When they apply for jobs, they think they go as well as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PC4QNlWtCY

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http://www.clperformancetraining.com
http://www.pillasport.ca

With all the money I spend on avocado toast, how could I possible afford triathlon?

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/228137

So I'm in the middle of the millennial age group (born in 1990) and I'd say a lot of what has been said here is accurate. My view on it is that with the rise of snapchat, facebook, etc, there is an increased need to "show off" as everyday you're flooded with pictures of things that your friends are doing. This leads to many wanting to do as many different, cool things as they can as I think this helps one think they are more "well-rounded," which is important to people my age. Especially since a lot of dating these days is online and seeming "interesting" at first glance is quite important.

On the social side, people just talk to each other less in general and so I think any opportunity to meet new people and have an excuse to talk is attractive.

Triathlon on the other hand is a bit of the opposite that requires many long hours of training, maybe by yourself, to get a reward. It really requires someone who gets pleasure from self-improvement just for its own sake, which is rarer these days.

Personally speaking, I happen to have a self-improvement personality and spend my time training, trying to learn languages that I find interesting (Japanese and German - I like efficiency I guess), keeping things in order (chores, etc), and trying to figure out what to write next on the blog (https://www.engineeringfitness.org - I appreciate the visit!). And most of the day is working towards the PhD, which unlike ungrad work, never seems to have an end point and drains an ungodly amount of time, sometimes.

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I like analyzing things - http://engineeringfitness.org

I'm thinking about instagramming what you just said!

I can't believe how much would someone PAY for a clogger* on toast?









* cloggers. Avocado and hot sauce mixed and wrapped in a tortilla. A food named for its effect on the body

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Yes, USA Swimming membership (mostly age groupers) was on a strong, steady growth path from 2000-2013. Membership has plateaued over the last 4 years, but historically there's a bump in the year after a Summer Olympics so chances are 2017 will be another record year. That pipeline to triathlon is still being well supplied at the far end. It just frequently takes a long time for them to come out the other end, especially for the men. In my case, 29 years!


Something interesting I found while hunting around for youth swim participation figures was this report by the Physical Activity Council which shows, among those who currently aren't active, the age group with the most interest in the 3 disciplines of triathlon is 25-34. (page 19). In other words, there's a huge chunk of Millennials who aspire to do what we do. It's just not necessarily the ones who are active in another area. If this report is correct, maybe the sport (governing organization, event organizers, equipment manufacturer's, etc) have been targeting the wrong audience when fishing for potential new participants. Instead of trying to get tough mudders, cross-fitters, and combat sport/marshal arts/"Ninja Warrior" types to switch sports, maybe we should be targeting inactive millennials with "couch to super-sprint tri" type programs. Or even "couch to super-sprint duathlon"....we can always work in swimming once they have confidence in their abilities in the other two disciplines.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

My triathlon habit is much more expensive than my fiancee's OTF, pilates, and barre classes. She doesn't get a membership, goes to a class 4-5 days a week, and it works out to be less than $100 per month. I'll admit, she's very thrifty and she probably spends less than the average person by buying classes in bulk and waiting on sales.

I'm spending $360 a year on gym (aka pool) fees, $400-500 a year on race fees, $500 a year on running shoes, and assuming my bike lasts me 10 years it'd be $300 a year. That doesn't include any of the bike upgrade/maintenance expenses, swim equipment expenses, or travel expenses. So that's considerably more expensive than OTF/Soul Cycle/Yoga.

Not to mention the initial start up cost to get into triathlon is expensive. Bike/wetsuit/goggles/watch/running shoes is a minimum of $300. If you don't like it, you just blew a bunch of money. If my fiancee doesn't like some new yoga class, she probably went for <$10 on a trial membership and won't go back.



I totally agree with the social side. A lot of people need the peer pressure/group involvement to get through a workout.

I was born in 1984. I raced bikes through college, then after college started traveling. Spent 5 years living in Asia and another year and a half traveling around the world a couple of times.

Moved back to the States and started racing bikes again. I have a family, including an infant, and I'm a teacher so my summers are free. I don't have any hobbies besides bike racing. It's what I read about and watch on the internet. It's what I spend my non-essential monies on. It's what I think about when I'm bored.

I go back and forth about actually doing a sprint triathlon. I even bought a tri-skinsuit. I'll pick one out once or twice a year but then bail because paying $100 + bucks for an hour long sprint seems even crazier than paying $50 bucks for an hour long crit. At least bike racing has prize money and spectators (the big races, at least). All of the local triathlons I'd consider doing just look lame and not super competitive. More of a hobby thing with lots of participants but not a lot of serious racers. And again, the expense is silly for what it is, and for no prize money.

Anyway, I like to race, and I'll likely do a sprint at some point.. but bike racing is much more frequent, more available, more cost-effective, and I already know what I need to know about it. And I only race with people who supposedly know how to race. The stories I read on here about random triathletes on bikes are a bit harrowing.

I'll be 30 in January, and honestly I have very few peers with any interest in endurance sports. None of the usual debt-ridden, underemployed millennial stereotypes, I work in O&G and know many successful sub-35 year old folks, and with one exception none of them have any interest in triathlon. A large portion of them are very much into fitness, but it's more gym work and the occasional run. They work out to stay in shape, and that's it. They choose to rent rather than buy because a small place in the city is more appealing than a mortgage in suburbia hell (Houston) to them. They're flush with time and cash to burn, but would rather spend it on family, travel and food/drink.

I had my first kid back in February and trained for IMTX at the same time, and while I pulled it off, it was brutal. The time sunk into training for long course stuff exceeds the reward part at this point in time. I definitely plan on returning to the sport in the short term and doing more full IM races once my son gets to schooling age, but for now I'd rather spend the time enjoying the family and let finishing up my pilot's license replace triathlon as my discretionary income black hole.

As for the H-D question, I'm a motorcycle rider myself, and unless you buy in to the "Harley lifestyle" the bikes are a tragic value proposition. We live in a time where you can get a 500 lb bike with ABS, traction control, side cases, maybe even cruise control and damn near 200 hp for $15k. The cheapest Soft Tail retails for more than $15,000 now, for a 700+ lb bike with none of those features and half the power. They hold their value reasonably well, but that's about their best trait. Harley has made the same product for the same demographic for far too long, and they're becoming the architects of their own hardship as that demographic starts to hang up their leathers for the last time. There are definitely people my age interested in the bikes that made 1960s and 1970s motorcycling what it was, but they're more apt buy a 1960s or 1970s motorcycle, fix it up and ride it than shell out five figures for a marginally-modernized version of one.

I'm 26, and definitely am very much in the minority in triathlon where I live.

All of my friends spend their time doing the following: drinking, going out for dinners, sand volleyball league, slow-pitch softball, and easy as fuck bike rides to bars that are <5 miles apart.