Was just thinking that I normally see that information here fairly quick after the race but have not seen anything yet. Cervelo just sent out their newsletter and said they were number one by quite a bit. Would like to see the details of the count. I remember earlier in the year people saying that Cervelo was going to lose shares at the top this year so I would be interested to see if they did or not.
was posted and discussed before the race even happened. Lava magazine handles it
For comparison sake here is the Top 10 from 2011.
http://lavamagazine.com/...again/#axzz29yLeTWeC
Looks like if anyone lost share it was Trek.
Cervelo: 488
Trek: 185
Felt: 124
Specialized: 122
Scott: 96
Cannondale: 79
QR: 61
Argon18: 57
Kuota: 55
Orbea: 53
The Lavamagazine article is kind of lame. Any bone head can just stand there and tally up totals. When Slowman used to do this, there was a really good analysis of what “we” as a market of athletes were trending towards, what some of the underlying reasons may or may not be, and what we “might” want to look for in terms of new trends developing that don’t show up in “today’s” count, but where early adopters are getting an advantage on the “rest of us” and what we might want to consider to “neutralize the arms race”.
The Lava article is lame. Now we’re here just looking at sheer numbers trying to synthesize what those numbers “mean”. There is no comparison with previous years, no comparison of 'steep vs slack", no summary of percentages riding Long and low vs short and high and so on.
Big fail on the part of Lava. They have exclusive access to doing this count, yet they have offered the readers nothing other than telling us what we should do to follow the herd (just buy who leads the count), without telling us why.
I remember ages ago when companies like Principia had a small but solid following. Slowman would tell us, why Principia was strong in Kona thanks to the fast Northern Europeans who generally rode different bikes from their KQ southern European peers. That type of insight is sorely lacking in the Lava article… When Slowman did this, there was a lot of follow on activity generated by the bike count and I am sure industry product managers took note. In a sense Slowman did the count from the angle of an industry analyst, rather than some bean counter simply tallying brands.
Now that WTC is divesting itself of Lava, perhaps there is an opening for an industry wide cooperation in terms of doing the tallies and analysing the resultant information.
Dev
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=4221861#4221861
It came and went… you didn’t miss much and I think Dev’s post above this one says pretty much what the previous thread concluded.
Hey Dev, thx for putting that out, and it’s got me stopping to look at how the count has been executed. And over the last three years, it’s gone backward a bit. And that’s no fault of LAVA, or the industry counters. I just think that Ironman has found the sheer breadth of counters a nuisance, and have been pushing them out in an effort to get the athletes into the pen.That’s a noble cause for the athletes in order to get them off their feet the day before the race, but I think Ironman benefits from the data; the industry brands are their clients, after all, and promote the brand. The counters have, in fact, been historically efficient in keeping the flow into the pen moving. but the organizers thought they could get it going even faster by just shoving the counters out into the public domain. (And there’s a big dude in a cowboy hat that runs check-in that is a bit… shall we say… overbearing.)
And for clarity, LAVA doesn’t have exclusive access to doing the count. We’re simply there with the counters and collect/post it. I imagine were Triathlete, Slowtwitch to approach the counters, they could get it as well. Then it’s just a race to post the same numbers. So, all we do is report the count in a timely manner. Once it’s out there, anyone—including Dan—has the ability to analyze it/break it down. We have three editors on staff, and I think I’m the only one on staff with the technical capability to do an analysis. Unfortunately, I have myriad other elements (race-day photography/photo editing, magazine editing/layout) taking me from the luxury of doing an analysis. I guess it’s something I’d love to do were I not slammed putting out a quality magazine.
Further, the counters do have a high degree of interference from Ironman that Slowman didn’t have to deal a decade ago. These days, no one not affiliated with Ironman is allowed in the transition area at any time. In the last five years, I’ve been permitted in there once, for a total of five minutes, to take photos of the full racks, and was quickly ushered out after my five minutes were up. In the past, Dan and Monty used to have the ability to get a very accurate pull on “steep vs. shallow,” etc. in that they could go in and do the count, from the racks, with interference. No longer. Instead, the group of counters was pushed out into a public domain in an effort to execute the count. And as said, the count suffers inaccuracies as a result.
That said, I was afraid this would happen, and think this needs to change. I’m approaching Ironman in an effort to provide the counters a location that will again give them clearer visible access in order to get a more accurate count. I think I will pass off or forego shooting the pros bikes (who really wants to see how the pros set up their bikes anyway? 
and instead quarterback the count.
And with that established (Ironman willing), I want to incorporate different metric as well, like we’ve seen in the past with Dan’s counts. What would you want to know (beyond the product) that I can try to get the counters to incorporate for next year? Perhaps it has greater value a race like HyVee, but I think steep vs. slack is a worthless metric these days at Kona; anyone doing this event at this point knows their shit, and it’s gotta be somewhere in the realm of 95 percent or more toward steep. Same with materials, unless someone finds it interesting that 96 percent of bikes there are carbon, 2 percent are steel, 1 percent are titanium. However, I still think 650 vs. 700 is a worthwhile metric that ought to get more attention, especially if we can divest male vs. female from it. Same with extension types. And integrated brake bikes vs. non-integrated. What other metrics do y’all think are worthwhile to track for trends?
And for the record, I’d love to see Slowman come back and help with this. We all benefit from good, meaningful data. C’mon Dan, you know you love standing in the sun, sweating your balls off…