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 the past 7 days:
Last Thursday: Power2Max goes to $599 – Joins Quarq, Pioneer in April power meter price slashing
Also Last Thursday: ROTOR announces new INpower power meters, starting at $779US
Still Last Thursday: Garmin announces Vector2 (and 2S), also upgrade kit for original Vector owners
Once again, Last Thursday: Recon Jet starts shipping, a look at my first month with it
Look, Last Friday! Quarq introduces new $799 RIKEN AL power meter
Again, Last Friday: Power Meter Pricing Wars: Let The Games Begin
This Monday: 5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
This Wednesday: The DCR Podcast Pilot Episode is Now Available!
Phew, lots of power meter stuff out there!
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) Wanna know exactly how much Pro triathletes made in Q1? Ask no further. Here’s the start of a look at the long-course triathlete’s winnings numbers. Of course, this doesn’t include sponsorship dollars, but it’s a good look at the reality of pro racing.
2) Another week, more Kenyan doping: This has essentially become like doping in cycling.
3) 10 Sports Prizes Stranger Than the Masters’ Green Jacket: A neat little list of the slightly ‘unique’ things that various events give the winners.
4) The Egg Unboxed – DCR In-Depth Review Style: This comes from a reader of the blog who unboxed their Easter Egg in true DCR In-Depth Review style! (scroll down a bit within the page to get to that section)
5) Brim Brothers delays till September 2015: Looks like they’ll be back in the saddle for another Interbike timeframe launch.
6) How This $7,000 E-Bike’s GPS Tech Thwarted a Thief: Sooner or later, built-in GPS tracking in bikes will become the norm. (via Justin)
7) A solar powered bicycle: I’m wondering if at Kona you could argue that the wheels aren’t technically disc wheels, but solar panels? (The Ironman World Championships don’t permit disc wheels due to high wind safety concerns)
8) Augmented reality sandbox: I’m not really sure how to explain this in just a single sentence. So…just watch the video below. (via Mario)
9) Beyond pink it and shrink it: Embracing the potential of the women’s cycling market (Part 1).
10) Lindsey Vonn’s Pet Cow: I somehow never saw this until now. But this is pure awesome. (*and you get extra points if you caught the original mention of this in #3 above.)
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.
LIMITS Power Meter: A $250 power meter that fits in between the pedal and the crank arm.
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?
Garmin Fenix3 firmware update: A few new features, but mostly lots of tweaks.
Garmin FR920XT BETA firmware update: Bug fixes.
Garmin Vivofit2 firmware update: Improvements to calorie calculations, among other things.
Garmin Vivofit firmware update: Improvements to calorie calculations, among other things.
Sport Tracks adds Automatic Gear Tagging: Definitely pretty cool.
Sport Tracks adds ANT+ weight scale support: Also pretty cool (and self-explanatory)
Training Peaks adds MyFitnessPal support: This includes the ability to sync details between accounts.
With that, thanks for reading, have a great remainder of your week!
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LIMITs power meter looks interesting… and looks as a good solution if you own more bikes…
Hi Ray, did Polar fall off your radar screen? Last week there was massive FW update and Flow update as well.
Ever since the Flow update the website has been really sluggish and everything takes ages on it. Other websites are just fine. Anyone else has this problem?
Yes but I’d rather that than it be down. I’m really pleased with the watch but if the web sites down and your in a hurry your hosed. For that reason I update my favourites a week in advance.
I love my M400, but the website is atrocious. I mainly just want to export my data to Endomondo, but last night it took me 10 minutes to do it. Numerous refreshes and log out/ins.
The website has definitely gotten worse, but on the plus side they fixed the app! (for iOS).
Ray, brilliant! Had a good laugh going through your stuff found in the web. Reading about the money professional Triathletes made I reckon “pro” is more related to your attitude towards the sport. How can you make a living out of that?
Hey Ray
The Bike mode update for the FitBit Surge dropped this week as well 🙂
So…..I looked in the “Queue” section and no where could I find either the Polar V650 nor the SRM PC8…………?
The SRM PC8 is not currently in the queue (they haven’t sent out any units yet to non-pro riders, best I can tell).
The V650 is in the queue, though I won’t start until they add in power meter support (since I don’t really want to do the whole thing twice).
Ok. Thanks. The PC8 is particularly interesting, as is the entire SRM concept. How long before the market forces their hands? Right now, there are still many rabid fans that will keep the economics “inelastic”. As well, the PC8 is eagerly anticipated and defended on some forums………no matter the price, and the feature “claw back” …….BT and Wifi in hardware but not implemented, early reports of sketchy gps functionality, pictures of pros with black electrical tape holding it on……….
Hey Ray, in your upcoming review of the Apple Watch, can you possibly test if it can successfully pair with BLE GPS receivers such as the Garmin GLO or the XGPS 150?
link to buy.garmin.com
link to amazon.com
Both of them already work with modem-less iPad and iPod Touch so I would imagine they would work with the Watch too. Apparently you can already pair the Wahoo Tickr (as shown at the official Watch videos) so I could only dream of running with the Wahoo Watch App, Tracking running dynamics and precision HR over BLE using their sensor and a BT GPS sensor attached on my hat (for reception) while I listen to audio feedback through my headphones.
The future is finally here! 🙂
I don’t believe the Apple Watch pairs with any sensors directly – rather, only via the phone. So it’d be a case of a given phone app supporting those sensors, and then also support an Apple Watch app.
Ray, the following official video by Apple shows how to pair a Wahoo Tickr with the Apple Watch.
link to youtube.com
For your convenience I seeked the video to the Tips section where they talk about calibration of the accelerometer and chest strap pairing.
Hope that helps.
BTW I have an Apple Watch and I can verify the BT chest strap pairing. Unfortunately I don’t have a Garmin GLO to test though.
Also whenever you get a chance, take a look at the Runmeter App for the Watch. It’s simply incredible!
link to abvio.com
(My Apple Watch awaits me when I return from this trip, so I can’t verify)
Can you go out of range of the phone though? Meaning, is the pairing between the Watch and the strap, or the Watch and the Phone and the watch just display it?
Well the strap goes through a different pairing process on the Watch vs the iPhone. Also you can go for a run without an iPhone and have the watch record distance based on the internal accelerometer assuming that the watch was used with the iPhone enough times first so that it can auto calibrate. All this, as far as I can tell, is only supported with Apple’s Workout app and I have no idea if it works with Runmeter.
For me the main problem is the screen which although beautiful indoors is pretty much unusable outdoors, especially in direct sunlight.
Lastly I found no way to upload to Strava and even worse, all my Strava runs (which are automatically saved on Apple Health regardless where they originated from, Forerunner, Strava App, Suunto) do not get read by the Watch Activity app. As a result, unless I wear the darn watch, it doesn’t know I exercised. Apple Health is a great fitness “Hub” which is currently ignored by the Watch.
All of that of course can change on the next Watch OS but it could also be one more of Apple’s “walled gardens” and never change (like Fitbit). Only time will tell but for now I am pretty pessimistic that the watch can find a place in my workout routine.
Ps sorry for hijacking this thread and talking about the Watch. I didn’t see any other relevant post and I thought you would appreciate some early impressions from the fitness perspective.
No need to be sorry – definitely interesting stuff. Certainly appreciate others tests/etc, gives me fodder for things for me to try myself.