Originally Posted by
carleton
The amount of obsession they have and money they throw at equipment is unbelievable. Not every racer, but there are many who buy into the hype constantly.
It's super interesting sociology I think.
triathlon really exploded in popularity around the same time carbon became "the norm" and you got this perfect storm of designers wanting to make the latest/greatest, and a huge population boom that were willing to buy them, so they had plenty of reason to continue designing.
In the 90's (and even 80's) some really fast bikes were built (Zipp, Corima, Lotus, "GT" Look etc all made crazy future frames) but cyclists as a community are fashion first and beam bikes looked weird. It stunts growth when you can't sell 1995's inventory to make room for 1996's. Flash forward and you've got a huge demographic of "Try a Tri" once and doner Ironman competitors who buy a bike, train, race, then never touch it again. Plenty of turnaround and plenty of "new" folks to sell to each season. (also one of the reason's a 10 year old Felt TK1 still fetches a good price, but a same year Felt DA is worth virtually nothing)
Then take something like track cycling... very niche of already niche. The people that spend money on a Felt TK1 aren't generally planning to get out of the sport next year. The total demographic is also low, with not a ton of people entering the sport each year. So you've got the current riders who bought a bike they liked and will likely ride the wheels off of it, and then you've got just a super low demand to start with. So you end up with most "high end" track frames really being "co-developed" as TT/tri frames to recoup costs. I wonder how many people riding a Cervelo T4 right now would "upgrade" to the T5 if it became readily available tomorrow?
Also with triathlon the population is pretty much early 30's to 55-60. The demographic has paid for school, solidified a career, raised family, etc and has disposable income to spend. Probably true'ish of track cycling as well, but almost certainly a different "type" of person. Location restriction also likely stunts Track growth... not many people in East TN near me own a track bike... and with DLV/Rock Hill being the closest tracks (besides the Mellowdrome but that doesn't really count) it doesn't make sense for most people to own a track bike at all.