Ironman Wisconsin

Ironman Wisconsin

Among the most reliable high points of Ironman Wisconsin each year: the opportunity to check out displays of all the hottest bikes. In the span of a 10-minute stroll through the Ironman expo at Monona Terrace, you can see vast collections of bikes totaling well into the six figures. The Ironmen are right about now getting out of Lake Monona and onto their bikes.

Among the high-end models on display this year: Trek’s TTX Equinox and 5200, the Ceepo Ironman Viper, Quintana Roo’s Seduza, the occasional Kestrel and Cervelo’s P4, S3 and P2C – gleaming marvels of carbon-fiber engineering, wind-shedding geometry and dizzying price: framesets alone cost $2,000 and up for many of these high-end bikes; fully loaded, the best of them retail for more than $6,000. That big rack of Zipp 808 wheels? Somewhere north of $1,000 each.

You might think that’s a high price to pay for an advantage in the 112-mile bike leg of Sunday’s race. It is, however, what the market can bear. And the looking is free. Even if you ride a squeaky 10-year-old beater with a rusting chain and maladjusted gears, you can appreciate the research and development that goes into these bikes, which are as much works of art as they are machines — and look mighty fast, even when idle.