Dan Empfield (born 1957) is an American entrepreneur in the world of multisport, creator of the triathlon wetsuit in 1987, and the triathlon-specific racing bike in 1989.
Empfield sold Quintana Roo in 1995 to Saucony[2] and managed that company's bicycle division until June 1999.
He left to start the popular on-line triathlon news and commentary web site Slowtwitch.com, which he owned and managed from 1999 to 2022.
[3] His FIST-based protocol of road and triathlon bicycle fitting[4] was the first among today's dynamic bike fit protocols, and he coined the bicycle geometry terms "stack" and "reach" - corresponding, respectively, to the vertical and horizontal distance between the bottom bracket center and head-tube top; these terms helped normalize bike geometries across manufacturers.
Empfield has been inducted into the Triathlete Magazine Hall of Fame (2004)[6] and the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame (2014),[7] has received the World Open Water Swimming Association's (WOWSA) lifetime achievement award (2010),[8] and was named by Inside Triathlon as one of the ten most influential people in United States triathlon for 2012[9] and 2013.