In the new market they are not going to make mech 105. There are not a lot of tiagra options, people will fear buying an obsolete product

This, around here (australia) running of all things is booming, from park run to Ultras running is going crazy. There are heaps of groups on strava, some money making coaching groups, but plenty other social runners getting together in numbers of up to mid 100's.

The WTC races are still trucking on, with lower numbers, local tris eek out an existence, but costs are too high for the people running them, over $200 to do an OD. Cycle racing has always been odd elitists, but we still have the same 150 or so middle aged men getting older sitting around on 20 K bikes happy to race each other, talking about how they are still good, while missing the point that there are no new people.

While I agree get on the used market, it's a confronting place to engage, prices are generally very high and sellers tend to get very unhappy if you negotiate.

I've been trying to buy some used Fulcrum racing zeros. New they can be picked up for around 1100 dollars, used the starting price is around 800 to 900 dollars. For that 200-300 I'm buying new.

As them to reduce, you get the no low balling, time waste, tyre kickers, snarkiness. Saying that I'm watching these wheels sit on the web for months price slowly coming down.

My first tri was totally winged like yours. I was a runner who rode bikes as a kid and had learned to swim and I HAD to do the local tri when I saw the application. I did tris for several years before aero bars were popularized so the cheap road bike I got in HS that I used in those races (including a 70.3 in my second season) basically looked like the bike the pros were using in the IM. It's not that way anymore.

I don't think expensive equipment keeps most folks who are interested from entering their first tri. I do wonder whether the increased emphasis on spending $ to get faster turns folks away from tri more quickly than it did when we started doing tris back in the day. I know it has affected my affinity for tri.

I don't even think it's a case of "super dedicated, rich triathletes with engineering background" vs "newbies".

There are a ton of people, like myself, who are pretty decent athletes who the sport just totally left behind with it's ever climbing expenses and tech. I've been involved since triathlon since around 2002, and over the last 5-6 years the sport had just totally lost interest for me, in large part because of what I have described above. I'm about as turned off from the $18k super bikes and $4k wheels as you could imagine. I also noticed a big shift in people joining the local tri groups. It used to be a pretty eclectic group of people, now it seems to attract a very specific type.

The sport is really shooting itself in the foot.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

This. With the market, consumer and supplier moving to an IM, WTC events as the brand, consumers largely didn't won't support basic events. It's also getting harder to run no frills events.

Few years ago we had a great LC event here, it had a tiny field, lost money, never came back. Yet same weekend folk travelled en-masse to country Victoria to do a 70.3

A lot of people's first tri is a 70.3 or an IM. I don't care about folk on super bikes et al. Contrary to popular belief IM is not hard, if you actually like running, biking etc you can train for 12 weeks and go 11:xx, even without swimming the rest of the year. Sometimes even under 11.

A lot of the current crowd are in it for the instagram, starva group, yay me, which at least gets them doing it. Tend to have or at least prioritise spend on kit.

If I can get a forward facing seat post on my cervelo 2012 might do my next tri on that.

As for the second hand market being awesome, the pro closest has the wheels I am looking for used costing more than new. The second hand road bikes in my size cheapest is 2900 for a 4 year old trek emonda, which has rim brakes.

I’ve said that now more than ever people have the greatest selection of secondary options. Pros closet, FB marketplace, eBay, CL, Bike Exchange, Bicycle Blue Book. So you have way more options to find items that can help you on the journey. You don’t have to only go to ST classifieds, you don’t only have to pay Pro closet prices or else. Maybe the prices are high, and maybe they are low. But my point was in todays world that is so internet friendly even a newb has ability to find more ways to buy price friendlier products than only LBS/*new* prices. Not every single person out there is a dick when they are selling their used gear, etc.

Eta: I just typed “Cervelo p2” on FB marketplace.
8 bikes just popped up as these prices:
$500
$2k
$1.7k
$1.8k
$1.5k
$1.2k
$1k
$1085

Likely due to year/shape etc. The current base model 105 is $3500.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The second hand market is brutal. ebay, exchange, pros closet, unless you are willing to search and search the prices are generally not worth the bother and in most cases New is better.

I'm currently looking for a decent rim brake for the cervelo set of wheels for crits. second hand market is either so close to new prices or 60 to 70 % of new for clapped out wheels.

Anyways, the market is what it is, and the sport is what the people made it, for worse, better or some where in between.

PS If you can find me a set of used wheels which are not A: clapped out or B a complete rip off, please let me know

^ I made an edit. I went and searched “cervelo P2 “ and got 8 options with listing price in my edited comment. That’s 1 search result from 1 secondary market in 5 min search.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Yes there are ten year old P2 which are more than adequate for anyone at good prices.

Exactly!!

People are just lazy and it's easier to look for excuses to not put in effort.

As an analogy, its easier to complain that a rock star can play a guitar so well because his guitar is worth $20k, instead of getting off your ass and learning how to play a guitar on a $100 second hand Walmart special in the first place.

And maybe that is the biggest problem we face. In a society that is built on ever increasing levels of instant gratification and the path of least resistance, a sport that actually requires dedication and effort isn't that attractive...

Pm me- premierbike.com

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Dan Kennison

facebook: @triPremierBike
http://www.PremierBike.com
http://www.PositionOneSports.com

I think there is a lot of truth to your post.

As others have mentioned, my first tri, I did off soccer, track and riding my bike to soccer practices and games. Well, actually before my first tri, I spent two summers riding 2500-3500 km with my bike loaded up with saddle bags and sleeping bag and tent and touring around Europe. I would just ride 100-250km per day "getting around". I got back after my second trip and there was a triathlon, I owned a bike, I was a good runner, I could ride 4-8 hrs in a day no problem, and I knew how to swim around 50m free without having to start hyper ventilating and do breast stroke, so in the week before my first tri, I did 2 lengths free, one length breast, then 4+1, then 6+1....by mid week I got to 10+1 a few times (basically 250m free, 25 m recovery breast) a few times and covered a 1km and figured I could survive the 2km swim, 55km bike, 15km run of my first tri.

But it was all just winging it on general fitness, with no structure other than showing up (unlike some others on this thread, I did my first tri in cycling shorts....not a speedo).

In any case I got it done and was kind of hooked. But the race was just an outcome of generally being quite fit from other sports.

As Scott Molina once said, "I was training for triathlon as a teenager before I knew triathlon existed". Between soccer, track, indoor soccer, tennis, baseball, lifting weights, using my bike for transport, winter outdoor endless hours of hockey I was literally doing 4 hrs of training more most days. Or throw in an extra run, because it was not track seasons and an extra run that was more fun than doing physics or chemistry anyway!!!

In my son's generation, they never got to operate like that. Everything was organized sports or "nothing at all". Their age group in the 20's is largely turned off from tris (my son and all his friends all raced local tris when they were in their teens as cross training for XC ski racing during the summer season). Not sure if any of them will come back to tris after they get settled into their careers and have families and kids. I hope they do.

But I think you are right that there will eventually only be a few continental IM's.

Keep in mind until 1999, there was ONLY IRONMAN Canada Penticton, and Kona. Other than that, there were around 20 half Ironmans and three Olympics Tris (Mr. T's in Chicago, Memphis is May Olympic and one more) that you could qualify for Kona at. Eventually IM Lake Placid, IM Florida showed up in 1999 and then Ironman Wisconsin the next year.....so there was Kona, Ironman Canada and three more in USA and that was it....and a whole whack of independent half IM's with Kona slots. And a shit ton of local races in every town.

I think you are right that most of the full IM's will fold because no one will want to do them and we'll be left with 3-4 at most. That may be a good thing.

Things have changed from, "I think I will go wing a tri because I happen to be fit and I am intrigued by the challenge" to "I heard about that Ironman in Hawaii, and there are 10 Ironmans I can pick from so I think I will sign up for one and now I have to figure out how to do it and learn how to do this sport"

I think you get a lot more triathletes for "life" when you pull from people who are already into fitness "just because that is what they do" versus "people who are drawn to the sport to do a specific event". The people in the first camp they don't need triathlon, they will find something else to get fit with and if gear and tech become too expensive, they may not bother. The people who are coming to the sport for an achievement, they may pay the price tag, but not sure those customers will stick around after the bucket list tick mark is checked off. Hopefully many do. More is good.

The people's champion

Your mention of 1999 sent me down nostalgia lane…at that point I had already washed myself up with an eating disorder. ‘98 was my year, with races across the Southeast US every one to two weeks. Pretty sure across the span of a summer I raced 10x or so, at least 3 olys as part of the program…I was even able to dig up this archive from the internet.

http://archives.chattanoogatrackclub.org/...CD-Tri1998splits.htm

A 6th place over-all with what I thought was a pretty good run at the time…funny that I’d beat my younger over-trained self by 20min today easily.

My bike at the time was a Dura-Ace equipped Klein Aeolus, procured with a hefty shop discount…oversized at 62cm so I could get the 700c wheels - most tri-specific bikes were 650’s at the time. Did not give it the rides it deserved… it’s now a friends shed decor in Montana somewhere.

It’s funny though, at the time I had no interest in IM races or relative distances - only Olympic distances as I had faint hopes of Swedish National team hopes with an inaugural Olympic Games looming.

Most of the races I've done in recent years have been sprints, and the vast majority of bikes at those races aren't tri bikes. A large percentage aren't even road bikes, lots of MTBs, hybrids, and comfort bikes. I've even seen a few Electra Townies. At a handful of races, my bike was among the most expensive/high tech: a 2008 QR Lucero with 10 speed 105.

My tri club does a few beginner's transition clinics every year in the months leading up to the local reverse sprint, and almost nobody shows up with a tri bike or high end road bike...

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

20k bike in cycling races yet entry fee $30 for a crit. Usac needs to fix cat 5 and drop lap rule.

Another n = 1 story from today

New to the sport middle aged athlete from motocross, gets a 6 year old tri bike for listed price $600, paid $150 less (FB marketplace). Got all the clothing/gear needed to now swim / bike / run "all in" for under $1k. Remarked after paying for this stuff "this is cheap compared to motocross".

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The dichotomy of this conversation is that we all say it is possible to be good at Tri etc on a old/road/inferior bike however the biggest threads in ST tend to be that Lionel rode the wrong bike, and imagine how much faster Taylor Knibb would have been on a tri bike and not taping gels to her top post.

I think the site itself does an amazing job promoting our sport at all levels, I just think we as posters get caught up in our own hype sometimes lol

Rephrase one thing because I think what happens is, people start to merge different points into one topic.

The participant angle is different than what it takes to be good angle. If you are discussing participant, the first timers do they really care how they do? Or is it just about doing the sport and seeing what it is about. I mean of course people want to do well but the very 1st time your “expectation” is going to be much different than 5 races into your career, 20 races into your career etc.

I’m boots on the ground in this sport on a daily basis. Just today I dealt with a guy that wants to buy a fully decked out P5 10:15am and the other example of a newb guy going to “just see how it goes” on $1k all in budget at 4:15pm. Funniest thing about the day- the customer has no clue what he is doing, but the joy he had in telling his wife that at 52 he’s going to go out and do this. That’s the shit that your like, “that’s awesome”.

So it bothers me when I hear people talk about how costly the sport is or how much a pain in the ass second market is. It sometimes almost feels like some gleefulness about the complaints of our sport. That’s what I want to push back against because I don’t think it has to be that way. Again yes I recognize there are costs to this sport. And buying online can absolutely be a pain in the ass. i just think today more than ever people have the ability to get in the sport on a budget with all the secondary markets out there. Yes there will be some ass

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I want people to sell me stuff for 50 % less than they want to, they don't and then I whinge about it on ST :)

I shipped a used bike from NC to Denver today for $250 (and we get a super good shipping rate vs what normal person shipping does, normal quoted rate was $408). I don’t even want to know what it’ll cost to send anything down under. Maybe your used market sucks more than ours does ha.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

It's much the same, smaller in scale.

You get a lot of folk remorsefully putting last years great idea, I'm gonna be an ironman, I'm gonn race bikes etc up and trying to get most of the price back.

The new market is quite good globally though and I'd rather drop 1100 AUD on a set of good clinchers, than give somebody 850 for their second hand remorse

Maybe its you that's the problem? You expect half price for a set of wheels that have basically not been used? You are willing to pay another $300 out of spite...wow...Do you have the same approach when selling your gear?

Try and have a sense of humor. Yep if you buy gear expect to write 40 % of new price. If you can do better so be it. I generally get the price I want, as I can afford new, if people don't meet my price I'll be new. It's called the market.

As for selling, I tend to give my used stuff to people who don't have any good kit, or sell it for a token fee, eg zipp 404/808 powertap to a new mid 20's guy in our squad who couldnt' afford anything flashy. I had lots of stuff I didn't need.

Same with my bikes, my older road bike I have lent to a club mate who didn't have a bike and said give it back when you are ready.

$300 is not out of spite, it's buying new, not clapped out, at least its clean, has a warranty, is $300 worth saving on stuff that in many instances is clapped out rubbish: