For the purposes of this Survey we consider "steep" to be a relative seat angle of 76° or greater. 75° or shallower is "shallow." By "relative" we refer to how the bike is set up, not how the frame was originally designed. For example, a Trek 5500 is a road geometry bike and as such is shallow, but if it had a seat post that retrofitted the bike with 76° of "apparent" seat angle, then this Survey says it's steep.

Cervelos with the seat post clamp flipped backward, and the saddle in the middle of the rails or rearward were considered shallow. If the saddle was forward of the mid-rail position, or if the seat post clamp was positioned forward, the bike was steep.

Seat angle configs were determined just by eyeballing the bikes. There were judgment calls, fine lines, and probably we got a few wrong. All the seat angles were adjudged by me (Dan Empfield), Bill Linnemann of Mission Bay Multisport, and Mark Andrews, the engineer at Trek most closely associated with its tri bikes.

As a grand total, 1091 bikes in the race were configured steeply, and 627 were shallow. This is an overall rate of 63.5% of the field riding steep, and 36.5% shallow. As regards seat angle there was no big difference between women and men in Kona. Of men, 64% rode steep, and 62.4% of women rode steep.

Pros in general were slightly more inclined to ride steep. Men, along with last year's highest placing age-groupers, rode steep at a rate of 67.2%, and 71% of the female pros rode steep. Among age-groupers, 63.7% of men were steep, 61.2% of women were steep.

The most obvious differentiators were geographic. North Americans encompassing Canada and the U.S. rode steep 72% of the time, while Australians rode predominantly shallow, choosing steep configurations only 45.8% of the time. Even more shallow were the Japanese, who chose steep configs just 37.5% of the time. Latin Americans were steeper, riding this way at a rate of 65.6%.

As a continent, Europe rode steep 58% of the time, but they varied widely among countries. The French, Belgians and Italians trend shallow, and ride that way 67% of the time. Conversely, the Germans, Danish and Dutch have ridden steep for a decade and a half, and still do, choosing this riding style 73.2% of the time. Predictably, the Swiss are split right down the middle, riding steep exactly half the time. One would assume, though the Survey cannot tell, that French Switzerland rides shallow and the German Swiss ride steep. Or maybe the Swiss federation engineers it this way, so as to achieve true neutrality.

As an exercise we considered the configurations of the top two brands in the race, Cervelo and Trek. The latter has been the leader for most of the Survey's 14-year history, but the Canadian interloper has taken the top spot for the first time this year. These two brands combine for a whopping 368 bikes in Kona's transition area, and while they share one theme -- their common success in getting athletes atop their bikes -- their customers couldn't be more different when it comes to seat angles. Cervelo's riders choose a steep set up 91.9% of the time, while Trek's owners rode steep at a rate of just 40.8%.

KONA SURVEY CENTRAL