Slowtwitch Kona Party!
This is the tenth year, roughly, of the Slowtwitch Kona Party. I started it as a way for Slowtwitchers to meet each other, and a couple of dozen showed up at a house on the beach on Alii Drive.
It's morphed a bit since then. I believe we tipped the scales at something north of 300 at this year's party, which is about what we had when we closed the spigot on our RSVP thread on our forum.
Here are photos: Courtesy Tim Carlson
Emilio De Soto, of the eponymous clothing brand, is at right with his lovely wife Tracy on the left, creating a customer sandwich, with two slices of De Soto fans in the middle.
There were a lot of German Slowtwitchers who showed to the party. Scads of them. We love our German Slowtwitchers!
Slowtwitchers of all ages come to this party. 7 to 70.
And sometimes even younger than 7 and older than 70!
Superdave Koesel is listing of the virtues of the 3T Exploro to this lovely lady, who does not currently have a GravelPlus bike (as far as I know).
This is a picture of great people, surrounded by wheels. The wheels are from Visiontech. Vision is the triathlon-specific brand owned by FSA. That's an acronym for Full Speed Ahead, which is a perfect explanation for this company's ethos. Not just speed as in how fast you go with their products, but the pace at which this company pushes ideas and concepts to reality.
The Slowtwitch Party is for lovers.
Here's a couple from Madison, Wisconsin. He's racing. She missed a KQ spot by 1 place. Next year she'll make it.
Our ad salesman is Lars Finanger, on the left, who is also the man behind the Casco Bay Swim-Run. He's with Michael O'Neil (Boston Triathlon), and Julia and Claire from a Unit Nutrition, a company you'll be hearing about.
Here are a couple of gents sitting on the seawall next to the Diamondback IO, a new aero road race bike covered on Slowtwitch last week.
And then there's, er, me. It's 36 years since I first came to this island to race the Hawaiian Ironman, and it's my 30th anniversary of being in the business of triathlon. They made me a cake for the party. Which I did not expect. Very touching.
Paulina Allan, Steve Fleck's wife, with Michael Latifi.
Thanks to Celia and the GU crew (for letting us use their house!); Wes Hollero, deejay from Las Vegas; emcees Shawn English and Steve Fleck; Steve Westover and Matt Hill (Fredly on the forum) from Diamondback; Mike and Mark from Vision; John Duquette from blueseventy; Emilio and Tracy De Soto; Eric from Rapid Reboot; Ian Jackson and Tim Coppock from Profile Design. Katie, owner of Mermaid Manor (the house). Karen Sing (STConcierge) who put it all together! And those who gave us excellent raffle prizes. And, of course, you who attended.
