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Week in Review–February 8th, 2015

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The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting – generally endurance sports related. I’ve often wondered what to do with all of the coolness that people write, and while I share a lot of it on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, this is a better forum for sending it on to y’all. Most times these different streams don’t overlap, so be on the lookout at all these places for good stuff!

So with that, let’s get into the action!

DCRainmaker.com posts in the past week:

Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page of DCRainmaker.com this past week:

Sunday: Week in Review–February 1st, 2015
Monday: 5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
Monday: A quick update on Polar’s planned software updates
Tuesday: The Zeal HD2 Snow Goggles with Built-In HD Camera In-Depth Review
Tuesday: Sports, Drones, and Follow-Me Aerial Action Imagery: A State of the Industry
Wednesday: Under Armour (owner of MapMyFitness) buys both MyFitnessPal and Endomondo
Friday: A look at GoPro’s new firmware updates, including time lapse capability

Stuff that I found interesting around the interwebs:

Here’s a not-so-small smattering of all the random things that I stumbled on while doing my civic duty to find the end of the Internet:

1) Tip of the day – don’t hide your meth inside your bike tire: Apparently CBP actually knows to check there. Impressive. (via Bike Hugger)

2) A bulletproof suit: Ok, this isn’t so much endurance sports related as just cool.  Though, perhaps they can make a cycling kit version – just in case another person gets shot in a cycling race again.

3) A look at using Moxy data within a cycling center: Cool to see examples of using the data within cycling training, especially more specific and concrete examples with real world athletes.

4) Subway Super Bowl Commercial – Tough Dodger: In the event you might have been unavailable during the Super Bowl and have otherwise somehow missed this.

5) Microsoft Unveils Image Composite Editor Update: This free app is cool if you want to create one of those collage-style images that shows a dozen versions of you doing a jump or similar.

6) YouTube testing out multi-angle/camera videos: This could be very cool for sports use.  You can click on the demo video to watch it and then change to different cameras as you see fit.

7) How Instagramming and YouTube can get you in trouble with the National Parks: Pretty interesting stuff, especially in the middle section of the article.  The kayaking thing is kinda nuts.

8) Dubai Tour 2015 – Stage 3 Finish: Do appreciate the climb here to the finish is at 17-20% grade.  The last few seconds you can see the valley down below to get perspective.

9) Extreme Mountain Biking Through a Mall:This is nuts. Like in a totally awesome kinda way nuts.Escalators, department stores and all!  (via Justin M.)

10) Inflatable airbag for downhill skiers to make debut: This weekend at the World Cup in Beaver Creek, Colorado, the suit will be available for athletes.  Pretty fascinating stuff.  Interesting to note they’ve never had a false-inflation. (via Joe Lindsey)

Crowd Funded Projects of Athletic Note:

I regularly sift through Kickstarter and Indiegogo (plus a few others on occasion) looking for sports projects.  If you’re unfamiliar with projects, read my detailed post on how I decide which projects I personally back.  Note that as always with crowd funded projects, assume the project will be late and will under-deliver on features. Thus far, on the numerous products I’ve helped ‘fund’ (except a leather bike handle), that’s been the case.

Hydropacer: A Portable LED Virtual Swim Coach: Interesting stuff, though, seems like it’d be pretty tricky to deploy/utilize unless you ‘owned’ the pool and/or swim lane.  I’d never be able to use it in the pools here in Paris. (via Mike B.)

Sports Technology Software/Firmware Updates This Week:

Each week I quickly highlight some of the new firmware, app, software and website service updates that I see go out. If you’re a sports technology company and release an update – shoot me a quick note (just one liners is perfect, or Tweet it at me is even better) and I’ll make mention of it here. If I don’t know about it, I won’t be able to post about it. Sound good?

Polar Flow Update: Lots of goodness there with a slew of new features (click the expandy thing on the link for details)

Garmin Vivosmart firmware update: Minor bug fixes (via GPS Information)

Thanks for reading, and have a good remainder of your weekend!

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24 Comments

  1. Alex

    Down the mall video. link to youtu.be
    Lots of fun.

  2. Mirek

    MTB Downhil was shot in Prague, Czech Republic

  3. Oisin

    Hi Ray,
    On the topic of that kickstarter swim idea (which I also couldn’t use in my pool because I also swim in a FULL pool), has anyone tried using a small radio transmitter at one end of the pool instead of the accelerometer based swim tracking?
    I could imagine a small radio transmitter transmitting a pulse several times a second down along the lane should be picked up by the watch being worn by the swimmer. Ideally the watch would know that when it is detecting the radio pulses it is above water and therefore taking a stroke, when the signal is getting stronger you are swimming towards the transmitter, signal getting weaker means swimming away. Might this not work much better than an accelerometer which is quite prone to error due to any unexpected movement, i.e. swimming around a breaststroker.
    Seems strong to me that this has never been tried, the technology should even be in most watches already. Maybe there’s a flaw in my thinking.

    • Eli

      possible using doplar shift measurement, but the wrist isn’t always moving forward so hard to calculate. Maybe someday when computer power becomes cheaper a sonar based system could work where the watch could tend your distance from both walls

  4. Yonadav

    Also a new version of the Garmin Connect app for iOS with ConnectIQ features.

    • Oisin

      Android version was updated too.

    • Yeah, I did catch those. I’ve stopped including phone apps in the update, just because it was becoming a bit unwieldy – and honestly these days if you have the app, you can easily see the update details.

      That said, I almost actually included it, simply because it was quite notable on the number of features added.

  5. Sirolf

    I believe there’s a mixup: Garmin’s firmware update was for the vivoSMART not ACTIVE.

  6. Turn The Damn Cranks

    Ray — It is possible to import files to Polar Flow from a Garmin? I’ve tried every Google search I can think of, but can’t find info on this. Ditto for clicking every link on Polar Flow. Seems like once I export the tcx file from Connect I should be able to upload it to Flow, but maybe not?

    Thanks.

    • There’s no official method yet. I suspect once Polar enables the import option here shortly, you’ll be able to work up something there.

    • Simon Anthes

      If you have an Android phone or tablet then an app called “SyncMyTracks” works really well.

    • Ahh, that’s right! I knew there was vaguely some 3rd party way – I just couldn’t remember if it was something someone had shown me on the side or legit. Thanks for sharing!

    • Matt

      You also have RunGap on iOS as an option for file transfer to various sites (Polar Flow was added this week).

    • Turn The Damn Cranks

      Thank you all. I will check out RunGap while I wait to see what Polar’s import option looks like — and decide whether to pull the trigger on an M400.

      Thanks again!

    • Simon Anthes

      RunGap, although an excellent app, doesn’t give you the possibility of uploading to Polar Flow or Polarpersontrainer.
      I use “SyncMyTracks” in an android virtual machine on my mac as I don’t have an android phone

    • Turn The Damn Cranks

      Thanks. I checked out RunGap and saw that problem. I will try to figure out the virtual android option until Polar gets their import on.

  7. Scott E

    Maybe a combined bullet proof inflatable bike kit to prevent road rash — geez, talk about over protecting your kids…..

  8. Dominik

    To be 100 % correct, This Weekend is no World Cup in Beaver creak but the World Championships 😉 and as far as i know, no one uses it because it does nit fit under the Suite (it was already planned to be included in Gröden but postponned untilgbar next season).

  9. Dana

    Motorcycle racers have had airbag leathers for at least four or five years and they’re available to the public as well. AFAIK there’s never been a false trigger there either, which is a good thing since on a motorcycle a false trigger could easily be fatal. I think that’s mostly down to improvements in accelerometer technology. Back when they were trying to mount airbags on the bikes themselves, false triggering (among other major flaws) was one of the insurmountable issues that kept the airbags out of production.

  10. Nigel Pond

    Note: nothing is “bullet proof”. “Bullet-resistant” is the most accurate claim.

  11. Burnnerman

    The mall bike video was cool, but man I would hate to be that person who has to clean up the tire marks :-p

  12. A. Non

    The Hydropacer is inane.

  13. David

    This sounds interesting for next week.
    link to roadtovr.com