How has the landscape changed over the 15 years we've been performing our Kona Survey? Now that we've announced our decision to no longer count bikes in Kona it seems appropriate to affix the wide angle lens and look at how things have changed over the span of time we've been counting.
The most obvious change in frame materials was the spectacular decline of steel. When we started counting in 1992 the majority of bikes were made of this metal. Then came the onslaught of carbon bikes.
Not all were carbon in the way you and I think of them today. Many were round-tubed with aluminum lugs. Vitus, Alan, Specialized and Giant made complete bikes, the least expensive selling for as low as $500. Zipp made an all-carbon beam bike back then, and Trek was into the carbon business as well (it first introduced its OCLV bikes in 1992). All these, plus the higher-end Calfees and Kestrels, conspired to place carbon at the head of the pack.
Carbon hit its first peak in 1994, based on bikes sold by all these companies mentioned above. This material had vaulted into the top spot, but its preeminence was short-lived. Though nearly 4 out of 10 bikes were made of carbon in 1995, it had fallen to second place a year later.
By 1995 steel was rapidly declining, though one out of every five of Kona's bikes were still made of steel. Eleven percent were made of titanium and almost 3 out of 10 were aluminum.
Aluminum became all the rage in the late 90s, and this is largely due to the ability to make these bikes cheap, and to build them into aerodynamic shapes. But this peaked in 2002. Over the last 3 years carbon has been on a tear again, and after 14 years will likely become the predominate material on bikes in Kona -- this time for the forseeable future.
This is in no small part because of the opening of the Chinese manufacturing market. The labor to make monocoque carbon bikes is inexpensive, and the entry price required to make them into exotic shapes is quite low. Over the past 15 years the engineering, software, computer and hard material cost to generate a mold has dropped from $75,000 per size to perhaps $5000 to $10,000 per size.
These aren't the only reasons for carbon's upsurge in Kona. There is the upsurge in triathlon to reckon with, and making bikes triathletes want now pays for a bike company, at least more than it once did.
Also consider the increased importance of the time trial in pro road cycling. This has caused a demand among the pro teams for TT bikes that function. Accordingly companies like Pinarello, Time, Look, Colnago, Orbea have produced these high-end TT bikes, they've made them out of carbon, and they are desirable to triathletes.
Meanwhile, titanium keeps chugging along. During the late 90s this material slowly dropped in its numbers in Kona, to a low of 7.5% of all bikes in the race. But that changed at the turn of the century. With the advent of Seven Cycles, and the switch by Serotta from steel to primarily titanium, there has been an almost doubling in the percentage of bikes in Kona made of this material. Not only has the number of titanium bike makers increased, so has the ease with which customers can get custom bikes out of titanium. This is largely where titanium's future seems to lie -- with the custom vendors.
Aluminum is destined to shrink in numbers in future years, because it is squeezed in between two converging commercial realities. The market has determined that the cost of an entry-level tri bike should increase to a point close to $2000. Carbon's entry point becomes lower each year, and is approaching that same dollar figure. Aluminum must fit in there somewhere.
Aluminum in 2007 seems to be where steel was 15 years ago. In the same way steel held on for awhile by refreshing its image with exotic alloying agents, aluminum has gone that same route. But it appears aluminum's best ploy is to become partly carbon, and a significant slice of today's aluminum bikes have carbon seat or chain stays, seat tubes, or lugs. The lines between aluminum and carbon will probably continue to blur.
