Kona 2005

"So what do all these Kona statistics mean to me?" you might ask. "Should I ride steep or shallow, 650c or 700c? Cervelo or Trek, Litespeed or Felt?"

Good questions. We thought we’d hazard some answers, and the "we" here include those who counted all the bikes, determined seat angle set-ups, and so forth, prior to the race. Then, progressing toward the writing of this article, our chief number cruncher was Jordan Rapp (Rappstar on the Slowtwitch Forum). Then there's me, who's spinning the data like a top.

Jordan and I thought it best to exclude all those who entered as pros from consideration in what you'll read below. Everything on this page refers only to age-groupers, which contain a sample set of about 1670 athletes. As you'll see, we'll get some pretty good precision out of a sample set this large.

At face value, below is the list of fastest bikes ridden by male age-groupers, among those companies having at least ten bikes underneath males in the race. What you see below is the mean bike split generated by each brand's typical rider. "Buy a Colnago!" you might say. Seems straightforward enough.

Not so fast, upon further review. Next to each brand is the mean age of the male rider in the race riding that brand. Keeping that in mind, one might see why Calfee's males, with an average age of 51, might not be expected to keep pace with Colnago's riders 14 years their junior.

The other element to consider is the paucity of Kona slots available to German and French athletes (and Europeans in general) relative to their competitive quality. In short, there are too many good Germans and too few qualifying spots for them. Accordingly, as a European you've got to be very good, very fast, to get to Kona. Inasmuch as Canyon, as an example, is a brand only sold in Germany, it would follow that its riders would all post quality bike splits. And that's what has happened. Likewise, Colnago and Look are not as frequently purchased by triathletes outside Europe, and the caliber of athletes riding these bikes is especially high.

BRAND	SPLIT	AGE	BRAND	SPLIT	AGE
CERVELO	5:57:26	37	LITESPEED	6:16:07	41
FELT	5:57:55	35	QUINTANA ROO	6:16:55	40
GIANT	6:00:14	34	KESTREL	6:18:46	42
PRINCIPIA	6:01:43	37	TREK	6:28:55	46
CALFEE	6:13:47	42	CANNONDALE	6:29:35	38
SPECIALIZED	6:14:59	43

Women's totals are listed in the table just above. In the women's field, Americans tend to dominate the age-group podium, so you don't see the European brands represented here, with the exception of Principia. Again, as is the case with the men, companies like Litespeed, Trek and Kestrel have customers in the higher age brackets so, though they ride relatively well, they are giving up two and three age-group brackets to those who ride, say, Felt and Giant.

When considering the geometry (in this case seat angles) of the bikes ridden, we found some eyebrow raisers. The average bike split among all men who rode shallower than 76° of relative seat angle was 5:44:24. The average bike split among men who rode at 76° or steeper was 5:35:35. The difference between these two groups was 8:49.

Women riding shallow averaged 6:18:40. When one considers that 8:49 gap between the shallow and steep men, and extrapolates that out to project what the women's differential would be, the math yields a steep-to-shallow differential of 9:42. We do in fact find a close association. Women who rode their bikes with a 76° seat angle or steeper in Kona rode bike splits of 6:08:55, or 9:45 faster than those riding shallow set-ups.

What about the run splits? Men who rode shallow ran, on average, a marathon split of 4:11:43. Men who rode steep ran 4:06:19. The differential was 5:24.

Interestingly, while the steep-riding men ran faster, they ran incrementally slower as a percentage of their bike rides. Yes, they ran faster off their steep-configured bikes than those who rode shallow, but if their gains while riding steep were transfered directly over to their run splits, they'd have run about a minute faster than they did. In other words, riding steep helped them slightly more during the ride than it did during the run.

Women who rode shallow ran a 4:31:27 marathon on average. Were the steep-riding women to show the same fractional difference in the run as did the steep-riding men, they'd have outsplit their shallow-riding counterparts by 5:49. In fact, those women who rode steep ran a 4:25:46 marathon split. Their run times were 5:41 quicker than the women riding shallow seat angles.

As was the case with the men, women who rode steep ran faster, but they didn't best their shallow counterparts' run splits by as much as they bested their bike splits.

To wit: Male age-groupers who rode shallow ran their marathons in a time 73.1% of their bike splits. Steep riders ran run splits 73.4% of their bike splits. Likewise, female shallow riders ran their marathons in a time equal to 71.7% of their bike splits. Steep riding women ran their marathons in a time equal to 72.0% of their bike splits. Women, non-pros, run split as a percentage of bike split:

Out of these 1670 or so age-group riders, about 1000 rode steep and the balance were shallow. Male AGers were steep 63.7% of the time, women 61.2%. The average age for males who rode steep was 41 years old, and shallow males (Lord knows they abound) also averaged 41. Women who rode steep averaged 39 years old (35-39 women had a mean finish time of 11:50), and their shallow-riding counterparts were 41 years old (40-44 women averaged a 11:55 finish). Males who rode steep averaged a swim of 1:13:35, shallow-riders swam a minute and 49 seconds slower on average. Women riding steep swam 1:17:52 and those riding shallow lagged on the swim, 4:23 back. Out of these 1670 there were roughly 200 starters who obtained slots through the lottery or some other way, the balance qualified the traditional way.

Several conclusions can be drawn from these numbers. First, women are apparently more conservative during their bike rides, as both steep- and shallow-riding women ran correspondingly quicker marathons than did the men (relative to their bike splits). Either that, or women are just naturally better runners than they are riders, when compared to the relative strengths of men.

Second, both women and men who chose steep-angled configurations also rode faster, and in the same proportion.

Third, steep riders also happened to run notably faster, and again men and women show these trends in the same proportion.

Fourth, while men and women who ride steep also run fast, the differential is not quite as great during the run as during the ride.

And finally, it is apparent that in this race, on this day, age-group women who rode steeper seat angles demonstrated precisely the same bike and run split associations as did the age-group men.

The age of those choosing steep or shallow appears not to be a factor. What about the difference in swim times? This might mean that better athletes — for whatever reason — just gravitate toward steeper angles, accounting for the faster times in all three sports turned in by steep-angled riders.