Lance has it wrong. It is about the bike. Over the race's three and a half decades, time improvements at the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon World Championships have largely been dictated by drastic enhancements in bike technology. Not always, not for everyone, but in general when times have come down for athletes, they've come down due to improvements in the bike the athlete is riding, with the bike split responsible for a disproportionate amount of the time improvement. And that includes, to some extent, the average but much less steep improvements in run times, since a better, more relaxed bike time trial position can lead to a more comfortable ride and, therefore, a better chance at the marathon. A bike that allows an athlete to rest once in awhile and to feed better places the athlete in an overall more comfortable position, almost by definition allowing for a faster run.
It wasn't always this way. There's a famous picture of Dave Scott, early on in his career, pedaling away on your basic ten-speed bike of yore - sans aero bars, aero helmet, multiple feeding and drinking options, bar-end shifters, aero wheels and all the rest of the wizardry that's now standard on most triathlon bikes, including on every single bike I saw at Kona last October. In fact, it was probably still only a twelve-speed road frame, with regular road drop bars, that Dave used in '84 when he became the first Kona athlete to break nine hours en route to demolishing the field yet again. Given what's happened to the two-wheeled beast since, Dave's performance remains nothing short of incredible.
How else to explain my 9:46 time at Ironman South Africa and 9:50 at Hawaii this past year at 50 years of age? These times didn't happen because suddenly at 50 I became a faster runner or swimmer than I was in my prime, or that I was not pushing myself during my PR 9:43 in '84 at Kona. In '84, probably like many, I was on a classic steel road frame bike weighing about 21 lbs. A friend of mine on our college's French language program in the Pyrenees had bought it for me used in the ubiquitous Tour de France watering hole of Pau, for the franc equivalent of $300. I can still remember how exciting it was to unpack that amazing machine, reassemble the requisite parts, and go for a first ride on and actual European racing bike. I was 21 years old and I was hooked.
For its era, my trusty Zeus was a very fine bike. It won the Michigan state road race in June of '83, went to US Cycling Nationals in San Diego that August, won about a dozen triathlons, completed a 10-hour Ironman in Minnesota in July of '84, and was now primed to perform at its first Hawaii Ironman in October of '84. Indeed, after its owner did his usual so-so swim and exited in 72nd overall, the red Zeus got down to work and blitzed through the 112 mile course in a top-ten bike time that day of 5:23. The '83 Ironman champ and top '70s US cyclist John Howard was the only person to pass us, en route to his new Ironman record bike time of 4:53, on a day that saw him and Mark Allen become the very first Kona triathletes in history to break five hours on the bike.
Yet as good as Dave, Mark, John and others from the '80s were on their bikes - and they were amazing! - their times would not hold a candle to the times being posted now, and not just by the top dogs, but by increasing numbers of folks, young and not so young, male and female, all of whom compete on faster and faster bikes. In arguably the best cycling shape of my life at 23, and even with a top-ten overall Kona bike split, my 5:23 in '84 was 25 minutes slower than the 4:58 I posted this past October in Kona at the age of 50. Even though my life at 23 was triathlon, and despite having great success both as a bike racer and as cyclist during triathlons, there wasn't much more speed I could have gotten out of that Zeus. Put another way, how else to explain the Kona bike time of a 50 year-old full-time teacher, husband, and father stuck on a very small compound in Saudi Arabia than the pedal poetry of a Scott Plasma TT bike?
So when folks talk to me about how much faster triathletes are today, I remind them that just about all of that time improvement has come due to advances in bike technology. Mark's run-leg record from the '80s still stands, and many of the fastest swim times ever can still be traced back to the '80s. But with cycling times you'd be hard-pressed not to think that somewhere along the way they'd shortened the bike leg by about 10 miles, so incredibly fast are the times being posted today. Indeed, while I was happy to post a 4:58 in Kona last year, breaking five hours at Kona is becoming standard fare in more and more age groups, especially if an athlete hopes to stand on the podium the next evening. And if you're a pro male, breaking 4:30 is the new norm, with the very fastest now able to eclipse 4:20 (even a guy like winner Craig Alexander, who many would not have called one of the top cyclists in triathlon - until his breakout 4:19 bike split in October, that is!).
Indeed, field size creep, the lack of wet suits, and the massive mass swim start almost certainly mean Kona swim times won't be improving any time soon. Meanwhile, run times have improved, marginally, but mostly because nutrition during the race and general training strategies have improved. Toss in the improved ergonomics of cycling, which makes for an easier transition to the run, and you've got a lot of good triathletes with running backgrounds who can break or come close to breaking three hours now for the marathon leg. Finally, let's not forget that less time on the bike means less time racing, which in general will lead to faster run times because the athlete just hasn't been at it as long.
My dream would be to see each of the top Kona athletes of all time competing in the same swim suits, on the same bikes, and sporting the same shoes in a race for all time. My guess is that some of the top dogs in this new generation would be surprised - and that there'd be some amazing PR bike splits among the older guard! Forget what Lance says, it's definitely about the bike.
It wasn't always this way. There's a famous picture of Dave Scott, early on in his career, pedaling away on your basic ten-speed bike of yore - sans aero bars, aero helmet, multiple feeding and drinking options, bar-end shifters, aero wheels and all the rest of the wizardry that's now standard on most triathlon bikes, including on every single bike I saw at Kona last October. In fact, it was probably still only a twelve-speed road frame, with regular road drop bars, that Dave used in '84 when he became the first Kona athlete to break nine hours en route to demolishing the field yet again. Given what's happened to the two-wheeled beast since, Dave's performance remains nothing short of incredible.
How else to explain my 9:46 time at Ironman South Africa and 9:50 at Hawaii this past year at 50 years of age? These times didn't happen because suddenly at 50 I became a faster runner or swimmer than I was in my prime, or that I was not pushing myself during my PR 9:43 in '84 at Kona. In '84, probably like many, I was on a classic steel road frame bike weighing about 21 lbs. A friend of mine on our college's French language program in the Pyrenees had bought it for me used in the ubiquitous Tour de France watering hole of Pau, for the franc equivalent of $300. I can still remember how exciting it was to unpack that amazing machine, reassemble the requisite parts, and go for a first ride on and actual European racing bike. I was 21 years old and I was hooked.
For its era, my trusty Zeus was a very fine bike. It won the Michigan state road race in June of '83, went to US Cycling Nationals in San Diego that August, won about a dozen triathlons, completed a 10-hour Ironman in Minnesota in July of '84, and was now primed to perform at its first Hawaii Ironman in October of '84. Indeed, after its owner did his usual so-so swim and exited in 72nd overall, the red Zeus got down to work and blitzed through the 112 mile course in a top-ten bike time that day of 5:23. The '83 Ironman champ and top '70s US cyclist John Howard was the only person to pass us, en route to his new Ironman record bike time of 4:53, on a day that saw him and Mark Allen become the very first Kona triathletes in history to break five hours on the bike.
Yet as good as Dave, Mark, John and others from the '80s were on their bikes - and they were amazing! - their times would not hold a candle to the times being posted now, and not just by the top dogs, but by increasing numbers of folks, young and not so young, male and female, all of whom compete on faster and faster bikes. In arguably the best cycling shape of my life at 23, and even with a top-ten overall Kona bike split, my 5:23 in '84 was 25 minutes slower than the 4:58 I posted this past October in Kona at the age of 50. Even though my life at 23 was triathlon, and despite having great success both as a bike racer and as cyclist during triathlons, there wasn't much more speed I could have gotten out of that Zeus. Put another way, how else to explain the Kona bike time of a 50 year-old full-time teacher, husband, and father stuck on a very small compound in Saudi Arabia than the pedal poetry of a Scott Plasma TT bike?
So when folks talk to me about how much faster triathletes are today, I remind them that just about all of that time improvement has come due to advances in bike technology. Mark's run-leg record from the '80s still stands, and many of the fastest swim times ever can still be traced back to the '80s. But with cycling times you'd be hard-pressed not to think that somewhere along the way they'd shortened the bike leg by about 10 miles, so incredibly fast are the times being posted today. Indeed, while I was happy to post a 4:58 in Kona last year, breaking five hours at Kona is becoming standard fare in more and more age groups, especially if an athlete hopes to stand on the podium the next evening. And if you're a pro male, breaking 4:30 is the new norm, with the very fastest now able to eclipse 4:20 (even a guy like winner Craig Alexander, who many would not have called one of the top cyclists in triathlon - until his breakout 4:19 bike split in October, that is!).
Indeed, field size creep, the lack of wet suits, and the massive mass swim start almost certainly mean Kona swim times won't be improving any time soon. Meanwhile, run times have improved, marginally, but mostly because nutrition during the race and general training strategies have improved. Toss in the improved ergonomics of cycling, which makes for an easier transition to the run, and you've got a lot of good triathletes with running backgrounds who can break or come close to breaking three hours now for the marathon leg. Finally, let's not forget that less time on the bike means less time racing, which in general will lead to faster run times because the athlete just hasn't been at it as long.
My dream would be to see each of the top Kona athletes of all time competing in the same swim suits, on the same bikes, and sporting the same shoes in a race for all time. My guess is that some of the top dogs in this new generation would be surprised - and that there'd be some amazing PR bike splits among the older guard! Forget what Lance says, it's definitely about the bike.
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