I’d like to put some votes in for some fellow Michigan triathletes…Olympian, Sheila Taormina and new Pro and new Team USA member, Matt Kowalski (I don’t know much about him, but he’s a local guy so I felt I should mention him).
Tom - I believe that the Telekom cyclist to whom you were referring was Udo Bolts. I agree with you that it was pretty ballsy (sp?) of him to take on Kona.
Both Matt and Sheila are pretty amazing. I was chatting with Lew Kidder and Karen McKeachie in our store yesterday (Karen was borrowing some photos for her excellent cooltri.com website and the Gran Prix postcard for this season)and Lew was telling me Sheila current training schedule now- It’s unfathomable, that girl is going to be flying. Matt will be at a new level this year also. We sponsored Matt K., Todd Briggs and some other hot Michigan guys at Irontour this year. They had a good race but old Todd fell off his bike. Geez, I’m rambling. Time to build a bike.
Macca: he’s just cool and exciting to watch, and I love his confidence and attitude!
Zack and Thomas: because I like the Germans biking.
Craig Walton: He’s the nicest pro and I love his swim, bike combo.
Larsen: Because he’s an all American bike powerhouse.
And I agree that Weny Ingraham is a babe!
These would be mine, for no particularly enlightening reasons:
Smyers: plate glass, baby, 18 wheeler, cancer, miscarriage…still going strong; ‘sides, lil’ chocolate doughnuts and beer are staples on her training table
Widoff: he actually parties with the crowd the Sunday of the Wildflower festival
Glah: the eternal energizer bunny (and for the mullet)
Zack: same as someone else mentioned…chutzpah for walking Kona; he also rode with me on PCH once–nice guy
Smith: I like his determination and committment; also, he is a damned fast swimmer for having such an ugly stroke
Cheers,
Scott
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“seems to be a lot of exceptions”
i look at their bikes in kona, and i just don’t see the exceptions you see. i can’t remember everyone at kona, but i believe i can remember the top 4 men and women:
Tim DeBoom
Peter Reid
Cameron Brown
Thomas Hellriegel
Natascha Badmann
Nina Kraft
Lori Bowden
Heather Fuhr
maybe that’s wrong, but i think that’s right. do any of these ride shallow? maybe some do. last i checked they were all steep, tho hellriegel’s gone fore and back a bit, and i’m not too sure of kraft.
then i think of the guys who’ve really hammered the bike in recent years, zack, normann, dittrich, allen, spencer, etc., they ALL ride steep. the shallow guys hang on for dear life. likewise paula for the women.
then there’s macca and larsen, the shallow guys. macca goes very well, no doubt, but as was the case with spencer and bolton in 2001, he really paid the price on the run for riding shallow in kona. the other two both immediately went back to steep and both won their next IM races convincingly. it will be interesting to see what macca does.
as for larsen, who rode really quite steeply in his entre into triathlon, when he rode the lotus–the farther he’s moved back in the saddle the worst he’s performed.
used to be the debooms rode shallow in the old days. not in the last two or three years. likewise reid saw the light.
widoff rides shallow. he still performs well. lothar rides fairly shallow. there’s the exceptions. i can’t explain them. then there’s one other guy. who’s had ferrari as his doctor, if i’m not mistaken (correct me if i’m wrong).
Favorite (current) Pros:
Luc van Lierde
Craig Walton
Cam Widoff
Barb Lindquist
Macca
All time:
Dave Scott
Mark Allen
Scott Tinley
Kenny Souza
.
“i can’t remember everyone at kona, but i believe i can remember the top 4 men and women:”
Whaoaoh there Hoss. Pull your horses in. You’re taking this way too personal. There were other years at Hawaii besides 2003 and other courses besides just Hawaii and even other distances besides IM. If we traced them all back including age grouper wins I’m sure you’d find all kinds of exceptions. My point is that 78 degrees is good for many people but may not be best for everyone. Even you admit that in some of your writings.
BTW, aren’t you making a bit of an assumption by saying that someone blows up on a run because of running shallow. I’m sure lots of steep riding people also blow up. Lots of other factors could be involved.
BTW, I"m a long way from a pro but also ride steep(and shallow).
Although hoping not to spark riotous comments from the high desert, it’s also worth pointing out that Karen Smyers, Mark Allen, Peter Reid and his lovely bride have all ridden shallow to victories in the past 5-8 years. In this case, I have to think Cerveloguy might be onto the point that you’ve made before, Dan. Steep is great, but there are some body types that lend themselves to other geometries.
That said, not too long ago you and I conversed on the old forum about my presumed needs being Mr. Long Femur Guy. After measuring, remeasuring, and testing several variations, last night I fully converted my middle-o-da-road box geo road rig to a “tweener” set-up. So far I’m very happy with it. Time, of course, will tell if I’ve figured this out or if I’m whacked. If it’s the latter, then I’ll have a fair excuse to buy a new tri-bike… …Because now I’ve got all the warped-bike-o-phile reasoning I need to buy a nice custom steel rig with chrome and lugs. The glass is always half full.
It’s a sickness. Really, it is.
Cheers,
Scott
“Whaoaoh there Hoss. Pull your horses in. You’re taking this way too personal.”
i’m not taking it personally. i’m taking it seriously. or rather, i’m taking YOU seriously. i’m assuming you asked your question in seriousness, and i felt you deserved a serious answer. so that’s what i gave.
if you take your point to its logical conclusion–that there are other races, other distances, etc., to consider–then one could never win the day with you, because if i went down each and every race, race by race, i’d STILL never be able to make the point, because until we considered EVERY race and every result, i might’ve missed the one salient result for which i haven’t an explanation.
we live in a society where generalizations are frowned upon. they’re not politically correct. “poor people tend to lack initiative.” i’d get crucified if i stated that publicly, because there are SOME poor people who have PLENTY of initiative but are poor because of some unrelated reason. “pit bulls tend to be more dangerous than other breeds.” yes, but there are SOME pit bulls that are real sweethearts (and how dare i generalize).
yes, there are SOME pro athletes who can ride the bike at 74 degrees and do well. but they are the rare exception when you take a close look. certainly, when the strength of field is poorer, when the distance is shorter, when the course is hillier, those who wish to ride at 74 degrees will move up toward the podium. i choose hawaii because that’s really the race of truth when it comes to no-draft triathlon. if you’re macca you can win elsewhere, but when you’ve got some distance to ride and some bad-ass rivals to beat, we see how things work themselves out.
as for the run-off-the-bike thing, it’s been scientifically tested, and the tests have confirmed the anecdotal evidence. at some point, you’ve got to explain it away. if you can’t explain it, it seems to me you’ve got to accept it.
yes, i believe that steep is not for every one. but it is for just about every pro. very few ought not to ride steeply, and those are generally the ones with morphological isues.
now, let me add that if you mean for me to take what you write with whimsy, and not seriously, the i apologize and i’ll write whimsy back. but otherwise, i’ll do you the honor of an honest answer.
“it’s also worth pointing out that Karen Smyers, Mark Allen, Peter Reid and his lovely bride have all ridden shallow to victories in the past 5-8 years”
but everyone has the right to ride the way they want, that’s the beauty of it. funny thing, nobody mentions the obvious guy who rode shallow to so many victories. dave scott. he’s really the ONLY guy for whom there is no explanation i can come up with.
There is an easy explanation for Dave Scott. He is “The Man” and that is all that needs to be said.
Another though though … I do think that when he did his first comeback and placed second that he was riding a Calfee Tetra with 650 wheels that would have been steep unless it was a custom geometry bike. He did ride and run pretty fast that year too considering what people were expecting (as I approach the age he was then I’m not thinking that it was much of a detriment though). As the technology evolved in bikes so did Dave’s choice of ride. As for the Calfee bikes, they look awesome … anyone have one or tested one out?
Speaking of Dave… and I love to see him succeed like nobody before or since (in fact, was there anyone before Dave?)…
Anyway, what the heck happened to his set-up in 2001 when he DNF’d. I mean, Dave is awesome and he could smoke most of us any day, but he just did not look comfortable on his bike. I’m sure Griffen is a top-quality ride and everything, but what was up with his positioning?