In the second and final part of this series, we look at how remote bike fitting aids the retailer who’ll invest the time, and thought, and energy to the display of the tri bikes he inventories.

Ex pro duathlete, and Kuota sales guru, Paul Thomas apprised me of a very interesting experiment he undertook at the most recent Hawaiian Ironman.

“I sat on the Queen K Highway as the riders were about 5 miles from the end of the bike leg,” he related. “This was about 7 hours into the race. I counted 72 riders, all of whom [of course] had aero bars on their bikes. Of these, 42 were riding with their hands on their pursuit bars.”

If you allow about 1:20 for the swim, and these folks were riding about a 6 hour bike split, they were destined to finish, on average, with a final time between 11:00 and 11:40. Most were representative of the median Kona finisher.

Let’s leave the topic of these 72 riders, and we’ll return to them in a few moments.

Last year former Kona Champ Chris McCormack was in a fit workshop here on the property. I asked, “Chris, let’s say I made a DVD of your Kona bike ride, and I edited out the part where you were in the aero position, as well as the time spent braking and cornering. How long would my DVD be?”

“I don’t know,” he pondered. “Thirty seconds?”

What makes McCormack, and the other pros like him, able to ride in the aero position during the entire bike leg, while these 11 hour Ironman contestants as often as not can’t?

On a recent thread in our reader form, this was written by a user:

“I’ve observed that triathletes fall into two camps in terms of position: those who want to get forward and low to be most aerodynamic and who are willing to take the time, effort and pain to get adapted to the position; and the majority, who decide to be more upright for the sake of comfort.”

But if McCormack and the other pros are adapting through “pain” to achieve their positions, and the “majority” choose “upright” positions for the sake of “comfort” (certainly a view held by many more than this singular forum reader), why are the pros sitting in their aero position the whole way, while it’s the “comfortable” age groupers who’re sitting up?

In another fit workshop, we had Mark Allen in attendance. I asked him, “Mark, once and for all, did you win Kona 7 times and the Nice triathlon 9 times because you have the taint of steel?

“No!” he replied, and went on to explain he needed comfort on the bike as much as anyone.

And why should we think an age group triathlete, who might ride 100 miles a week on average, is more needful of a comfortable bike position than a pro who might ride three or four times that mileage?

Indeed, I think it’s the opposite: how could we ever expect a pro to ride in the uncomfortable positions chosen by age groupers?

Indeed, I have positioned many pro triathletes and time trialers, and I have yet to find my first subject willing to undergo a period of “pain” and “adaptation.” Unless a pro triathlete is comfortable and powerful on the fit bike, from the get-go, he won’t ride the position. The process of fitting a pro, and his response to the position, is never any different than that of an age-grouper.

Let’s take a look at the positions of some of the pros, and see if we can find some commonalities that accrue to power, comfort and aerodynamics. While we’re at it, I’ll point out some pro positions that I think don’t make the grade, and describe why that is and what ought to change.

Click on the first thumbnail pic above and we’ll start.

It’s late November. Don’t you love the change of seasons? Depending where you are, the greens are turning to yellow, and the yellows red. But that is not the change to which I refer.

There exists a method for fitting bikes for mail order purchases; and for retailers to present floored bikes; should such enterprising retailers avail themselves of it. Part I of II.

Chrissie Wellington and Sandra Wallenhorst ran sub 3 hours at the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships and finished 1st and 3rd respectively. We looked closer at the shoes which carried them and the other top 10 female finishers through the marathon.

While we started to look closer at the bikes of the top finishers at Ironman Hawaii last year already, this year we also wanted to know more about their running shoes.

What kind of bikes were the top 15 pro men riding at the Ford Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii? Slowtwitch took a few images of the men and their machines.

Although the Ford Ironman World Championships and any other triathlon isn’t only about the bike, we still want to share what kind of bikes the top 15 pro women rode in Kona.

After a whirlwind tour of the bike industry’s annual “Big Show,” I came away with a feeling that there is a lot of boring stuff being made today, but also a few gems. For every needle in the haystack, though, it was a reminder that innovation is a live and well in the cycling world.

Canadian ITU swim-star Jill Savege tests out Nineteen’s premier women’s specific suit in the famed waters of Penticton’s Okanagan Lake while putting aside any cultural favoritism in the name of women’s liberation (from ill-fitting wetsuits).

There is probably a fine, long German word that aptly describes the social, cultural and industrial phenomenon that is Interbike. Part of that word should include kitschig which, according to those whom I rely upon for such transliteration, means smarmy, though there seems not be an exact German word for this.

Smarmy, because the trade show takes place in Las Vegas, the only place in the world where gold chains, side burns, white patent leather shoes and Sansabelt pants can be pulled off and, in the right context, might even be cool.

Another part of that long German word must include fahrrad because, at some point, an attendee must turn his attention to the upcoming season’s bikes. The end-users of such bikes and associated goods likewise want to see what’s new.

To that end, we present a few more Tim Carlson photos of what we saw at this year’s kitschigerfahrradkongress.

For our series “the bikes of the pros”, we look closer at the Scott Plasma 2 of Luke McKenzie. The fast Australian switched mid season to this new ride and we wanted some numbers and details.