability of the "$2500 ti bike" is pretty much gone unless some company fills this niche with a sought-after tri bike. I say this because Litespeed's Tachyon used to sell for the mid-$2000s, and Litespeed built its tri business off the back of this very popular model. Now you can't touch either a ti Litespeed or QR for under $3000, yet the carbon and aluminum bikes haven't undergone this sort of price creep."
I was obviously very wrong. Plus, QR has a $2500 titanium tri bike (that's the complete bike price) it'll be selling in 2004.
