If the IronMan journey in itself is a beautiful one, it is still also a very expensive one. Registration fees are around 500 euros at least, and apart from being very lucky, it often requires expensive travel far away with your bike and the whole triathlon package.

Now when it comes to the equipment budget itself, the most noticeable difference with sprint and standard distances is obviously the bike. As 70.3 and 140.6 doesn't allow drafting — in theory; in practice I often saw criterium races — the gain you can get from a well-prepared time trial bike and the aero position coming along is everything but marginal. I'm not here to bother you with aerodynamic drag and stuff, there are plenty of articles about the topic out there on the Internet. So to keep it pretty short, it’s said that a one-watt reduction in drag over an IronMan 140.6 course at low speeds can equate to up to a two-minute time-saving. So I'll let you imagine when you can save 10 to 15 watts... the higher the speed, the more your watts saved are important.

Getting to that point can't just be summarized with aero bars on the bike. Wheels, cassette, chain, rear and front derailleurs, cranksets, bottom brackets, pedals, tyres... All of them can make a huge difference in the end. That's why I laughed a lot when I read this sentence for the first time on a Facebook group : « You know you're an IronMan when your bike cost more than your car. »

Let's be honest : if I didn't had such a nice configuration for my bike, I would probably not have broken the #SUB10, at least not in my first year. But it goes exactly the same for any athlete who wants to go around that time; and I'm not even talking about the ones who are trying hard for a *Kona* spot.

In the end it's exactly like for the Formula One. You can be a better pilot, but if you don't have the right car, your chance of success is limited. That's why the long-distance triathlon has a genuine element of unfair treatment where your bike budget is playing a real role in the results. No wonder the share of high-end social class people doing IronMan 140.6 is significantly high : it costs a lot.

That being said, you will find in the list below every single equipment or gear I used and paid for my #SUB10 at Challenge Almere-Amsterdam.

Throughout my season I've tried or used way more things. I'm a geek by nature and I love playing with gadgets and stuff, wishing from time to time to be DC Rainmaker reviewing stuff all day long. If most of them were completely pointless, some others were game changers, and you can expect me to talk about them in the next chapters when needed.