Just go into any bike/tri store and ask what a typical entry-level true TT level trike bike costs. It's north of $2k. And looks scary with aerobars, etc.

And in my local tris here in Norcal, $5k bikes are very normal for AGs over 40. I did one 2 years ago where I had the absolute lowest cost bike in all 13 of my AG, and I ride a Cervelo P2c (2008) with race wheels - the next cheapest bike was probably a current-gen Cervelo P2 with 105 components and race wheels better than mine. It was pretty ridiculous, honestly.

Tri is as expensive as you want to make it, but I have no doubt it scares off a lot of people who intend to give it a shot when they see and hear how much the gear costs, and think 'nah, I'll just go do an obstacle course instead of dropping north of $1.5k on a bike I might use for one season.'

Same story, different sport. https://www.golfdigest.com/...oo-poor-to-play-golf

https://www.reddit.com/...oming_too_expensive/

Every year I volunteer at a couple of "intro to tri" clinics held in conjunction with a local reverse sprint. Few, if any, tri bikes, and not that many carbon frames. But lots of mountain bikes, hybrids, lower end road bikes, even once had a woman on an Electra Townie (which she used in the race). The one common denominator is that everyone there is stoked and really looking forward to doing the race. And I've done a few races where my 12 year old QR Lucero with 105 was the closest thing to a superbike...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

Actually these days I ONLY do local sprints and olympics and am amazed at the expensive hardware I see showing up. My expensive hardware is gone and I'll be racing on my gravel bike from now on.

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Pete Githens
Reading, PA

People are showing up to these things on super bikes left and right. The stories of the field showing up on fattys, mountain bikes and hybrid bikes are a joke. I see 55 year old nurses showing up on their first bike being a P5 and their SO giving them the princess diva treatment. Can't change a flat or oil a chain, but loves to ride. Lmao. That is the new normal in this sport. It's also why you don't see 20 year old bartenders or Walmart workers getting in the mix. The sport is NOT accessible. Nobody wants to join knowing their at a comeptitive disadvantage because they don't have the money to buy the gear. As bike prices continue to skyrocket the sport will continue to diminish. My friend just dropped like $5,500 on his first triathlon bike. Entry level, but with disc brakes and name brand deep section wheels. No power meter or di2. He didn't need the wheel upgrade and I would have recommended against it, but it's his choice. Either way, he easily could have spent near $10,000 with di2 and a Quarq for an entry level frame and components. This sport is becoming more of a joke every day, even though I really do love it. I just hate that the costs are getting out of hand.

I always question the logic in use in these threads. I'm not sure about the validity of using examples of people who HAVE joined Tri and spent $$$$ on a super-ish bike, as "why others are NOT joining." It seems a much better example would be:

I had a friend who wanted to do a tri, but I told him he'd never be competitive if he didn't get at a $10k bike. So he didn't start.



Not really. I always see a ton of them around here at local races (sprints and olys).

It's also why you don't see 20 year old bartenders or Walmart workers getting in the mix.
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Once again, I disagree. The reason you don't see 20 something's in sport is because they are typically going out on Fridays and Saturdays, leaving Sunday morning competitions unwelcoming. When I was in my 20s, I was doing 5ks. The 20-25 AG regularly had a grand total of 4 people (me, my roommate, some dude who worked nights and this was at the end of his shift, and one guy that was trying to lose weight). When we tried to get others involved, they didn't whine about the cost of entry. They just had more fun (in their opinions) things to do.

A vast majority of my tri-circle is inhabited by educators (teachers, TA's, social workers), I.E. not anywhere near the median income as published. We get along in sport quite nicely. The most expensive ride in our mix is a P3.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Imo triathlon is a cheap sport, all you need are
1. Tri-suit - about $100
2. Bike - about $500 - $1000
3. Goggles - about $20
4. Running shoes - about $100 - $200
5. Race fee - about $50 - $100 each race
6. Nutrition - about $20 each race

This is not true where I live. Although I don't have many 20s in the club I'm in, there are many in other clubs doing local triathlons as well.

This isn't true. Participation in sports peaks in the teens, and then declines until death. People in their 20's are engaged in more sports than people in their 30's and 40's. And most sports after the teens involve weekend mornings.

IM triathlon is different, like golf.

Edit, just following up with some interesting data from the U.S. gubmint.

Huge correlations to income and age.

Inactivity (in sports) by age:



Inactivity by income:



Total Inactivity by Year:

I seriously challenge you to find me just ONE person who actually did an entire year of triathlon using that budget.

Better yet, you take 10 aspiring new triathletes, give them that budget and list, and tell me hwo many are actually going to stick with it as opposed to going over it by 2-3x. Almost everyone who does tri has two or more of all of the above excluding bike and trisuit - and you forgot to add all the extra clothing expenses for training clothes.

I feel like I do triathlon about as cheaply as you can do it with the except of my pricey YMCA membership that runs $1000+/yr since I've been in it long enough now that I have all the fixed cost stuff (Kickr, TM, Vasa, clothes), and I STILL managed to spend nealry $1.5k last year (excluding the YMCA membership!) for a measly 3 very local races requiring zero hotel or long travel. It's hard for me to imagine anyone who's more than a dabbler doing it on a lot less, honestly, if you realistically track your tri-related expenses - I'm pretty sure I'm on the low end of expenses for a serious triathlete.

Exactly! I have a young friend breaking into the sport, who just bought a pair of goggles. He just bought another replacement pair of high end goggles because they fogged. I was like dude...Baby shampoo...He's $50-100 in one month down with freaking goggles.

Another friend went through two road bikes before buying a nice bike. This happened in one year. I told him buy the nice one out of the gate. He didn't listen and compounded the expense. Two years later it's a triathlon bike. He's over $10,000 in when it could have been around $3,000-$5,000.

These are common things that everyone in the sport experiences. Buying the same stuff more than once. Who buys one pair of running shoes a year? The expense chart above comically understated.

Participation in sports peaks in the teens, and then declines until death.
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Things change drastically once you take school participation, such as high school/ college, out of the picture. Take running, for example.

"Runners on average are getting older - the average age of runners in 1986 was 35.2 and in 2018 it is 39.3. This could be due to the fact, that runners have longer racing careers, and also that people are welcome to start racing at an older age. We can see that in the sharp increase in the average age of 5K participant over the last 7 years. The average age of 5K runners has increased from 32 to 40 (25%), for 10Ks it has changed from 33 to 39 (23%), for half marathons - from 37.5 to 39 (3%) and for marathons - from 38 to 40 (6%)...

...For marathons, there is an increase in participation of the youngest participants (from 1.5% to 7.8%), but also a decline in participation of 20-30-year-olds (from 23.2% to 15.4%). It's noteworthy that 40-50-year-olds participation is on the rise (from 24.7% to 28.6%), which is consistent with people having longer racing careers...

...For 5K's we see that the younger participants are in decline, but more and more participants over 40 are joining in. This is consistent with the fact that nowadays people are free and welcome to start racing at an older age.

The proportion of participants bellow 20 in the 5Ks hasn't changed much, but the proportion of 20-30-year-olds has declined from 26.8% to 18.7%. Also, the proportion of 30 to 40 year-olds is shrinking - from 41.6% to 32.9%. The proportion of participants over 40 has grown from 26.3% to 50.4%"
https://runrepeat.com/state-of-running

Triathlon follows a similar trend:
Age and Gender
Average age: 38
59.6% Male 39.5% Female
7% are Under 25 12.8% are 25-29
15.7% are 30-34
19.9% are 35-39
17.3% are 40-44
12.1% are 45-49
7.5% are 50-54
3.5% are 55-59
1.6% are 60-64
0.6% are 65-69
0.3% are 70+
https://www.teamusa.org/...tisport/demographics

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I was well under that budget for each of the first two years I did triathlons. Here is how:

In the fall of 2013, I bought a brand new 2009 (NOS) tri bike frame for $750 from bike shop across the country via ebay. I sourced bars, box rims, and 10-speed mechanical group-set via ebay, as well. All in, the total bike cost was just less than $1k.

I bought a dumb fluid trainer at my LBS for about $100, a pair used bike shoes from eBay for $20, and spent the winter riding in the basement, swimming and running at the gym (free membership from work). I've never paid more than $7 for any pair of goggles, and have probably only purchased 3 or 4 pairs total.

I ran 20-30 mpw in a few different pairs of Nike, NB, and Asics shoes that I had lying around.

That next spring, I bought a new sleeveless tri suit (eBay) for $25 and a pair of Zoot running shoes for $30 from Shoebacca.

That summer (2014), I raced 9 sprint tris, each of which had entry fee of about $50. All were within driving distance. None involved any hotel stay.

Nutrition - I'm not counting this, because I just did sprints that year. But, gels are a dollar and a can of powdered Gatorade is about $4 and lasts a long time.

My rough math says that's about $1500 for my first year...and that got me entry into 9 races. I've spent a bunch more money on upgraded equipment since 2014, but none of it was absolutely necessary. Plus, I'm still getting mileage out of that initial $1500. That 2009 bike is still my only race bike. I've changed out every single part on that frame since that first year and bought a road bike to train on and reduce wear on the race bike. To this day, I've never spent more than $75 on a wetsuit or $50 on a tri suit, and I still use that original dumb fluid trainer, too.

I wouldn't consider myself just a casual triathlete. I've spent 10-12 hours per week training year-round for the past six years. I do a mix of sprint and HIM (about 6-8) races every year. I'll contend for the overall win or be in the top five in most local sprints. But, I'm certainly not going to finish that high at AG Nats or in half distance races with fields bigger than 400 or people.

My main point...Triathlon is only as expensive as you want it to be.

Do you realize how expensive even the above “cheap” items are compared to basketball, soccer, tennis, and many other sports??? Yes, you can do this sport for far less than a $10k bike but the entry point is still very high compared to many other sports. The vast majority of sports don’t cost nearly the numbers you quote above for older, used equipment.

That isn’t remotely cheap to do a sport.

I do realize that, but I'm a recovering golfaholic, who once played at least one round a day for 125 consecutive days. So tri expenses, while still pretty significant, pale in comparison.

Well yes, but that is probably the most expensive sport also played by wealthy persons.

Well of course if you remove ways that younger people do sports from the data, you're left with ways that older people do sports.

Here in Utah it seems like things are just fine. There's a solid local racing scene. Some people on superbikes, some people on road bikes, some people on mountain bikes. Collegiate tri clubs at the U of U and BYU, will be a solid number of people in their 20's racing this season. I know so many college kits who saved up and bought a used tt bike, generally a p2c or similar, and are fast on it. Cost doesn't really ever seem to be an issue

You're joking, right?

Nope, you? I mean I’m not taking an exhaustive survey of every sport but, yes golf is absolutely up there for sure.

Auto racing.

Haha right I knew you would say that. Much smaller fringe sport than golf. Again my comment wasn’t mean to cover every sport in the world. But, for main-stream sports (I’m not talking about watching as I realize how popular watching nascar is), golf is probably the most expensive.