In what is being called the biggest "bike count" ever done at a cycling event, the organizers of Gran Fondo New York recorded the biked ridden by the over 4,000 riders who tackled the event on May 15.

In further research, granfondo.com looked at the bikes of the first 100 finishers to see if they differed from the overall breakdown. There are some interesting variations.

(Read a GFNY 2016 ride report here.)

A pair of Colnagos a Fuji and a Cannonade at a rest stop. Credit: Sportograf
Overall, GFNY classified 3,877 bikes and Specialized was the top brand with 578 bikes. Then came Trek with 486 and Cannondale with 423. Just off the podium, but in the top 10, were Cervelo (306), Pinarello (304), Giant (235), Canyon (226), Scott (191), Stevens (175) and BMC (120). No other brand broke the century mark equivalent to 2.5% of the total.

A further 14 brands are broken out — including De Rosa (78), the official bike of GFNY — with 107 (2.75%) recorded under "Other".

Results from GFNY's bike count.
Uli Fluhme, co-founder and CEO of GFNY, described the giant firms at the top of the tree as unsurprising.

"Specialized, Trek and Cannondale dominate the US market and with 40% of the GFNY riders being American, they dominate GFNY as well and represent 37% of the frames chosen for GFNY," said Fluhme.

"The interesting numbers, however, follow immediately after," he added. "High-end brands Cervelo and Pinarello take the next two spots, topping big companies like Giant, Scott and BMC, with the latter barely making the top 10."

Pinarello did even better in the Top 100, but once again Specialized came out on top with 12 bikes many of which were top-of-the-range S-Works models.

In the top 100 we were able to confirm the makes of 70 bikes and a much higher proportion of them were smaller brands.

12 Specialized

8 Pinarello

6 Canondale

5 Cervelo and Giant

4 Trek and Merckx

3 Colnago, Felt

2 De Rosa, Argon 18, Canyon, Cipollini, Scott and BMC

1 Storck, Bianchi, Ritte, Legend, LaPierre, Wilier, Fuji and Ridley

Pinarello provided the second most frames with 8 (up from fifth) and the real surprise came from the Cannibal himself as Merckx claimed four spots having failed to register as a separate entry in the full survey.

In fact, 14 bikes (Merckx, Felt (3), Argon (2), Cipollini (2), Ritte, Legend and Lapierre) came from the full survey's "Other" bucket of just 107. The number in proportion to the full survey would have been just two (2.75%).

It certainly suggests that up at the front end of the field there is a wider spread of brands than further down the course.

Michael Margarite rode a Giant to victory at GFNY 2016. Credit: Sportograf
Methodology

At GFNY, four bike experts conducted the count at the entrance to George Washington Bridge, just after the security checkpoint. 4,000+ bikes had to be categorized within two hours while the majority of bikes was passing by in less than 30 minutes. A total of 3,877 bikes were caught.

Similar surveys occur in the triathlon world where it is far easier as athletes have to register their their bikes in advance and park them in the transition area.

Three of the experts on the GWB captured the frame brand and one was focusing on components based on brake levers as the distinguishing factor.

Here Shimano was the clear winner with 62% of the total, followed by SRAM at 24% and Campagnolo at 14%.

Shimano dominated the survey of groupsets.
We (non-expertly) looked at the Sportograf photos of the top 100 finishers to determine the frames ridden. Our success rate was only 70% with significant issues relating to bikes with black-on-black liveries, which could have a real skew on the numbers.

"This year's results have definitely had their fair share of surprises," said Fluhme. "But it will truly get interesting when we look at year-over-year changes after future GFNYs."

GFNY plans to further improve the count by gathering even more information. Additionally, bike counts will be done at other GFNY events to gather more data.

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