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20+ Years of IMWC Bike Counts: What’s Changing, and the New Dead Bikes of Nice and Kona

20+ Years of IMWC Bike Counts: What’s Changing, and the New Dead Bikes of Nice and Kona

Every time we do the old famous Bike Count , it requires a lot of things and a lot of skilled people, all of whom…

Sunday, Oct 13

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Every time we do the old famous Bike Count , it requires a lot of things and a lot of skilled people, all of whom are either volunteers or “voluntold” to do so. These fine humans, the day before the biggest race of the year, get to (instead of planning and resting up for the hectic day to come) hang out in the sun and spend hours hyper-focused on counting bikes, wheels, pedals, power meters, etc. So for about 8 hours, they and we get to catch up and try to have some fun doing it. And without these people, the count would never happen. I’m convinced that the bike count is the real reason we have the famous TGINR Party.

The count’s history goes back some 20 years. And because of that, the tools matched and have evolved with the times. They used to have clipboards, pens, paper, and sheets that looked like this. The day would be filled with frantic counting and making sure you could catch a pee break without missing numbers. Then, everyone would gather around as we started counting the chicken scratch. Wet pieces of paper with ink all over were effectively turned into totals and then turned into percentages. Then, that was turned into data records and new articles. It was indeed a product of passion.

And for the most part, it was a somewhat bulletproof system (because of the people, not the process). Time passed, and the people who knew how to do it […]

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