Overwhelmingly, men qualifying for the IRONMAN World Championships choose ISM saddles to ride, with the brand ridden by nearly a third of the field. Even when you combine the totals of second and third place Selle Italia and Fizik, it’s still 91 saddles short of the count that ISM puts up.

Saddle choice, as we know, is a critical component of bike fit. And ISM has led the way in split-nose saddles for decades now. They continue to tinker, having multiple lengths, widths, and padding options. It also helps that multiple third-party companies make accessories dedicated to their saddle designs (e.g., XLAB’s hydration systems). And ISM has also become a common stock offering on bikes, including Quintana Roo.

Selle Italia, meanwhile, enjoys part of its growth from a similar OEM arrangement, except you can find some of their saddles on new Canyon bicycles. But the Watt Superflow offers a split-nose design that riders frequently prefer as they move more forward in their respective positioning. It’s also the preferred saddle range of IRONMAN World Champion Patrick Lange.

Fizik in third may not seem like much, but it’s a sizable fall from their second-place finish in the count the last time men raced in Kona. Fizik tends toward slightly more traditional shaping out of their saddles; I, for one, love them as a road saddle but is not my preference for triathlon. Still, there’s also some creative innovations, like their Adaptive 3D printed padding in the Transiro Aeris Long Distance line.

Other interesting factoids: Prologo edged Specialized for fifth place by a single saddle. Smaller saddle companies continue to make in-roads to the counts, as Gebiomized, Cobb / JCOB, and Dash all had somewhat strong showings. And I’m still somewhat shocked that Shimano doesn’t make better in-roads, as their three triathlon-specific saddles (as well as the Stealth road saddle) are all quite comfortable options. I think as Eric has alluded to in some of the other count articles, Shimano seems to be struggling with the market more in the multisport space, which is hurting them despite having solid options available to riders.

The total counts we have are below. As a reminder, professionals are excluded from results, which is why you don’t see a brand like Wove included in these totals. Also some saddles are just missed so the totals may be off a little as well.

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The IRONMAN World Championships in Kona are notoriously hot and humid. Although this year’s race was gentler than average on conditions, it still reduced plenty of men to doing everything in their power to cool themselves off. Where do they usually start that problem? The bike. So it’s always been common to see creative solutioning to carry more and more fluid on board bikes, despite averaging an aid station every 11 miles.

There’s also, of course, the chase for aero benefits on front hydration systems. With the prohibition on using empty bladders down a tri suit, we’ve seen more athletes using a bottle in that space to try and fill the space between the arms and chest.

So it perhaps comes as a slight surprise that of the nearly 2,300 bikes that the collective team counted in Kona, only slightly more than half of them — 1,253 — had front hydration systems that we could identify. Rear hydration remains more popular, with 1,661 systems counted. And of those, there’s one brand that dominates: XLAB. They accounted for 42.2% of all the rear hydration systems, nearly doubling the count of second-placed Profile Design.

PD, however, outpaced XLAB on front hydration carriers, 412 to 315. But the most popular front solution was one integrated into the frame or bars from the manufacturer. I think this is something that we’ll need to watch for over the next couple of seasons, especially if Canyon continues its trajectory in the bike counts; any of their bikes will come with some type of front-mounted hydration either built into the frame (CFR, CF SLX) or with one available to purchase (standard CF).

Same with Quintana Roo and their V-PRi, which has an integrated FuelBay system. Both Profile Design and XLAB are helped by other QR bikes, though. Either a Profile Design or XLAB hydration system is offered as part of the purchase on the V-PR or X-PR bikes (the PD Aeria system is included, with the XLAB Torpedo a minor upcharge offering).

No other brand cracked a combined total of 100 carriers, either front or rear. The closest was Bontrager, which had 48 front carriers, 46 in the rear. And how the mighty have fallen, as Speedfil has just 5 total systems in the field, a far cry from their days as a major age-group team sponsor (and, in turn, showing up on the pier).

The totals:

Perhaps the most interesting statistic to me, though, are the roughly 630 athletes who eschew either a front or rear hydration system, relying instead on traditional frame bottle bosses (or their best Faris Al-Sultan impression). Was it a matter of budget, a lack of aero knowledge, or some other factor that led them there? We’ll need to keep an eye on this end of things as well, particularly if bike prices continue their march upward.

Photos: Eric Wynn / Slowtwitch

The post XLAB is Top Hydration Carrier in Kona first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Thanks, at least in part, to the folks at Strava and Zwift, power is king to all the geeks. I would say this is perhaps even more so than watts saved in the wind tunnel. Power is something we see everywhere. Even if you don’t have it on your bike, Strava just makes it up for you. It’s so sacred that some pros won’t even share it.

Power started to come into cycling in the late 1980’s. It began with wired rear-wheel hubs, worked its way into cranks and Bluetooth and ANT+ data transmission, and then moved into pedals. It’s become one of the most recorded data sources next to HR for all things performance.

Like anything we have in our quiver, it is something that can be a huge help and, at the same time, can be a huge deterrent if not used correctly. So, who is leading when it comes to the source of your power?

Assioma made huge inroads on Garmin (compared to 2023 Kona), while Quarq remains the top dog. 2023 is in blue, and 2024 is in orange above.

Now, moving on to the men’s 2024 race, it appears that men have a larger appetite to have power-based cranks than pedals, compared to the women’s race here in 2023. We see from the 2024 stats that 62% of power meters were crank-based and 38% were pedal-based. The women last year were almost the exact opposite, with 30.1% crank power and 69.9% pedal power. And last month in Nice, there were even more pedal-based power meter’s on women’s bikes than there were at 2023 Kona.

The total breakdown was not all too out of the norm. We generally see the cranks win, but I will say that over time, that percentage is shrinking as we have more power pedal companies in the mix. With everyone having an N+1 bike need, it’s the most affordable way to get power on all your bikes. This is probably why Assioma is gaining so much traction on Garmin — they are about 30% less expensive for equivalent products.

The bigger question is not if, but when will Shimano and SRAM come out with a power pedal?

The post Who is the King of Power from Kona 2024? first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

It’s that fun time of year again when we get to count up the results of the Kona count, share the data, and put our opinions next to it.

Once again, Zipp owns the most significant piece of the wheel count pie. And they did it with very little help from others.

Here is the data for wheels from the 2024 Kona bike count.

This count gives us a total of 1972 wheels that were countable from our expert counters. The missing wheels are 100% non-identifiable wheels and the fifty-ish pros that we do not put into the count. I would like to note that the two superstar ladies who counted wheels are the best in the business. So if the two of them couldn’t figure out the wheel as it went by… well, it is what it is.

Now, with that disclaimer, we can all probably agree that with the law of averages, the count is what it is, and if you disagree. Please let me know if you would like to help next time we really do have a great time.

Here are my quick thoughts on the data. DT Swiss, who came in 2nd place, has made the intelligent choice to attach themselves to Canyon and others. These OEM partnerships paid huge dividends by putting wheels on bikes. But it also tells me that customers like the wheels, because as we know: the dudes spend big money on bikes. Just look at ZIPP. They have minimal OEM partnerships with Triathlon bike brands and continue to lead, so people continue replacing OEM specs with ZIPP wheels, although that lead is shrinking from years past.

HED had massive success with the count this year, and much of that is due to the continued success of the rear “Non-disc,” but almost a disc Hed Jet 180. The wheel was brought to life within 2 months of the 2022 two-day Kona race and, in 2024, there were 48 riders using the 180. That total alone is better than 17 of the wheel companies present. The wheel also set the new Kona Bike course record under Sam Laidlow in 3:57:22. Looking at this wheel, I’m starting to think the rule of no discs at Kona is time for a revisit.

Bontrager was in the mix in 4th, but it surprises me as we had 338 Treks, and considering they currently only spec Bontrager wheels and have for a while, this means the Speed Concepts are either older, many guys are jumping ship for other wheel brands, or they are buying frames alone and building up their own components.

ENVE rounded out the World Championship podium in 5th. The company lost a lot of its OEM business and volume numbers when it went into the bike manufacturer business years ago. However, it is on its way back to a healthy return to its roots in triathlon and rebuilding its D-to-C and OEM wheel business. We have more stories about that coming up. We shall see what happens with its efforts in the coming years. Having had many conversations with the brand, I can say that they are committed to the cause.

The biggest loser of the day was Shimano, which I find sad. Mainly because they genuinely have a better product than most people ahead of them. But when you turn your back on marketing to the people, sales, or the lack thereof, starts to follow. This also could be that Shimano has yet to bring wheels into the D to C market like most of these other companies, and with the triathlon market going heavily D to C, this may be something for them to really consider as dealers aren’t helping. Still, with all the nay sayers with hookless, they are one of the very few large companies making pure hooked carbon fiber wheels. It’s a little odd that a company with such a large market cap is neck and neck with Profile Design in the wheel department.

The post ZIPP Owns The Wheel Count of Kona 2024 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Canyon has won the Men’s Ironman World Championship bike count for the second year in a row. This shows that the company’s marketing engine doesn’t just reach Europe.

Photo Credit Talbot Cox

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