When you think about “shit happens” during a race, this was not something that ever entered into my consciousness… Kona definitely has some Bermuda-Triangle-esque qualities when it comes to bikes.
Too bad about the saddle, thats gotta be a crazy way to go.
About the weird Kona failures, I wonder if part of it is all the abuse the racers’ bikes get via the airlines (for those that send bikes that way) in transit and in ground handling. I imagine that some of the abuse the bikes get even clever engineers can’t think up (and design for). Trust me, I have seen it all.
I do think this is a factor as to why you hear more stories about crazy stuff on race day for sure. But Kona seems to have more of its fair share, though I bet that’s mostly just because the race is so big. I doubt it’d be much of a story if I had broken the saddle during the big leg of, say, Monterrey 70.3.
I think Kona has more than its fair share for this type of story because EVERYONE flies there and has to take their bikes apart and put it back together. If you take IMLP, Louisville, Maryland, or Tremblant, probably 80-90% of the field gets there by car so they are not taking their bikes apart to the same degree. Kona just has the highest single day total of bikes on the race course that happened to fly to get there.