Kona 2019: Ironman Village Race Expo

images by Nick Salazar

Oct 10, 2019   24,078

Tony Kanaan is a famous Indycar racer who made a big splash in the tri world back in 2010 when he linked up with Trek and Retul to get a bit more serious with what he describes as his triathlon 'career.' Although he remains a professional Indycar driver, he sometimes jokes that Indycar 'gets in the way' of his triathlon racing. As long as we've known him, he's been riding the Trek Speed Concept, and working with famous fitter Mat Steinmetz to keep him optimized and race-ready. He's riding Mat's 51-Speedshop extensions and cups on the front end of his Trek rig.

The Shiv was launched in 2011, and remains a staple in the age-grouper field. It's a bike ripe for incremental upgrades, such as the rig this rider built complete with our own Alpha X bars and Omega X brakes. The result is clean and aero, while remaining completely accessible for adjustments, ease of breakdown for travel, and overall user friendly design everywhere. Good luck out there, buddy!

A new system from Rotor, simply called the 1x13, was on display at the Ironman Village, aboard some bikes at the Ventum and Profile Design tents. Billed as 'Your world in one chainring,' the system uses hydraulic actuation (yuck), and offers you thirteen gears (cool). I have a feeling this won't make much of a dent in SRAM's new AXS sales, especially considering just how good AXS is, but competition is generally a good thing.

All the images fit to print, from the 2019 edition of the Ironman Hawaii World Championship race expo. Enjoy!