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XLAB is Top Hydration Carrier in Kona

The IRONMAN World Championships in Kona are notoriously hot and humid. Although this year’s race was gentler than average on conditions, it still reduced plenty of men to doing everything in their power to cool themselves off. Where do they usually start that problem? The bike. So it’s always been common to see creative solutioning to carry more and more fluid on board bikes, despite averaging an aid station every 11 miles.

There’s also, of course, the chase for aero benefits on front hydration systems. With the prohibition on using empty bladders down a tri suit, we’ve seen more athletes using a bottle in that space to try and fill the space between the arms and chest.

So it perhaps comes as a slight surprise that of the nearly 2,300 bikes that the collective team counted in Kona, only slightly more than half of them — 1,253 — had front hydration systems that we could identify. Rear hydration remains more popular, with 1,661 systems counted. And of those, there’s one brand that dominates: XLAB. They accounted for 42.2% of all the rear hydration systems, nearly doubling the count of second-placed Profile Design.

PD, however, outpaced XLAB on front hydration carriers, 412 to 315. But the most popular front solution was one integrated into the frame or bars from the manufacturer. I think this is something that we’ll need to watch for over the next couple of seasons, especially if Canyon continues its trajectory in the bike counts; any of their bikes will come with some type of front-mounted hydration either built into the frame (CFR, CF SLX) or with one available to purchase (standard CF).

Same with Quintana Roo and their V-PRi, which has an integrated FuelBay system. Both Profile Design and XLAB are helped by other QR bikes, though. Either a Profile Design or XLAB hydration system is offered as part of the purchase on the V-PR or X-PR bikes (the PD Aeria system is included, with the XLAB Torpedo a minor upcharge offering).

No other brand cracked a combined total of 100 carriers, either front or rear. The closest was Bontrager, which had 48 front carriers, 46 in the rear. And how the mighty have fallen, as Speedfil has just 5 total systems in the field, a far cry from their days as a major age-group team sponsor (and, in turn, showing up on the pier).

The totals:

BrandFrontRearTotal
XLAB3157011016
Integrated / Manufacturer464339803
Profile Design412363775
Bontrager484694
Fizik06262
Elite05555
Specialized04949
Tacx03434
Giant91221
Speedfil505

Perhaps the most interesting statistic to me, though, are the roughly 630 athletes who eschew either a front or rear hydration system, relying instead on traditional frame bottle bosses (or their best Faris Al-Sultan impression). Was it a matter of budget, a lack of aero knowledge, or some other factor that led them there? We’ll need to keep an eye on this end of things as well, particularly if bike prices continue their march upward.

Photos: Eric Wynn / Slowtwitch

Tags:

2024 IMWCBike CountIRONMAN World ChampionshipKona

Notable Replies

  1. We’re getting really close to releasing that BTS cage on the rear underside of Rudy’s V8 saddle in the above photo. This cage is designed to be mounted upside down, and unlike other upside down cages, this one does not have a split that opens up over bumps, and it is made to securely hold the narrow on-course bottles. more to come upon release.

    We’ll also release a bracket for the rear for mounting multiple BTS bottles, with our retention loops pre-installed/integrated into the bracket. The bracket will allow for two BTS bottles like Rudy, Trevor, KB, Magnus, Pohl, McKenna had, and three BTS bottles like Magnus had.

  2. Are the BTA and out-front hydration systems dead?

    Are they being replaced by multiple bottles between the arms now?

  3. @Nick_wovebike I have a hypothesis and maybe you can investigate. The idea and practice of putting water bottle in jersey was to change the shape of front of chest and rather than have a flat chest you end up having one like a triangle that then enables air to flow around the body and around the hips with less resistence.

    A cone at 0.5 Cd is better than a cube at 1.05

    What the wind sees with an aero bottle is a long cylinder which is 0.82 according to this. Then the air goes around the horizontal cylinder and some of it re attaches and his the body some gets redirected around body with less resistance than nothing at all

    But what if you had a front mounted hydration system that is a triangle bottle that pierces the wind and then pushes the wind to both sides of the triangle to the point that the air by the time it hits chest/hips is the width of hips…then it goes right around hips. Now you get to the 0.5 shape virtually rather than 0.82 small shape plus the 1.05 large shape (obviously these numbers are all coarse).

    Can you make a triangle bottle, fill the gap, push the air around the hips and test next time you go to tunnel with one of your guys. I think it will make a dramatic difference. In a way I think the integrated aero pads do some of that affect by creating a cone shape in front of rider and pushing air around hips vs into chest cavity

    Here are the different shapes Cd

  4. They sort of are…with the Pro’s… But I think that will change next year when the big boys come in and set up some new rules on all these out of control front end set ups…

  5. The largest imperative that I see is the ability to swap bottles between the different water bottle cages. A single proprietary bottle prevents that.

    Lionel did have a BTA bottle cage with a aero leading edge built into the cage. Not sure how that helped him and obviously we can look at the bike results, but it seems that a aero cage that can hold a round 1 L bottle is a possible solution

  6. Thanks for the article and spotlighting hydration carriers! Definitely is an area of the sport that is very much in a transitional innovation period and so great to see!

    Pretty interesting to look back to how hydration started and where we are now.

    These changes we are seeing are definitely pro-driven…that is how XLAB came to be…helping a Pro athlete with their hydration vs bike limitation. However, I am already seeing these setups with age groupers outside of Kona. With 3D capability, in some form, it has become possible to attain, and more quickly than with past trends.

    I think Eric you are right - what rules could there be (if any?) with the variety of setups we have seen. There is some standardization forming, but how we come to that is wide open based on the variety of front ends that exist in the market…which is a another whole conversation that is happening on Slowtwitch right now!

    Exciting times!!

  7. I don’t understand why. Kat Matthews had a hydration system with a straw in her bta cage. I’m pretty sure I saw one of the Kona men too, but most don’t.

    I can sit in aero and drink from the straw with little movement from my profile designs evo 800 and I can quickly refill it and ditch the bottles in the process.

    Why isn’t this the standard?

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