It’s a great comparison. Expensive sport at the top end, can be gotten into relatively cheaply on the low end, but you quickly want to buy the next best thing. Governing bodies make questionable rule changes. Participating population can be pricks.
Probably an unfair comment to end on. Plenty of great people in both sports.
Interesting that you go to golf
You had massive innovation from steel shafts to graphite, from persimmon to metal heads, and improved groove technology which helped golfers control shots out of poor lies. At the same time you had the ball change from wound to solid cores which coupled with launch monitor technology allowed golfers to optimize high launch low spin off the tee for distance, while still keeping max spin around the greens for control.
In response the R&A and the USGA always were a step behind in figuring out how to cope with the new technology. Now that we have to have a 300 yard Par 3 at the US Open they’re finally stepping up to do the thing they should have done in the first place which is slow the ball down.
For triathlon the water bottle thing is a safety issue and it was getting out of hand. You can’t have bottles getting launched all over the place. But the problem is like they USGA/R&A they started playing whack a mole reacting to what the athletes and companies were doing rather than being proactive and thinking about the problem they were trying to address and what are the best ways to address it.
So instead of a well thought out and coherent policy in response to water bottles stuffed down the jersey we get:
World Tri: You can’t have bottles or bladders in your trisuit.
Athletes: Cool I’ll just build up a rig attached to my bike that places the bottles at the same place.
World Triathlon: Ok you can’t do that either, and now you can’t have storage boxes either.
Athletes: Fine now we’ll just build a fairing/windscreen at the front of our bikes.
World Triathlon: …
Mea culpa, in that it’s impossible for the context of “you lost me at golf” to come through without elaboration, but I literally grew up 2 blocks away from a golf course, and my sister married into a family with an unbroken lineage of scratch (or better. Much) golfers, including her kids. I caddied in HS for a brief while.
My interest in any conversation that includes golf is just slightly below watching paint dry, regardless of it’s useful parallels.
Totally get that you don’t find joy in tinkering with your bike set-up but that behavior is a major part of every hobby. Take for instance PC gaming. There are those that simply get a rig and play, simple. But there is also a huge contingent (same as triathlon) that find great joy in the endless tinkering, upgrading and optimizing. There is an entire industry for producing keys for keyboards that have different sound on click, tension and rebound. Then there are monitors, memory, storage, mice, controllers and on and on and on. Those upgrades MAY make you better, but for many simply tinkering brings immense joy and satisfaction.
I would also challenge that there is intense participation in an “arms race” at the age group level. After this whole rules fiasco I had a very keen interest in looking at peoples bikes at Eagleman and to my surprise the vast majority had little to no aero optimization beyond a simple BTA or BTS set-up. The level of flash I expected just wasn’t there. Of course, there are those who are super dialed-in but that represented a small minority and I didn’t hear a single person complain that someone had a uber bike.
This…100%.
I know folks here are railing against you saying it but I think that “the regulars” here on ST don’t seem to get that they are in that small minority of triathletes who do fuss about and follow every little bit of tech that comes down the line. They will nit-pick for pages and pages here in the forum about everything from hydration set-up to Imo’s sex life while the vast majority of triathletes in the real world know nothing about fancy bottle set ups, what World Triathlon is, let alone know who Imo is. Most people just want to know enough about the sport to get themselves fit enough to complete a race, how not to die in the swim, how clipless pedals work and how to change a flat. That is it.
I have more in common with the newbie triathlon IG or TikTok’ers I see online just out there having fun training for their first race than most of the regulars here and I have been doing this for 39 years.
That was illustrated and the almost complete lack of interest in the Lachy Morton video I posted. People here will argue to the death about water bottles but not say a word about a truly epic achievement by arguably the world highest profile male adventure cyclist.
I will now go find my flameproof suit.
(As an aside…Totally disappointed that when I finally see an article about an admin’s beginner bikepacking adventure,it went straight to ST+)
Hah, that’s the exact kind of content that we need to be in the ST+ environment. And we want Rish to be doing more of it!
But otherwise, your point stands. I love geeking out about certain aspects of our sport. But there’s also limits to it. I think the shoe rules are reasonable. I think the wetsuit rules are reasonable. I don’t understand why cycling shouldn’t have some degree of reasonable limitation to it, too.
It is, in part, why I’ve moved a lot of my training to Zwift racing and gravel – one, there is no blow-up mightier than when you get spit out the back during a Zwift event. And gravel scratches the adventure / wonder itch that triathlon used to. See also: my adoration of uphill skiing.
Ok but we can enjoy our nitpicking while the vast amount of triathletes do their thing. Both can co-exist. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Sure, go as hard as you like, somebody has to keep the bike shops in business. 
Lachlan chats with me about this technology and innovation - he’s a fan.
As for the economics of the sport, the desire to bring costs down is a good one, but these mono bars are most likely not the culprit.
If technology were to be targeted as a cause for runaway costs in the sport, and if aerobars were specifically to be targeted, I suggest the focus be on proprietary front ends by the big names. I’ve heard that the tooling for the aerobars and spacers on a triathlon/tt bike costs more than the tooling for the carbon frame. If those manufacturers used a standard riser width and type and partnered with third party brands, like Ventum did with Profile Design on the Tempus, frame prices could come down… and the third party aerobar market could become more competitive and affordable and even more innovative.
Definitely not a Culprit since I have no monowing coming. Haha. But extensions, basebars, can be pricey but not as much as a new frame mold, at least not from my suppliers. But definitely alot of cost in design and testing hardware if safety matters to tye brand. Testing costs can be equal or more to molds sometimes.
Oh I am sure he is and I would expect no less as I follow all his crazy adventures but what surprises me is that nobody here seems interested in how he goes about what he does, specifically in this case for his lap of Oz.
His bike choices, gear choices, nutrition, feeding strategy ,crew ,mental battles, etc, etc,etc. There is so much interesting shit going on behind the overall effort itself and that is before you ask about the geography and climate of Oz. I have ridden most of the roads he did on that trip and have driven the rest and some of it is breathtaking in its isolation. I am just amazed that nobody here seems interested in all the how’s and why’s of the ride.
Cost is all relative I guess. People will spend what they are happy to and in our sport and that extends beyond all the gear and gadgets to the overall cost of participating (travel and the horrendous cost of accommodation these days).
I’ve bever been a gear guy and am frugal in my spending, so much so that.as I prepare for my own lap of Oz starting next month,I am trying to highlight just how little money you actually need to go on one of these multi week/month adventures. Everything I am taking is new except from my BOB trailer and my electronics and everything (except the new bike $460USD) has been sourced from bulk online warehouses like Temu and Kogan. It is an eperiment and I’ll be documenting how it all goes.
Actually re. Roth definitive answer from them…
Hello…,
have you seen our video on everything storage/hydration at DATEV Challenge Roth 2025?
These rules will apply for age groupers and pros alike.
Link to the video: https://youtu.be/_FeCy5ZxLds?si=qQE9xoxE5E47yuDz
Yours in sport
A.R.
Rules & Regulations
This forum seems far more interested in podiuming or winning AG races rather than adventure.
There is a lot of truth in that and age group triathletes posting about their hobby/passion is what you would expect here but as you say there seems little interest in “the adventure” these days. Perhaps that comes from so much training inside with strict training programs. I have posted here before about the huge changes I saw in the training dynamic once coaches became a thing and doing it all “just for fun” was no longer allowed. That was in 2003.
I was going to post Lael Wilcox’s “Lael Rides Around the World” video after Lachy’s one but decided not to bother.
Didn’t realize she put out a video. I’ll have to go find it.
I’m sorry, if I see the words “Make Sense” - or a variation, thereof - in a title, I feel morally obligated
“Same as it ever was”
Forgive me, and carry on
Kill it with fire.
