Was it the The Mind of the Triathlete?. If it was, the 'mean' income reported was $126k, not $160k. Regardless, that is significantly higher than the median US household income of $46k. There is your first clue that this "study" (puke!) is bogus.

Whomever put this "study" together needed a basic understanding of survey research statistics, and data reporting. First, there is a significant bias in self-report data. USAT asked people what their income was. I didn't see the survey, but they may have asked what the household income was (ie, it may have been two earners) or they may have asked for their individual income. Regardless, self-reporting something as sensitive as income is prone to error. Of course people inflated their self-reported income. and may or may not have reported dual income. The other significant problem in their reporting of the income is their use of the mean (average) and not the median (half-way point, as in, half make more, half make less). Median income is a much less prone to skewed data. So what if the average self-reported income is $126k? That means absolutely nothing. I'll show you why:

Person 1: $41,000
Person 2: $42,000
Person 3: $43,000
Person 4: $44,000
Person 5: $45,000
Person 6: $46,000
Person 7: $47,000
Person 8: $48,000
Person 9: $49,000
Person 10: $855,000
Average income: $126,000

OMG! The "average" triathlete makes $126,000! No, not really. Not even close. You take nine people who make around the median US household income and one person who is totally kicking ass $855,000 and average it and you get garbage you can pitch to advertisers totally skewed data. But if I were to ask you what the 'normal' triathlete makes in the above sample, the answer would be $45,500, which is also the median.

If they had consulted with me - which they didn't - I could have come up with ways to obtain a more conclusive picture of triathlete income. First, it would not be a small self-report sample. I highly doubt they got a 10% return rate on a 20-minute survey. That would be way above what's expected, which is around 1%-3%, so I call BS on their 10% claim. Instead, they (USAT) have membership rolls of 150,000 people who included their zip codes. They have to get their crappy magazine somehow. One thing they could've done is researched the median income in each zip code. This is readily available from the US Census Bureau. Then you would weight the population among zip codes. You would probably have a disproptionate number of triathletes in Boulder (80301) and San Diego (92126) which also have a much higher cost of living and probably higher median salaries than Hidalgo, Texas (median income of less than $10,000) which probably only has a few triathletes.

There are so many things wrong with that "study" and it pi$$es me off because it combines two of my biggest peeves: As a statistican and researcher, they are totally bastardizing the protocol to come up with fluff numbers to show to advertisers in their magazine and website that, "Hey, our members make so much money! Advertise your schwag with us!"

you should have a "Ask TriSooner" thread with a sticky...your own column!

"dear trisooner
i'm a 38yo male with saddle sores and an all-carbon super bike...should i sell my Newtons and get compression socks?
thx!
sincerely, sore & anxiety-prone in san diego"

I know, I did go off on a rant. But it just got to me. :)

Fine. Let me summarize two years worth of trainer advice: Kurt Kinetic or Cyclops Fluid. "Fluid" is preferred over magnetic if it is in your budget (but any trainer is better than no trainer). Trainers are not the same as rollers. Trainers are boring, so get some movies, preferably past recaps of Grand Tours or some Spinervals. Buy local because shipping will eat up any savings. Tada!

Has anyone heard of 'Rav-X'? I recently bought the 'TX-4' trainer from a guy from craigslist for $70 and he threw in a Rides DVD. It seems nice and works pretty well, though I haven't really broken it in because I haven't really needed to.
Can I jack this up for a minute and ask: Do you need a perfectly true rear wheel for the trainer? The reason being that I have an old wheel that spins true side to side but not up and down so when I put it on the trainer I have an uneven resistance profile. It's kind of annoying and I'll probably end up putting in the time when the weather gets cold to true it better.
Because of the fact that your rear wheel rides on a spindle that is resistant to rotation, you can will eventually get an unrounded wheel, right? So I assume that most people would dedicate a tire entirely to the trainer to avoid flattening of a real riding wheel.
I hope that my issues add to the overall post.
-Garrett