I really don't get it.
In triathlon we can do as follows:
Swim: wetsuits and swim skins of various designs with significant marginal gains between various brands and price points
Bike: aero everything....can buy time saved and the more you spend the more you can save, with a law of diminishing returns....
Run: now we have a new shoe that is supposedly better than everything else in the discipline of triathlon that is probably the cheapest in terms of investment needed....heck the shoe price is cheaper than most IM branded race entries....
I can't see them outlawing it in triathlon....I am not familiar with pure running races etc with where they may go but surely it is just a sign of technology advancing and the 1% gains...

You are right, something need to be done on the regulation side.
This is discussed in another thread, especially from page 3 :

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...shoes..._P7064358-3/

Proposal for regulation have already been done by specialists to the IAAF :

https://blogs.bmj.com/...d-sub-2-hr-marathon/

Ha, exactly this

Everything to do with tri bikes is a constant and expensive technical arms race, but dont put carbon in your running shoes

The carbon is plates not springs right?

Have there ever been shoes banned before?

 
1) Carbon plate is not the problem : clearly explained in the references above

2) Yes, IAAF already regulate shoes in some disciplines. You also can find this in references above

Yes, I took it from the link:

Given the complexity of shoe design and the resulting tension between encouraging technological development and retaining the “spirit of the universality of athletics”, we propose a single standard in competition running shoes: regulate the shoe midsole thickness.
This proposal for a simple geometric constraint defines the space of a “shoe” on an athlete but does not attempt to regulate dynamic mechanical parameters such as compliance or resilience. Moreover, a precedent exists: IAAF Rule 143.5 stipulates a sole and heel thickness for shoes used in high jump and long jump competitions. A similar rule in road racing would provide a transparent standard that supersedes the band-aid approach of litigating every new development.
There must be limits....otherwise this will become in a marketing war and we all stupid will want to buy those magic shoes and the next ones....This is a marketing war and must be controlled.... otherwise the brands will go again and again in the red line and finally we will not see "pure" running....what is next then? proper springs? the IAAF rule is not clear enough...so Nike takes advantage of the blur...
The Jakedgate was different. Swimming us not as popular as running. Everybody can go for 1/2h to do some footing.... Those swimsuits were used by pros and were banned afterwards. As sales are compromised, IAAF is not being so brave...
The bike issue is completely different....There are so many factors surrounding the performance (own body areodynamics, size, leg size...) that cannot be compared..and yet in fact the bycicle is a machine itself. Nevertheless, UCI has set standars, and you can see how they dislegimitated the 1 hour record attempts of the nineties....
The thing is...technology can help, but cannot give so much advantage to someone that competes in this case with the vaporfly.
I am sorry but I see stupid slow runners wearing 200usd trainers and thinking they will do a Kipchoge. I am against brutal capitalism...I did you guessed it.

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

Let me get this straight. In the quest for "fast" the following have been ok?

Carbon frame bikes
Power meters
Sleeved Aero trisuits
Aero Bars
Disc wheels
Wet suits
Swim skins
Aero helments
Aero peddles
ect, ect, ect.........

But you mix bouncy foam and a carbon plate in a shoe and that has to be regulated?????? That is just stupid.

I can only imagine when the first aero bars came out the cost and the OMG moment because people were saying how unfair they were and now they are normal.

 
You have probably noticed that aerobars are regulated by UCI : length, height
This is why they are "normal" on bike races (TT, IP, TP, ...)
They are normal.... because there is a norm, a rule.

You can mix whatever foam and carbon plate you want in a shoe, I expect they will be regulated by IAAF : length, height.... in order to avoid peoples running on carbon / foam stilts... because this will be stupid.

Apparently the Alphafly are about 45 or 50mm stack. Shall we expect 70mm shoes in Tokyo, giving significant advantage to few runners, while IAAF just fail to apply their own rules, probably sleeping on some sponsor generous bribe ?

This will be stupid.

What is great about your list is that it demonstrates the disconnect here. Let me add a detail -

Carbon frame bikes - Cycling
Power meters - Cycling (unless you've seen people compete with running pods, I haven't)
Sleeved Aero trisuits - Cycling
Aero Bars - Cycling
Disc wheels - Cycling
Wet suits - Swimming
Swim skins - Swimming
Aero helments - Cycling
Aero peddles - Cycling
ect, ect, ect.........

What can we add for running? Ash to synthetic track is the main one people talk about but hopefully we all run on the same surface.

The discussion really is about the IAAF and Athletics. Triathlon may or may not follow but that is secondary. What happens in triathlon is the not the context to discuss what the IAAF decides should happen in Athletics.

It’s not brutal capitalism. My gosh people are acting like shoes are 40 bucks. Training shoes are already pushing $150 for a lot of people. Now a race shoes you can use for the whole season is $250 and it’s the end of the world? Give me a break. Nike made a better shoe this is not the end of the world.

If you can’t afford it, that’s life, it’s an unfortunate reality. Someone will always have more money than you and it will generally allow better training, better recovery, and better racing. Shoes are just visible at a race so people are having a hissy fit about it. You can’t see that people are spending $300 a month on a coach, hundreds on nutrition, new training shoes every month, weekly massage, etc. But you can see the shoes, so it’s the shoes that are over the cost limit for racing. There is no logic behind it at all.

Sorry, the vaporfly cost 250eur in Spain, so, about 270usd. I respect your opinion, but after talked with physios, doctors,etc...there is crazyness about the amateur sport. And, brands have some responsability....
One friend of mine is physiologist and physio. He told me that people cannot control themselves. They dont stop training, they pay when they lack of money, ...so, they pay loads of bucks for the vaporflys and the last Cervelo TT bike but dont spend anything in effort medical guided proofs, performance analysis, biomechanics....
and they f**** buy the vaporfly even they are made for light guys with forestepping.....
so, first, i am.talking about athletics. Your only tool is your shoes, and as you could read before, there are restrictions for long and high jumps. Many proffesionals and uberamateurs are trying the shoes and they are noticing a gain from 3 to 5sec per km...that is not normal whatever you wanna call it.
Then, the second part.IAAF is not being strict because Nike is a huge enterprise. There is so much money involved. If we would be talking about an unknown brand, I am sure that IAAF would have reacted. But again, money first.
P.D I have the damn money to.buy them, but 1st, I am a regular amateur and 2nd, I.am.not made for those shoes..
and I dont want them even as a present

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

So because people can’t control their spending or training, so we shouldn’t innovate? That’s absurd. Brands have a responsibility to sell products. It is not Nike’s responsibility to make it so people don’t over spend.

Shoes are one tool out of many that allow you to achieve peak performance. These are icing on the cake. Not all products work for all people. If they don’t work for you that’s unfortunate, but life. Sometimes you don’t do anything wrong but still end up wet and sandy. Given that there are a lot of companies now spending money on improving their shoes, I’m sure there will be one out there works for you soon.

What he said...….

I don't know that your arguments here have anything to do with the Vaporfly actually. It's the priorities of the athletes.

People buy $18000 Cervelos - I only have a P2 that I have upgraded but it's not quite a well set up P5disc or whatever. However, how many times do you see a $15K+ bike with someone in a poor bike position. Is that Cervelo/Trek/Pinarello/etc's fault? If I am fit and strong I pass enough of them in a race.

People will pay for "shortcuts" - there's a whole industry built upon hacking your body for improved performance. And in addition to performance gains, the one thing that I am consistently impressed with the Vaporfly comments is that, pretty consistently, good triathletes feel like their legs recover better. Did Nike make a better shoe. Yes. Can other companies try to emulate it or beat it. Yes. Nike wasn't always in this position. They put a conscious effort into the project and they are a player in triathlon for the first time in years.

I am not a Nike honk - I didn't use anything Nike until the last year for 20 years. But they have improved and reestablished themselves. Hoka is giving it a legit run - but who else is trying that hard? Devil's advocate - instead of R&D we can bitch and moan. Rules will come out of this, regulations - but they will still try and get better.

With the amount of cushioning that they have - they aren't just for the lightest runners either...there's so much to learn from the shoe.

Also - if I want to get some Bont Zero+ shoes like Frodo, for instance, $400. So I think $250 is pricy - but that's a super cheap performance upgrade. Cheaper than a wetsuit, race wheels, aero helmet. It's expensive but not out of line. Heck, weren't Hokas coming out at $150+ when they were first made?

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

Let's ban the vaporfly.

Next point of order: the only acceptable bike is a single speed beach cruiser that you found on craigslist for <$100

Yay regulation!

100% agree

And I nominate you to determine how much a company can charge for shoes, wheels, bikes heck EVERYTHING to do with triathlons

Including entry fees

POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

fight the good fight against the man and corrupt corporations!


VIVA the people

Where was all of this whining when Adidas came out with the Boost foam and successive male marathon WRs were broken using it, along with many other all-time best performances? (Geb, Kispang, Kimetto)

I believe we have a thread on this forum we can point Juanillo to... someone post the link.

Wetsuits are regulated in the materials they can be made of and the thickness of those materials. Bicycle fit dimensions are highly regulated in UCI and even in triathlon still have some restrictions. You can't ride a recumbent with an aero clambshell.

All these things do need to be regulated, but it all needs to make sure that the regulations are just aiming to preserve the integrity of the respective sport, not just stifling technical innovation. I really don't care if reaching the pinnacle of a sport requires some significant spending on equipment, these athletes are already spending bucket loads of money on training, nutrition, recovery, etc.

The whining is because Nike is big and scary, they have marketed the shit out of the 2 hour attempt, the improvement time was dramatic, and they have really damn good runners.

I’d this would have been a shoe from mizuno, no one would have noticed because they don’t have the top runners right now. If Nike progressively improved the shoe to this level over 10 years no one would have noticed.

But Nike though spending a boat load of money, developed something that just works. All the other companies are doing the same now. But hey let’s get grumpy cause someone built a better shoe.

This is situation is literally Cervelo in 2005. They built a carbon TT bike, put it under the best riders and guess what they won and set a shit ton of records at the time. Everyone caught up and now you can buy a bike from multiple manufacturers that is less than the p3c frame set was in 2005, that is faster and arguably as fast as the top of the line bikes.

Now the argument is going to be well they had the 3:1 rule. Correct, but it was from a safety perspective not because bikes were going to be faster or cost more. If we determine that over a certain stack height athletes are getting hurt more often then go for it institute a rule. Just don’t put that rule into place on made up BS like the shoe costs more or we pulled a magical stack height measurement out of a hat and said it can’t be more than that. We don’t need to be stuck on old shoe designs because a new one is faster. Especially when the real benefit of that faster design is the foam allows you to not be beat up as much as the old foam. For the majority of people that’s why it’s an improvement. Not because of the small speed increase.

Before I tore up my knee again, I switched to the turbo 2. I hate spending that much for shoes. But the damn cushioning without it feeling dead is worth every penny.

Let me reconnect you here..........

Its about any governing body making stupid rules. Part of the discussion by the IAAFF or who ever they are, is a concern that the shoes cost too much and they are not available to everyone.....shoe socialism here I guess. Really, cost is an issue that is unfair? This entire notion is crazy. Its called innovation.


I guess if you want to have a truly level playing field make every run bare foot.

This^^^^^ is fact!

Its called FREEDOM to spend your money any way you want too. If you can't "help yourself" its still YOUR MONEY.

it doesn't appear to be that this is the shoe that will be considered to cross the line, but a discussion about what the line is, and the appropriateness of that line is a discussion that is worth having, IMO.

I mean, if these are OK are full on Pistorius-style leaf springs OK? What about retractable rollerskates for the downhills? As the shoes get more advanced, there should be some discussion about whether a shoe is still a running shoe and not a pogo-stick shoe, or a rollerblade, or something else.

I don't think cost is the defining metric, rather something inherent in the properties of the shoe such as a measurement of rebound.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

If you haven’t, go listen to the clean sport collective podcast on the subject. Ryan Hall and Kara G sound like kids who’s parents can’t buy them the latest new toy.

The best is when in one sentence they talk about the Olympics and people running in these shoes, but they were prototypes. Next sentence is about Sara running in ASICS prototypes. Then they want Nike to have to release their patents on the foam. They are a dam joke.

I remember when Crowie was racing on a bike that did not give him the same advantage as the rest. What did he do? Ran an unbranded cervelo because it leveled the playing field.

Don’t like it, drop your sponsor and buy the shoes and prove ur the best. Then maybe the best will sponsor u

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http://www.TriScottsdale.org

Just want to note that it's not a "small speed increase" – it's actually very significant, easily 2% and up to 5%+ on some runners, which equals minutes! There are 2:09 marathoners popping off 2:04s now.

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Group Eleven – Websites for Athletes / mikael.racing / @mstaer