Though slightly different than the traditional one-day men and women combined numbers at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii (and quite a bit smaller than the combined numbers from last years two-day Kona event), the 2023 Ironman World Championship men’s-only race in Nice is the first time the IMWC has been held outside of the U.S. As such, we can expect quite different results from the Ironman World Championships bike count data below.

Take a look to see who came out on top!

And for pictures, check out our photo gallery from today’s age-group bike check-in at the men’s 2023 Ironman World Championships in Nice.

Vive la France! Visit our Nice Central hub for news, analysis, history, photo galleries, and so much more – new stories added daily from our team on the ground at the men’s 2023 Ironman World Championship.

Men’s 2023 Ironman World Championship Nice Bike Count

Bikes

This year we saw a new sheriff in town—for the first time in recent history, Cervelo has relinquished the position at the top spot of the Ironman World Championship bike count. While it’s possible that the German-based brand has home-court advantage in Europe for the first time, Canyon also sponsors a large amount of the top-ranked pros at this year’s race.

Other big, notable movers, percentage-wise, versus last year include: BMC (up from 3.7% to 5.5% and from ninth to seventh in the rankings); Specialized, Felt, and Quintana Roo who all slid considerably; and the weird outlier of Lapierre, a local French bike rental company.

Tri Bikes

We’ll break out road versus tri bikes below—road bikes are a significant number, but not surprising when looking at the technical and hilly Ironman World Championship Nice course.

When pulling out road bikes and looking at tri bikes only, not too much changes in the rankings, percentage wise—except of course for the Lapierre bike rentals. Brands with the highest number of road bikes unsurprisingly include Specialized, Trek, Canyon, and Giant—all core bikes at more mainstream bike shops.

Tri vs. Road Bike: 2023 Ironman World Championship Nice

Given the fact that the Ironman World Championship Nice course has a very technical descent, a significant climb, and almost 8,000 feet of climbing, it’s no surprise that roughly 13% of participants chose to ride a road bike over a tri-specific bike.

Rental Bikes

Perhaps for the first time ever, we’ve been able to quantify at least a portion of athletes who rent a bike to race at Ironman World Championships. Whether this is due to the distance—not wanting to pack and travel with a bike—or it’s a more last-minute decision to forego their tri bike and use a road bike based on the course, it’s tough to say.

Aerobars

Interestingly enough, there’s not a significant shakeup at the top of the aerobar count—Profile is still in the number-one position, only losing a marginal amount of ground since 2022 (3%). Zipp slid behind Canyon, falling from number three to number four, and both 3T and Cervelo took a big hit (likely due to Cervelo’s simultaneous drop in the standings). Unsurprisingly there was a huge 8% leap in those using drop bars at Ironman World Championships Nice.

Components

Shimano still reigns supreme among Ironman World Championship participants, and the percentage of racers using the mainstay brand versus last year is almost identical, when compared to its main rival, SRAM.

This year, we also looked at the prevalence of 1x versus 2x (front derailleur or no), and very very few athletes chose to go 1x—likely given the tough climbing on the Nice course. We also saw a vast majority of triathletes choosing to use electronic shifting over mechanical.

Wheels

Possibly due to the change of continent, we see longtime king of the wheel count, Zipp, upended by Europe-based DT Swiss. Zipp lost a huge share of Ironman World Championship participants, sliding 30% since 2022, but interestingly enough DT Swiss lost overall percentage share as well. Brands like Enve and Bontrager also saw big moves backwards in the wheel count, as we saw a greater spread of smaller brands versus the bigger ones at the top.