Let me just put this out up front: This is without question the most significant sports technology gadget sale I’ve seen since starting the blog some 5-6 years ago.  No Thanksgiving Black Friday, Christmas, or Festivus deals even comes close to this.

Let’s dive right into it, and then I’ll give some analysis and recommendations:

Garmin FR910XT: $299 without HR strap, $337 with HR strap (originally $399/$449) – Until May 27th.  Also, you can get down to $249 with a $50 mail-in rebate from Garmin where you send your old Garmin in to ‘Girls on the Run’ (a non-profit). Details at end of post.

Garmin FR310XT: $169 without HR strap, $199 with HR strap (originally $195/$234) – Starts MONDAY! Until May 26th

Garmin Edge 800: $229 without HR strap, including $100 mail-in rebate (Originally $449)

Garmin Edge 800 Bundle: $379 with HR strap, Speed/Cadence Sensor, City Maps, including $100 mail-in rebate (Originally $649)

Suunto Ambit1 (original Ambit): $348 without HR strap, with HR strap $380 (Originally $500/550) – Until May 31st

Also of note, but honestly a bit less exciting are two other deals:

Saris Bones 3 Bike Rack for Car Trunk:  $127 (originally $143)
Saris Axis Steel 2 Bike Rack for Car Hitch:  $159 (originally $179)

I haven’t reviewed or ever touched those two racks, but they came along in the sale bundle, so I figured I’d at least mention them. [Update: These prices were updated due to an error.]

Phew…ok…with that out of the way, let’s talk about what’s going on, and what to do.

Why things are on sale

First up is the Suunto original Ambit (hiking/running watch). This is the easiest of the bunch. With the new Suunto Ambit2 and Ambit2S out, Suunto has removed the pricing restrictions on these products until May 31st.  Allowing companies to price them as they see fit during this time period.  That one is straight-forward given the new Ambit2/2S.

Next is the Garmin Edge 800 cycling unit.  Like the original Ambit, it too was replaced back in January with the newer Garmin Edge 810 unit.  In this case Garmin has removed the minimum advertised price restrictions for the Edge 800, causing the price to drop.  In conjunction with that, they’re also offering an $100 rebate for another 13 days.  It’s like a perfect storm for a massive drop down to effectively $229.

Then we’ve got the Garmin FR310XT multisport/triathlon watch.  This isn’t a huge discount off of the previous price of $195, but it’s the lowest the watch has ever been (and the lowest it ever was until last week when it hit $195).  Obviously with the Garmin FR910XT replacing it over a year ago, it’s not the newest kid on the block.  This is a short-term sale until only May 26th.

Finally, we’ve got the Garmin FR910XT multisport/triathlon watch.  This is a short term sale – and quite frankly what I view as the biggest.  There’s no clarity on why the deep short-term discount, but I have to suspect it’s due to the Ambit2/2S release, alongside with the Tom-Tom release pending this summer – both adding pressure on Garmin and the desire from them to likely ‘lock-in’ any customers on the fence.

Which device to get and why

Let’s get the easiest out of the way first – the Ambit.  While this is a ‘good’ deal, it’s far from a great deal.  It’s only $50 cheaper than what I believe is the maximum reasonable market price for the device.  Meaning, I don’t see how this device can attract any buyers above $400 anyway, given competitive pressure from the Garmin Fenix.  Further, given Suunto’s declaration of limited future support for the device, it’s sorta headed into the retirement home.  There’s no two ways about it unfortunately.

Then we’ve got the Edge 800.  This is an AWESOME deal if you’re looking for mapping.  As I said in my Edge 810 review, Garmin has not made for a compelling reason to justify the price difference between the Edge 810 and the Edge 800.  The feature set of ‘new’ things on the Edge 810 is just too small to make sense.  A graphical user interface overhaul a new product does not make.  Until they increase the phone connected features and open up 3rd party support to sites like Strava, I remain in the camp that the Edge 810 is overpriced and unimpressive.  Thus, at $229, the Edge 800 is a  steal.  Especially if you download the free Openstreet maps for it – saving you the cost of buying Garmin’s map service (for the how-to on that, see my Edge 810 review section on it, but it applies to the Edge 800 as well).

Next is the Garmin FR310XT and FR910XT and trying to decide which one to get.  If you’re a runner, and don’t do the swim/bike thing, then the FR310XT is the obvious choice.  The only thing you’d get out of the FR910XT is a tiny bit bigger battery and a barometric altimeter.  Both of those tend to only be applicable to ultra runners (trail runners in the mountains more specifically).  Beyond that, basically the same watch for runners.

Now, for triathletes/swimmers/cyclists – there’s big differences.  Let’s start with those that swim/run.  In this case, the FR910XT is definitely the better bet.  The FR310XT doesn’t do indoor swimming, but does keep track of distance outdoor swimming.  Though, unlike the FR910XT, the 310XT can’t measure stroke outdoors.  So here the clear winner is the FR910XT for swim tracking.

For cyclists, it comes down to two features: Advanced power meter metrics and the barometric altimeter.  The FR910XT supports the TrainingPeaks power meter metrics of TSS/NP/IF, as well as the left/right power balance features that some newer power meters have.  If you don’t have a power meter, or don’t plan a near-term purchase, then go with the FR310XT.  If you have a power meter, stay with the FR910XT.  Then we’ve got the barometric altimeter.  For cyclists in the mountains, this can be valuable.  However, for Florida-folks, don’t bother.  Further, even for mountain folks the elevation data will get corrected afterwards in most online services anyway – so it’s really only if you’re truly using it in realtime that you’d want the barometric altimeter.

Finally – for triathletes just starting out.  For you, save your cash and go with the FR310XT for now.  There’s simply no other triathlon watch anywhere near that price point, let alone one better than that (other than the FR910XT).  The closest non-Garmin competitor to the FR310XT is the Magellan Switch/Switch-Up, just over $250.

Oh, and I should point out – there’s no FR910XT replacement coming this triathlon season. Simply not going to happen, it’s far too late for any announcements for the season, and I assure you, I don’t have one in testing either.  Remember the FR910XT really only hit the market in widespread quantities last March-April 2012 (despite being announced in October 2011).  A typical Garmin product cycle is a minimum of 2 years.

That all make sense?

If not, no worries, post questions below and I’ll be happy to try and get everyone all straightened up.  For in-depth technical questions, I recommend you check out the product reviews (and subsequent comments on each one).  Also, there’s the product comparison tool, which has every unit in it.  And finally, my general GPS recommendations post from a few months ago (still relevant)

Garmin FR910XT: $299 without HR strap, $337 with HR strap [Product Review] – And save another $50 with the mail-in rebate for older Garmin Forerunner users.
Garmin FR310XT: $169 without HR strap, $199 with HR strap [Product Review] (310XT sale starts Monday!)
Garmin Edge 800: $229 without HR strap, including $100 mail-in rebate [Product Review]
Garmin Edge 800 Bundle: $379 with HR strap, Speed/Cadence Sensor, City Maps, including $100 mail-in rebate [Product Review]
Suunto Ambit1 (original Ambit): $348 without HR strap, with HR strap $380  [Product Review]

If you use the Clever Training links above (which I have a partnership with), then you’ll help support the site.  It is somewhat important that you use those links, otherwise it doesn’t exactly support the site as I don’t get credit for it.

Also note that everything above qualifies for free US shipping with Clever Training.  Though, it doesn’t qualify for the usual DCRainmaker Clever Training discount of 10% off your cart via coupon code DCR10XBK because they are deep-sale items (but any accessories you buy do get discounted).  Oh, and the Edge 800 rebate PDF form is here.  And the $50 Garmin Forerunner rebate is here.

Thanks for your support of the site, I appreciate it!  And have a great weekend!

After finishing up a day of meetings a little after 6PM, I zipped back to the hotel via two different trains in the London Underground (subway system).  While light was slowly fading, I was able to make record time in changing into my running stuff and heading back out the door again.  Thankfully, it was all of 100 yards from the door of the hotel to the entrance to the park.

Welcome to The Green Park:

Upon my arrival I found plenty of folks out doing various fitness things on the grassy areas.  From boxing to running to sprints to core exercises, lots of folks keeping busy.

I meanwhile started here on my relatively short 40 minute run.  I figured I’d run around the perimeter of the park first.

All of about 3-4 minutes later I found myself at a giant traffic circle in front of Buckingham Palace.  Thankfully, those storm clouds were headed away from me (and it only briefly sprinkled on me as I was walking from the hotel to start of run):

To my right, would be the famous Buckingham Palace, complete with the guards standing out front:

And even more tourists at the gate gazing inside.  Perhaps all hoping for a brief glimpse of the Queen, should she be inside.

I left the Queen and all her men behind and rounded the corner down a road called ‘Birdcage Walk’.  This is only interesting in the fact that it’s where The Girl and I spent a fair bit of time during the London Olympics this past summer watching the women’s marathon.  In fact, this very spot below was where we stood.  It’s crazy to look at those photos then compared to now.

I continued down the road and then made a brief dip through the edges of St. James Park.  This run was becoming a bit of a ‘park to park to park’ run.

After leaving St. James Park behind I was only a few hundred meters away from probably the most famous cluster of sights in London.  Starting off with St. Margaret’s Church:

(Sorry for the fuzzie’s, mid-run and dusk ends up like that sometimes)

Which is part of Westminster Abbey.  That being the place where Kate and Will got hitched just over two years ago.

As I continue around the traffic circle, we’ve got the most famous sight of all – Big Ben:

Behind him you can see the London Eye wheel sticking up:

As I ran under the shadow of him I quickly ended up down along the River Thames, across from the London Eye:

While running along I saw what would be the probably the 1,328th cyclist that afternoon.  These ones on the city’s bike-sharing program’s bikes.  But, beyond that (as you can see in the photo), there were just tons of cyclists.  Easily putting Paris to shame, where I see what I thought was tons of cyclists there.

I decided to go ahead and cross over the river:

From there I worked my way back down to the other side past a bit of some sort of event going on near the Eye.

Of course, while running past that area I saw one of the famous red telephone booths.  Albeit this one with legs, and arms.  I’d watch out for those ones – nothing good comes of a telephone booth that can run after and tackle you.

Given my options of bridges to cross back over, I picked Westminster Bridge and wandered back across towards Westminster Abbey:

From there I made a bee-line across St. James Park again, this time swinging past the pelicans.  They’re on the rocks out in the water, and those buggers are really rather big!

Definitely would not want to have an angry pelican after me.

Back across in front of Buckingham Palace I went:

And then up alongside Green Park again.  As was the case all night, massive numbers of running groups out.  You don’t really see much of that in Paris on a normal weekday.  There are some weekend-type clubs you see, but nothing approaching the sheer volume of people and organized groups I saw here.

Next it was past Wellington Arch and over towards Hyde’s Park.  This is where the men’s and women’s triathlon zipped through during the middle of the bike course.

A short bit later I found myself running along the Serpentine.  It’s a little pond (mini-lake I suppose).  Where I was running was exactly where the triathlon run portion was held.

And the swim, was held here in the waters in front of it:

In fact, just across the other side of this photo (on the other side of the pond) was where I sat and stood watching both the men’s and women’s triathlon last August.  Here’s my spectator report for the Men’s Triathlon, and here’s the Women’s Triathlon.  I got a lot of really fun photos in there.  It’s kinda neat to look back through them.

With my visit to those grounds complete, I worked my way back towards the hotel.  Obviously, a self-shot was in order:

As I made my way back to the hotel in those last few minutes I got the final two shots needed to properly finish off the post (since apparently neither the Queen nor Kate was going to make an appearance).

First, no London Runaround would be complete unless I had a red double-decker bus in there.  And since there was this old-school red buggy in front of the buses in the background, it was like two for the price of one!

And lastly of course there’s the legit red telephone booth.  In front of the Hard Rock Café no less.

With that, I stopped at the below wall, just next door to the hotel.  Seemed fitting if you asked me!

Here’s my total route picture, or the link if you want to poke around at it and zoom in/out.

With that, I’m already back on the high-speed train home to Paris – it was just a quick trip for some meetings.  Fear not, I’ll be back again!  As always, thanks for reading!

-

Oh, P.S. – For those interested in all my London Olympic 2012 photo-filled posts from last summer, here they are:

My Spectator Report: London 2012 Olympics – Women’s Triathlon

My Spectator Report: London 2012 Olympics–Women’s Marathon

My Spectator Report: London 2012 Olympics – Men’s Triathlon

London 2012 Olympics odds, ends, and fun leftovers

And if you still have more time to burn, start here with my previous Olympics posts…

Enjoy!

When the Wahoo KICKR was announced last August, it was touted as being open on both Bluetooth Smart as well as ANT+. And in many ways it was. It was controllable via Bluetooth Smart, and apps could (and have been) designed for it. And it also outputted ANT+ data to various ANT+ devices.

However there was one little wrinkle: It didn’t allow ANT+ control, and required Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth 4.0). And that was of particular note to households which lacked a newer iPhone or iPad – which have been the only platforms that the KICKR supported control over. Without either of those two devices, your KICKR was effectively a big 46 pound brick.

However, last week Wahoo Fitness released a firmware version which now enables ANT control over the KICKR. And in doing so, opens up the door to apps across any platform – from Windows to Macs, and Android to iOS – to control the KICKR. Now, you’ll notice I didn’t actually say ANT+ control. As technically, it’s not ANT+ control yet. But I’ll dive into that more after I go through all of the apps.

I spent a bit of time over the last 4-5 days playing around with some of the different solutions that have been released over the past week to enable this scenario. So here’s the full skinny!

Updating the KICKR:

Those of you that have the KICKR have probably done this step already, but I’ll refresh it anyway. First up is opening up the default Wahoo Fitness app. Once you’ve connected to the KICKR, it’ll display the usual notification that a new firmware version is available:

At this point it’ll redirect you over to the Wahoo Utility App, which handles the actual update process.

The update takes perhaps a minute or so to complete, and is done via Bluetooth Smart. Now, this is one catch to the whole process. As it stands today the only way to update the KICKR to support ANT control is via Bluetooth Smart. So you’ve still gotta find a way to update it. The good news is just about everyone has at least one friend with an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 (or newer generation iPad), and all they’d need is the simple and free Wahoo Utility app to get you upgraded.

Once the update is complete, you’ll just unplug the power on the Wahoo KICKR to get it rebooted into the new firmware. At this point, you’re ready for ANT control.

Applications that support it as of this week:

I want to quickly run through the three apps that support it today via ANT. Note that this isn’t an in-depth review of these applications, or even a review of the applications. It’s simply explaining how they work in the context of KICKR.

In many ways, all three applications have a core similarity – they allow you to control the Wahoo KICKR via ANT. They all record your entire ride, including other ANT+ sensors like heart rate, speed and cadence. And they all have some level of customization. At a very high level, PerfPro has the most customization and options. However, PeriPedal has a very clean interface. And TrainerRoad has more in the way of social sharing and Strava-like functionality.

Of course, they all have other benefits and features – so again, not a review, just talking about how they function for KICKR. All good? Good.

PerfPro Studio:

I’ll start off with PerfPro. PerfPro definitely had the most in-depth implementation of KICKR support. This is primarily due to all the configuration options that the program has in general, but also the way they surface those options for the KICKR. On the flip-side, it can be a bit overwhelming.

After you’ve added an ANT+ USB stick we’ll be ready to start (note that as of yesterday you no longer need two sticks – just one stick). First up is searching for the KICKR, again using ANT. You’ll see below it’s found the KICKR and listed my ANT+ ID (9195).

Next, if I pedal it’ll go ahead and show it as active, as well as the current speed and power:

After clicking ‘Next’ I’m basically done.

There are however a few options for the KICKR you can access via the menu system. And the menu system you can access by just clicking on the background of PerfPro studio.

Here’s some of the options you have for just the KICKR. The main one being the ability to change wind speed or rolling resistance. Other options are found along the left side there – many of which apply to KICKR workouts.

Finally, if you have any other ANT+ devices (heart rate/speed/cadence/etc… sensors), you can pair those up as well. You can see below I’ve added the Speed/Cadence sensor with my name next to it.

With that, I’m ready to begin my ride (and all of the settings up to this point are saved for next time). After starting the ride you’ll see my load displayed in the upper left corner. That’s the wattage that’s being applied by the KICKR. While to the right of it you’ll see the current wattage being measured. Additionally, you’ll see other ANT+ metrics like my HR and cadence.

Here’s basically the same view focusing on just the workout screen.

Finally, the PerfPro software supports manual calibration at any time by just right clicking in the menu system and selecting ‘Recalibrate Now’.

Alternatively, the PerfPro software will automatically trigger a calibration at the 9-minute marker. Calibration simply involves spinning up to 22-23MPH and letting it coast down to to 11MPH. Now, you can see that they still have a bit of work to do on cleaning up some of the CompuTrainer verbiage (which shows and is 25MPH).

Upon doing the coast-down, it’ll give you the calibration number at the very bottom:

You’ll adjust the power/wattage settings by pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard. With that, everything else is as normal in PerfPro. If you’ve loaded a given workout in, then it’ll automatically change the power and resistance for you based on the workout or course that you’ve loaded.

PeriPedal:

Next up is PeriPedal. PeriPedal is a much less daunting interface than PerfPro. Which has its pros and cons. Obviously, having less daunt means it’s generally a bit cleaner to use. But it also then lacks some of the features and functionality.

Nonetheless, you’ll start off the same with searching for the Wahoo KICKR within the bike profiles menu:

Again you’ll see the device ID listed (9195), and the option to pair it. I can also pair my ANT+ speed/cadence sensor here. Additionally you’ll see the option to choose where the cadence information comes from, and where the power and speed information comes from. For speed and power you’ll want to choose KICKR, and cadence should be your separate ANT+ cadence sensor.

After that you’ll go ahead and choose a workout. You can utilize any of the built-in workouts, or create/modify your own:

In my case, I just went with the stock Revolver workout, which is tied to a Sufferfest video.

Once you’ve got everything cooking you’ll go ahead and start the trainer. PeriPedal will automatically adjust the wattages for you based on the workout specifications. Notable though is that there isn’t any way to manually adjust them once in the workout. Sort of a bear and grin it situation.

Calibration can be accessed through the quick-settings menu option mid-ride, just like in PerfPro and later on, in Trainer Road.

And of course, like the others, PeriPedal will automatically save all the other ANT+ sensor data as well as your power data and allow uploading later on with it.

TrainerRoad:

Last up, TrainerRoad. You can grab their latest ANT+ beta off of their Twitter feed. It’s not final code obviously, but it’s a good start. Once you’ve downloaded it and installed it, you’ll find yourself a new menu option at the bottom of the ANT+ device listing:

Given you’ve only got one option for a next step, you’ll want to go with the big button that says ‘Pair’. A split second later you’ll see this:

And then a few seconds later, you’ll see this:

Like the other apps, you’ll notice the device ID is displayed (9195), and the signal quality as well. Below you’ve got a big handy ‘Calibrate’ button, and then next to it is the mode option. This allows you to swap into the different modes: Erg, Standard, Resistance.

Additionally, you’ve got the calibration button. Calibration initiates calibration mode, which then puts it into the ‘Resistance’ setting temporarily – like you see above.

From there, you’ll just spin yourself up to 22MPH and let it coast for about 22 seconds.

With that, let’s start a workout. I went ahead and selected the same Revolver workout that was in PeriPedal. Once I did that I pressed the play button. The resistance will automatically be controlled by TrainerRoad.

Like the other apps, it’ll record all your various ANT+ and cycling data streams to a file for later analysis.

Additionally, it also supports a mid-ride calibration mode, just by pressing the ‘Calibrate’ button along the bottom. Once you complete the spin-up, it’ll give you the calibration numbers in big text:

With that, there ya have it – a quick tour of using KICKR on the three apps that support it today. Note that TrainerRoad is the only app that supports the KICKR via ANT on a Mac today, as the other two apps are Windows-only.

Understanding some important technicalities:

You’ll remember how at the very beginning I said it’s not yet the KICKR having ANT+ control? Well, that’s because it isn’t. See as it stands today there’s something called the ANT+ Bike Trainer Technical Working Group (TWG), which is essentially all of the major bike trainer companies out there working together to define what the ANT+ Bike Trainer Device Profile will look like. A device profile is essentially a way to define how devices talk openly with each other. Another example of a device profile is the ANT+ Heart Rate Device Profile (for HR straps), or the ANT+ Power Meter Device Profile (for power meters). This is driven by ANT+ as an organization, but collecting and mediating feedback from the member ANT+ companies.

Actually, before we continue, here’s the quick terminology rundown:

ANT+ Organization: This is the organization that’s part of Dynastream (a company) that runs, manages and designs the ANT+ specification. Essentially, a collection of people in Alberta, Canada running the show.

ANT+ Alliance: This is all the member companies that are a part of ANT+. Some 300+ companies in total, from Garmin to Timex to Magellan and just about everyone in the fitness world except Polar and RacerMate.

ANT+ TWG: The Technical Working Group (TWG), that’s made up of companies in the ANT+ Alliance that are interested in a given topic. The TWG works for a period of time, from alpha to beta and then final release of the specification for that topic.

ANT+ Bike Trainer Device Profile: This is the profile that is being created by the ANT+ TWG in conjunction with ANT+ as an organization, which will standardize the way trainers and non-trainers communicate about trainer-related things (control of resistance, reporting of power, etc…).

Since the profile is still in the pre-release stages, the “profile” that Wahoo is using is technically a private-ANT implementation (that just happens to be open to others using it). Now, the ANT+ Bike Trainer Device Profile will end up looking a heck of a lot like the Wahoo profile, mostly because the Wahoo profile was used as the foundation for what the ANT+ TWG is cooking away on. Sorta like starter dough.

Right now though the timeline for the ANT+ Bike Trainer Device Profile is calling for a summer alpha release of the profile, and then a final release around September for Interbike. Personally, I think that timeframe needs to be pushed a bit harder so that companies have a final spec by the end of July – allowing for better apps/devices come Eurobike at the end of August, then Interbike in September. Otherwise I suspect we’ll see companies lag on implementation well into the Northern Hemisphere trainer season.

The end-state goal of the ANT+ Bike Trainer profile is industry standardization in the same way that we see that for ANT+ heart rate straps being ubiquitous. But, it’s also to allow for non-singular activities at gyms. There’s significant interest in linking up a multitude of trainers together at once and controlling them all at once, while also allowing individuals to control/override/record their own data. Because of the limitations of Bluetooth Smart being 1:1 (one sensor can only be controlled by a single master device, like a phone), we won’t see multi-control or multi-pairing there until the next hardware revision of Bluetooth.

Now, the Wahoo KICKR ANT variation isn’t perfect as it stands today, I did find some minor issues with the implementation across all three software suites. Primarily that I saw resistance drops (typically 1-second in length) across all three. Not super-frequent, but enough to be noticeable. However, all three apps just added support for what is a beta profile this week. So some beta-type issues are likely to be expected. Or, it could just be something in my house impacting it (not the first time).

So what does that mean for the rest of the industry?

So why does this really matter? Well, because if it’s going to be ANT+, it means it has to follow a specific open-standard that’s accessible by any ANT+ member organization (some 300+ companies, from Garmin to Timex to RunKeeper). That’s a good thing here because it means that once the ANT+ profile gets finalized, any company can use it. And the possibilities are somewhat limitless.

For example, let’s start with existing trainer companies. Right now they all use various private protocols to control and report power levels on trainers. Some are ANT, but none control via ANT+. CycleOps, Tacx, Elite and BKOOL all fall into the camp of being private-ANT today, such that only their own devices can control it. CycleOps however is the only company in that group that will openly give access to 3rd party apps that request it.

The good news here is that CycleOps, Elite and BKOOL have already agreed to and plan to implement the ANT+ specification for control of their trainers once it’s finalized. I have not yet heard back from Tacx on my request for their plans (and for those curious, RacerMate who makes the CompuTrainer is not a member of the ANT+ Alliance).  Update: Tacx has confirmed that they have joined the TWG and that they will adopt the ANT+ specification.

All of the companies I talked to planned to adopt it once it’s finalized, but they didn’t commit to dates, noting it’s a fairly complex endeavor to change things over. It is somewhat easier for Wahoo and their KICKR since they didn’t have anything else in place previously.

Now what about phone apps? Well, this is where I suspect we’ll see a big rush too. Primarily on the Android side, but we’ll see some bleed into the iOS side. On the iOS side it’ll come from apps that may leverage the Wahoo Fitness iPhone/iPod/iPad ANT+ adapter. Take for example Kinomap. They could then not only support the KICKR trainer, but any other trainer such as the BKOOL or CycleOps trainers.

But the Android side is where I think we’ll really see things take off. With the ANT+ service now making it as simple as an ANT+ USB stick and adapter to access ANT+ devices on Android, I think we’ll see quicker uptake there. I’ve talked with the developer of IpBike (popular Android cycling app with ANT+ support), and he plans to implement the support once the specification is finalized as well (or earlier). Effectively bridging the gap between KICKR/trainers and the Android world – at least until Bluetooth Smart gets fully lit up on Android (and from talking with Wahoo this week, that’s not going to happen soon due to limitations/slowness on the Google side).

And head units too? Lastly, there’s head units. Devices like the Garmin Edge 510 or Edge 810 that you’d normally use to record rides, they too could add in support for ANT+ to control trainers. O-Synce has already committed that as soon as the ANT+ trainer specification is finalized, they’ll add it into the O-Synce Navi2Coach unit that I reviewed last week. My discussions with Garmin around this topic in April certainly had them pondering it as well. And while there’s always a development cost associated with any new functionality – the cost associated with supporting trainers via ANT+ is significantly lower since it’s a software change versus a hardware change (such as having to add Bluetooth Smart).

Summary:

I think the next 3-4 months will be pretty interesting in this space. Every company I’ve talked to about this is looking at the next 3-4 months as a bit of a ‘pilot period’ for how everything might work, with the goal to be ‘ready and done’ in time for the fall trainer season starting in September. The same timeframe of course as the two major bike shows of the year – Eurobike and Interbike.

I think with the addition of ANT support for KICKR, we’ll at least start to see significant progress in the next 60-90 days on Android and Windows apps for that, hopefully catching up with the iOS focused apps. Those apps should be able to make a relatively easy transition to the final ANT+ device profile once that’s released. And then as we head into the fall, we’ll ideally see the hardware companies catching up as well in implementing support there. In many ways, software and hardware companies really have no choice – if they don’t, they’ll be left behind and seen as uncompetitive.

When I saw the announcement last week from RunKeeper and Pebble that RunKeeper had released the final non-beta integration with the smart-watch, I was excited to dive into it.  While the Pebble watch was certainly not the first smart watch out there (that title goes to a long line of poorly designed watches aimed at geeks like me), it was the first watch to get massive media attention.  Which in turn translated to massive Kickstarter sales and funding.  Becoming at the time the biggest Kickstarter project ever (by funds raised).

During their Kickstarter campaign a year ago both Pebble and RunKeeper had touted the potential integration between the two companies.  After all, it was the very first app partnership announced.  It seemed like it might just be the start of a new wave of fitness watches driven by the phone.  For those not familiar with Pebble as a concept, it’s a smart-phone connected watch that displays notifications from apps (be it e-mail, texts or 3rd party apps) on your wrist.  The idea was that apps could leverage Pebble for deeper integration and control – ultimately minimizing the need to remove your phone from your pocket.  It would still be there, you just won’t have to touch it as often.

However, after using it, there’s really only one word to describe it:

Underwhelmed.

No wait, there’s another one.  Well, actually, an image might be better:

So why am I so un-impressed?  Well, let’s go through a brief overview.

First, you’ll need the RunKeeper app installed. Quite logically obviously, since in the Pebble ‘design’, the app is driving the experience.  No problems, I had that and was good to go!  Note, available on both Android and iOS.

Now, there isn’t really any configuration options for the Pebble watch within RunKeeper. You can’t turn it on or off, it’s just…well…there.  You can see it in this tiny little icon in the upper left corner:

Essentially if your Pebble is nearby, it’s about to get RunKeeper’d.

Once that’s done, you’re basically ready to run.  You’ll just want to hit the big ‘Start Activity’ button on the app and stash your phone somewhere.

I stash mine in a simple armband.  Nothing fancy.

About 15 seconds later, the run will actually start. This is a timer delay built-in to ensure you have time to do the stashing.  In the meantime, the Pebble display will now change to the RunKeeper page:

Once you’ve started your run, the watch will display your total time, total distance and average pace.

If you want to pause the timer (like at a cross-walk such as below), you simply press the middle Pebble button, which pauses the app on the phone instantly.  Same goes for resuming.  I’ll give credit where credit is due, this part works well.

Next, if you want to change the display field to something other than pace, you’ll just press one of the up/down buttons.

Oh.

Wait.

You mean those buttons don’t do anything?

Oh, I see.

No worries, I must be able to configure it somewhere else, right?  You know, like in the RunKeeper app settings on my phone or something.  Or change to speed for cycling?  Or trigger a lap, right?

No, no, and no? Oh.

Hmm.

So, what can you do Mr. RunKeeper Pebble?

That’s it?  You mean, this post isn’t destined for In-Depth Review status?

Well then. That’s…uhh…underwhelming.

And thus, the end of my Pebble/RunKeeper experience.

I guess I don’t get it.  As it stands now, the level of coding displayed seems to rival that of what a single high school student could do in an afternoon (without even a can of Mountain Dew or pizza).  They had a YEAR to do something cool.  And ultimately, it does the most basic thing on earth – display three non-changeable data fields.

They had a year to sit there and make a mess of Cambridge whiteboards on creating a kick-ass app that could have shown the rest of the smart-watch world what an app could have done in a connected device scenario.  Surely that’s 365 days of back of the napkin ideas that could have been implemented.

They had a year to leverage the power of Bluetooth Smart on the phone platform and do stuff like show heart rate metrics that RunKeeper already supports today.  How hard could it really have been to simply add a way to customize the data pages?  Or to create laps?  Or to show laps since RunKeeper was tracking them anyway.

On RunKeeper’s site, they almost sound embarrassed about how bad it is. Just read the first three bullet points.  Maybe I’ll check back in the fall and see if they’ve spent any actual effort on it.  Ultimately, I would think that if anyone were to understand the importance of getting apps right, it would be Pebble in this circumstance.  After all, if they want to have any sort of a long-term play in the market (ignoring fitness entirely), they’re going to have to up their game with their partners on apps.  Being that as soon as the big players come along with higher resolution displays and touch screens (i.e. Apple), it’s going to be game over.  This is sorta their time to build inroads into the market with features and functions that make people go ‘Awesome!’…not ‘Ho-hum.’.

And while some of you may want to say the onus is fully on RunKeeper here, I beg to differ.  Pebble gave RunKeeper fairly exclusive access to the development side of things, far before any other apps.  They heralded it a year ago as their first app to join Pebble (one of the reasons I ‘backed’ Pebble).  As such, they would have undoubtedly been part of many discussions with RunKeeper on the state of the app.  In fact, the app we see today looks absolutely no different than the images we saw a year ago as part of their widely distributed press kit.

Thus for the meantime, the trend of crappy ‘smart watch’ experiences for fitness continues.  Someday we’ll get something worthwhile, but unfortunately today wasn’t that day.

I’m often asked about sports camera reviews.  In many ways I think that there’s already a ton of reviews out there of the various popular sports action cams like the GoPro or Contour.  And I’m not sure I really have much to say that isn’t well covered there (GoPro or Contour).  But, just like how this blog started – if something pops up on my radar that interests me and isn’t already covered 48 times over, then I’m up for giving my thoughts on it.

Which, is a roundabout way of introducing how I got into this review.  I had picked up the Hitcase iPhone waterproof case way back at CES in January, and decided to give it a whirl.  While there are many waterproof cases on the market, there are few that are actually designed for sports, and designed to attach to various mount systems.  So, it seemed like an interesting match.

Of course, that ‘whirl’ took about 5 months of toying with it.  Hence why you see a rather ‘diverse’ set of photos in this review.  All sorts of trips came together to summarize my thoughts.

This won’t really be as long as a full in-depth gadget review, primarily because there’s just less things in a case to talk about.  After all, at the end of a day it’s just a case with no electrical components, thus less functionality.  Still, I’ll cover everything I can think of that’s applicable.

Unboxing:

First up, let’s get this oversized case out of its…uhhh…protective case.

The lid lifts up like a kid’s lunchbox, revealing the thing looking back at you.  Regrettably, Jell-O Pudding is not included.

As you take it out you’ll find a bright orange label on it.  This is somewhat akin to those labels on your bike that you ignore.  In the case of the bike, it tells you that if you ride your bike into a tree while flying off a cliff listening to Britney Spears, it’s not the bike’s fault.  In the case of this case, it tells you that if you do something less than stellar with the case (like simply listening to Britney Spears), then it’s equally not the case’s fault if it gets damaged.

Inside the box you’ll find a small army of plastic parts.  Don’t lose the parts yet.

First is the helmet attachment.  This attaches the camera case to your head.  Or rather, the helmet attached to your head.  And this attaches to your helmet.

Then we’ve got the tripod mount.  You can attach the phone case via this doohickey to any tripod on earth.

Next we have the most important piece in the whole kit.  Well, except the case itself.  This piece attaches the case to the mount collection.  Without this, you’re hosed.

Here, I’ve attached said mission critical part to the case. It locks in place.  Trust me, it doesn’t come out easily. For better or worse.

See that round bit down there at the bottom?  That’s actually just along for the ride.  It’s needed for the helmet mount, but none of the other mounts.  In reality, it’s two little pieces of plastic that form a small circle around the base of the mount.  Don’t worry, you’ll lose one of the two.  Thus, you won’t be able to use the helmet mount.  Fear not though – it’s for the best.  It saves you the humiliation of having a phone strapped to your head.  Google Glass this is not.

Ok, last up – let’s crack open the case.  It’s got three little wings on it.  Each snaps open and shut with the same force as a giant steel mouse trap.  Small children’s limbs could get trapped shut in these (another potential use I suppose).

Here’s the phone inside the case. This case was for the iPhone 4s, with the rubber insert being for that phone.

And here’s the whole thing zipped up tight and ready to go swim with the fishes.

Swimming (pool):

It’s actually the pool, when I first got the case, that I thought would be the most interesting scenario.  Mostly for swimmers/triathletes that wanted to check out their swimming form.

Using it in the pool was really no different than any other scenario.  The first step is ensuring everything is closed up tight.  That includes three locks and the headphone jack.  Each lock snaps super-tight with a loud click.  So there’s no mistaking that it’s closed.

The only real catch is that darn little headphone jack plug and making sure that’s flush and in place.  It’s an easy thing to forget if you’re in a rush to get in the pool.

Once you’re in, you’ll need either a friend to tape you holding the unit, or you’ll need a stand.  In my case, I lacked a friend.  So, I went with a stand.

What you see above is actually the bottom of the GoPro box.  Which I recognize is somewhat mixing and matching products.  But that’s fine.  The Hitcase unit didn’t really come with anything like it.  Though, you could easily build one yourself with a small square piece of metal from a hardware store and then just hot glue-gun on any of the typical mounts.

With this setup, I was able to easily just plop it on the bottom of the pool floor and go to town.

One item to note though is that once the phone is submerged in water (even just an inch or two), the touch screen doesn’t really work anymore.  So you’ll need to start the video recording above water.  I found that while I could use the buttons, the additional water pressure on the buttons would sometimes cause them to stick if pressed on the bottom of the pool (not an issue at the surface).

The resultant being relatively decent shots (or videos…or shots from videos, as below):

You can also do side shots if you place it across the pool (a different pool, below):

Here’s a side by side comparison with the GoPro Hero 3 next to the Hitcase.

And here’s the images shot from that at the same time:

Now, what you notice is that the GoPro has a much wider field of view than the Hitcase does.  In the case of the GoPro, I look like I’m quite far away.  Whereas with the Hitcase, I look much closer to the camera.  Again, these were placed at the exact same spot/angle.

Ignoring the field of view (which can be rectified as you saw above with different angles), from a pool standpoint I don’t have any complaints.  I let it sit down there for 30+ minutes once during a swim without any issues.  And I used the case on multiple swims.  In most cases though, your iPhone’s storage space will be the primary limiter, as you’re likely to tear through space with filming HD quality sets at 500m a shot.

I did once get two drops of water in there – I suspect because of the headphone jack not getting perfectly aligned (before I realized importance of perfect alignment).  The thing is, two drops of water pressed up against the glass looks way scarier than it really is, because the water pressure pushes it out flat along the glass.

Swimming (openwater):

Next up was taking it into openwater.  For most people this would likely be snorkeling.  Or the odd underwater triathlon shot.  Or one of those cool mountain biker crossing the stream shots.  In my case it was mostly just to poke around in the ocean.

I placed it on the bottom and shot upwards towards me.  Definitely not as dramatic as a Kona swim start underwater photo.

I also took some shots of the surrounding area.  The water wasn’t too clear here, so the shots didn’t turn out very good – though not the fault of the case.

Here’s a bit of a video clip as well, showing the video quality both above and below water:

I didn’t have any water leakage issues during my time in the ocean, where the unit stayed with me the entire time submerged almost all of it.

Cycling:

I took this unit on more trips than I really intended on.  Mostly because it just kinda kept on working out well for me.  First up was taking it down to Australia with me.  We took it with us while riding around the island.  This is in part because it makes the perfect beach case – no worries about sand.

And the other part because I was able to attach it to the bicycle.  To do this I used the tripod attachment, and I used this handy dandy bicycle handlebar tripod mount.  Again, because the Hitcase doesn’t have an exact attachment within the box, I improvised.  I could have just used the GoPro bike kit here, but for some reason I had the below tripod mount with me.

Interestingly, it worked fairly well for quick shots along the ride:

It worked fairly well in this scenario, where the speeds were low (beach cruiser) and the tires much fatter and able to take the bumps a bit better:

I then plunked it on my triathlon bike.  In this case, the only viable spot to mount was below the aerobars.  I used the standard GoPro mount kit there since it’s lightweight and tried and true for that spot.

The challenge here was that while it produced fine photos, for video, it just didn’t work out.  The vibrations of the road combined with the heaviness of the case meant that it wasn’t stabilized, and thus looked pretty rough.  Here’s a short clip:

And, this chunk of pavement was all things considered fairly stable – yet, the footage is totally unusable.

Ultimately, for cycling, I just can’t see this working out due to the vibrations.  In looking at the unit, it’s not hard to see why.  For example, compare it to the GoPro:

The mount system is fairly small in comparison to the wide berth of the phone and surrounding case.  It acts as a bit of a pendulum given its size.

Skiing:

It’s funny, I had taken the case skiing with me – sorta on a whim.  I didn’t really have a test plan, but rather, just threw it into my bag at the last second.  Oddly enough, out of all the activities I’ve used it for, I actually liked skiing the best.  The reason being is that while skiing it’s way easier to drop your phone because you’re dealing with bulky gloves.

So the case provides two benefits: First is that it makes it easier to handle. And second being that if I did drop it, it’s a heck of a lot easier to find the larger bulky black case than a sleek and slim iPhone.

As I noted way at the beginning, you can connect the unit to your helmet using the provided helmet mount.  In my case, I lost said mount attachment points because they are about the size of a penny and easily disappear in travel bags.  Especially since you need two of them (I still have one though).

However, more important than that is that the case as I noted above makes for a great skiing case for your phone.  We used it nonstop taking short videos – which ultimately culminated in the below video:

A fair chunk of the video is shot within this case (and everything else still with the phone).  Pretty cool.  My brother edited it together, and just used the standard iMovie app on the phone to do so.  We found that with gloves and all, it worked well for pressing the big recording buttons up top. So I could get everything set ahead of time, have a stable platform for holding onto an otherwise slick phone, and then just hand-hold it in the ready state until I pressed one of the volume buttons to record.

The shots do come out well, however you will notice some slight vignetting around the edges:

Software App – Vidometer:

The company behind the Hitcase actually has an app in the Appstore that helps you record video and provide a bit of an overlay onto a given video.  When I first downloaded it, I wasn’t expecting much.  But, I was actually surprised – especially for a free app (read: one you can download even if you don’t buy the case).

The app doesn’t have many options, but what it does do is an overlay with your current speed/g-force/location stats:

There’s a small smattering of different styles you can choose:

What’s somewhat interesting here is that if you record the video using the app, you can decide post-ride which style you’d like, and even export out the video with different styles.  I didn’t realize this until much later, but it’s actually a pretty handy function.

Or, you can choose no overlay.

Here’s that same clip as above, again showing the styling on it:

Now what would be cool would be connectivity to Bluetooth Smart enabled accessories like a heart rate strap, power meter, or speed cadence sensor.  Leveraging the Wahoo Fitness API for Bluetooth Smart fitness devices, they could probably add this with just a tiny amount of development time – and it would really open up the app to athletes (and thus the case as well).  As the other video overlay options today on the market are either clunky, expensive, or sucky.

Accessory items of note:

This is where things get a bit messy.  The accessories included within the box are ‘alright’.  They sorta work, but in order to really make use of the system in a way that doesn’t require you to hold the case, you’ll need to buy some other accessories.

The good news here is that the whole system is 100% GoPro compatible.  Which means that any of the mount systems for the GoPro platform work with this flawlessly.   Which is how I ended up using it a fair number of times.

In some ways you may wonder if you have to buy all these GoPro accessories why not just by a GoPro?  Well, a few thoughts.  First is that even with a GoPro (being $100-$200 more) you’re still buying extra GoPro accessories.  So that’s likely a wash.  And second is that it gets the video straight onto the phone.

That of course is both a pro and a con.  In some cases it was great having the video quickly accessible on my phone so I could edit or take screenshots from it.  But in others it was a bit of a pain to dig out my iPhone cable and transfer it across.  Compared with an SD or MicroSD card that I could stick straight in my laptop.  Also, the phone (at least mine) is far more limited on space than a $12-$20 MicroSD card that holds 16-32GB of space.

Summary:

There are no doubt other sports-focused iPhone cases on the market.  I just happened to start here.  So my experience only relates to this, and how it compares to sports action cams like the GoPro and Contour (both of which I own).  Over time I may expand into covering other cases.  With that said, I’m actually fairly impressed with the case.

For specific scenarios, the case works really well.  In some ways, I think the case works better in a ‘freestyle’ type scenario, rather than tied onto a bike mount.  Meaning – out while skiing, capturing video while swimming, or just simply protecting your phone in any other random sports scenario that would otherwise be considered phone-sketchy (like a Muddy Buddy).

From a functional standpoint I generally had no issues with the case.  The hinges snap loudly into place, so I knew it was clearly locked in.  And above water the touch screen works just fine (even if slightly wet).  I dropped it a few times on hard wood/tile surfaces, and let it hang out for a day in the sand at the beach – all with no issues.

There are some areas that I had minor trouble with.  The volume buttons would occasionally stick in the down position.  Depending on the circumstances this would either result in a ton of pictures being taken (since the volume button acts as a camera shutter button), or just result in the volume level display being constantly displayed.  I found that as long as I checked the volume button after closing up the case, I was generally good to go.  The other item is that the screen touch won’t work once you dip it below the water, due to the water pressure.  Back above the water there’s no problem, even with drops still on the screen.

For the price, I’d have no problems recommending it – especially for the pool and gloved sports scenario.  It makes recording and pool-side playback way easier than a GoPro because of the larger screen for playback (and touch-control of location within a video).  And you can do it pool side way easier than a GoPro.  For cycling, it’s ‘alright’, but not great when attached to the bike.  I got a lot of bumpiness, likely due to the small attachment point for a large case, magnifying the impact of vibrations.  Hand-holding is fine however (and then protects the phone if/when you drop it).  Phew, I think I covered it all.

Found this review useful? Here’s the super easy no-pain way you can help support future reviews! Read on…

- Hitcase Pro for iPhone 4/4S ($129)
- Hitcase Pro for iPhone 5 ($129)
- Hitcase (non-Pro) for iPhon4 4 ($89) – Just not the wider lens

As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well. Thus, if you use Clever Training (at left) to pickup the device, you’ll save 10% on your entire order, and get free shipping for US folks.  Oh – and you’ll really help support the site!  Just add coupon code DCR10XBK to the checkout page. Thanks for reading!

And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. Further, you can always e-mail me at the address on the sidebar. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks! Finally, I’ve written up a ton of helpful guides around using most of the major fitness devices, which you may find useful. These guides are all listed on this page here.

Here’s my first race report from racing a triathlon in France – the Versailles Triathlon.  While this isn’t my first sporting event here (that would be the half and full Paris Marathons), it is in fact my first multisport event.

I only signed up about 10 days before the race – all for a price of 31€.  I hadn’t heard about the event until then, and figured a sprint nearby would be perfect.  As I noted in a post last week, I had to find a road bike for the bike leg, because my triathlon bike wasn’t permitted (more on that in the bike section).  Luckily I found an awesome rental shop here in Paris run by an American -he hooked me up.

Through the grapevine I’ve come to know one of the local English-speaking triathlon clubs here in Paris – ExpaTRIés Triathlon Club – and took them up on their offer to meet the at the train station pretty much next to our place in the morning pre-race.  That would help minimize any potential hose-ups on my part in getting to the race.

The Versailles triathlon is held in Versailles, which is about 10 miles (~15K) from Paris.  In fact, there’s actually a huge running race between the two locations in the fall.  This is the same Versailles I visited last summer, so check out that post for all the details on the historic landmark.

After unloading from the train we made the short jaunt over to the start area.  It was a rather pretty little pond right next to the main grounds of the Chateau.

From there I went ahead and checked in.

First up was finding your race number on the bulletin boards:

I was racing in the noon race, which was all licensed and unlicensed women, along with unlicensed men.  About 600 people in total, split roughly evenly men/women.  A later race at 4PM was the licensed men.  In my case, I currently lack a French triathlon license, so I just went unlicensed.

Then you simply give your medical certificate and ID over to get your packet.  My packet contained my race number, bike/helmet stickers, and some goodies.

Included in the goodies was a bag for cycling/running shoes.  Actually fairly practical if you ask me.

After that, I headed over to transition to rack my bike.  Just like in the US, an official first checks over your bike before entering:

Then I was free to wander up the long hill and find my spot.  I think this is the first transition area I’ve been in that was actually on a hill.

Given I arrived via train, my transition area was fairly minimal.  Just my bike, my cycling shoes on my bike, and my running shoes/socks on the ground.  Also, I put my bib on my bike and my helmet on my bike.  Beyond that, not much else to have.

From there I headed back down towards the water to check things out.  Along the way I connected with the porta-potties.  It was beautiful that there was no line (the woman is just watching the bikes):

The Swim – 750m:

With the pre-race portions taken care of, it was time to get onto the swim.  The swim was held in a pond next to Versailles, with the Chateau looking out over it (you can see the white concrete patios in the satellite image below, along the with the gardens).

Here’s the course:

And here’s what it looks like on race morning from the starting area:

After everyone lined up, the women headed on out:

And then it was our time to get into the water:

They had a man in a boat holding onto the tape, and then the other side another man on a dock held onto the other end.  Endless amounts of yelling and paddle waving were occurring in a futile attempt to keep people back.  One man in a row-boat is no match for 300 men in swimcaps.

Lucky for him, the gun went off and out we went!

From this point, my little waterproof camera went back in my wetsuit (pre-question answer, here’s the camera).  Though, in retrospect, I probably should have taken it out – simply because it would have been fun to document what happened shortly thereafter.

I was along the left side, which was the shortest point to the first turn buoy – and got off to a good start. Quickly ahead of the vast majority of the field.  This typically isn’t the case for me and swimming.  But, I took what I could get.

I noticed that the field though was slowly moving left, more left than they should have been.  And in fact, everyone was sighting towards the #2 turn buoy.  This seemed odd to me, but then I looked up and couldn’t find the #1 buoy, so I figured that perhaps I was imagining things, and went off with everyone else.

Then I caught sight of the #1 buoy again, but it seemed like it was somehow further away than before.  Normally when this occurs within a race, I simply blame myself.  After all, that’s usually the case.

Actually, wait a second, it’s not only further away down the pond, but it’s somehow further to the right.  How on earth did I get so far off course?  Hmm…ok, onwards I swim.

And I kept swimming.  Until I found a few kayaks semi-frantically trying to get people to turn.  Which made no sense since the buoy was a good 100m away still.  Then I took a second to pop out of the water and take stock of the situation: The buoy was now up against the shoreline, the wind carrying it further and further away.

Well crap.

So, I recovered back onto whatever course was left and got cooking, trying to make up time.  The positive side is the other 300+ men behind me all did more or less the same thing.  So it wasn’t too much of a mess to swim through.

By time I exited the water, there were no blue men’s caps that I could see in the water ahead of me.  So I figured that was a good sign (or, I suppose, a really bad sign).  Here’s my map from the FR910XT:

Obviously, the track is smoothed (it was on my wrist in openwater swim mode).  But you can get the general gist of things going awry.  For what was a 750m course, it said I swam 901m.  It’s not clear how it counts backtracking.

The Bike – ~22K/~14mi:

On my way to my bike, I snapped this photo.  I had a ways to run, and not much else to do, so yeah, photo:

My transition wasn’t the fastest, but when you’re running up a 100m long hill with your bike, nothing is fast.

Out of transition I went.  Once that was complete, I non-gracefully mounted the bike and continued up the hill.  In fact, the first mile of the ride was all climbing.  It wasn’t until about the 1.25-1.5 mile marker (about 2K) that I had a good spot with clean pavement to get into my cycling shoes.

The bike course climbs away from the pond and up towards a car racing track, where it wanders there for two loops of the course before coming back to transition.

I should point out about now that this section lacks any photos.  Mostly because while I was going to put a GoPro on the bike, Mr. GoPro decided against turning on in the morning when I went to grab him.  He’s been a bit of a POS lately.  Not happy with the latest one as of late.

At any rate, after climbing the hill I found myself mostly in a mix of women cyclists.  With the shoes now on properly I was ready to get into the right zone and get cooking, solo style apparently.

But then a male cyclist made a slow pass on me.  Not fast, but enough to know that we could probably pace line it a bit.  He may have been behind me for a while, drafting.  So I jumped on his wheel for about 40-60s, and then overtook him.  I figured if he stuck on, then we’d make a go at it.

Sure enough, he stuck, and it worked.

(Important side note: This race was draft-legal, which means that unlike almost every other non-pro triathlon in the universe, you could indeed legally draft behind others.  Or work as teams.  Whatever you want.  The only limitation is that no bicycles with aerobars extending further than your brakes were permitted – hence why I was on a rented road bike).

I was careful to watch the speeds in between each time we traded off.  Mostly because I wanted to validate that our averages were basically the same – and indeed they were consistent.

The reason I was using speed over power is that when I would go into the draft zone my power would drop by upwards of a 1/3rd or more.  Meaning that while on the front I was doing about 300-330w, but once he pulled ahead, I’d be down to about 200-230w, making it feel ‘too easy’.

By using speed, I could validate that even though I was doing 30% less work, I was maintaining the pace.  If you look at my power graphs, you can see this drop in power:

In fact, you can see quite easily the pattern over and over again throughout the bike leg.  You’ll notice a sharp spike (me overtaking), and then it evens out, and then finally as he overtakes me drop-down in power.  Here’s just a six-minute segment showing the pattern:

This worked quite well, and as a team of two, nobody passed us, and we passed endless numbers of people.

Make no mistake – this dramatically changes both the sport, as well as the results.  You see this in fact in the women’s results.  See, the licensed women were mixed in with the unlicensed men.  Which meant that they typically had more experience in triathlon.  And that showed.  I could see them as we twisted around the race track at various points, in large groups of 7-10 women working together quite well.  Ultimately a major component in why you see top women beat the men in the 12PM race (yet still have slower run and swim legs).  If you fast forward to the licensed men’s race later on, you’ll notice that the top swim and run legs actually aren’t much faster than mine (especially ignoring the misdirected buoy), but what was significantly faster were the bike times – likely due to much larger group tactics (and recovery) that simply can’t be done with two people.  I see this out doing loops at Longchamp – where a larger group of 5-10 guys can easily average 25MPH without much difficulty.

So while it changes it – I also found it a lot of fun.  A heck of a lot of fun.  It does make things slightly more uncomfortable in the sense of depending on someone else so close to you not messing up, but also because within our team of two, we were both supporting each other.  Neither of us could likely have held 330w for the entire bike leg and still run well (as a reminder to my cyclist friends, you do have to save something for that last leg).  So, you end up depending on one another.

Overall my power averaged 277w, but my normalized power was 300w.  The biggest differences that you’d see though compared to a normal triathlon where stability is more important, is that here you see larger numbers for the mean/max power for 60-seconds and shorter time periods:

The only bummer with respect to data is that the swim apparently killed the Bryton heart rate strap I was wearing (which is sad, because otherwise it’s been really good).  So no HR on either bike or run.  For those curious, I was wearing both the Bryton Cardio 60 and the Garmin FR910XT on all three legs (on wrist).  Both ended up pretty similar to each other.

With that, we cruised back down into town and into transition a short bit later, ready to begin the run leg.

The Run – 5K:

With the ‘team’ aspect of the event complete, it was time to get down to business.  The run is almost always my strongest leg, and I was optimistic I’d be able to track down a few folks here (as well as leave behind my cycling friend).

After exiting transition, the run immediately (as in, 1 meter later) goes into the woods.  I didn’t entirely expect this, but that’s OK.  It wandered in there a couple minutes, with the trail making many switchbacks and ups and downs.  Definitely trail running territory.

However, it soon emptied out into the pond and surrounding tree area.  I’d run down past the finish line before starting my first loop:

The route was quite simple from here: Two loops around the pond.  Though, not right along the pond, rather on the outer perimeter of the park.

Given the men started about 5-7 minutes behind the ladies, it meant that for the most part I had caught up to the majority of women in the field.  Those that were ahead of me were among the faster ones, and the even fewer males that were ahead of me were amongst the really fast ones.

As a result, it was kinda lonely on the first loop.  There was only a single guy ahead of me about 50-75ft or so.

I’d slowly chip away at him over the first lap, catching him a bit just after the start of the second lap.  In the meantime, I simply enjoyed the loop.  Off to my right was Versailles, and you could see the throngs of tourists up in the gardens looking out over the race:

Towards the end of each loop you got the pleasure of going up a rather large hill up ahead.  It may not look large, but it sorta was.

At the top of the hill was the Mardi Gras station.  Well, that’s not really what they called it – but that’s sorta what it was.

Each time you passed by they’d give you a necklace (no beads though) indicating you passed.  Once you had two necklaces you’d be able to go into the finish line.  On this loop I just picked up my first necklace.  And no, flashing my top was not required (actually, French triathlon rules dictate men are not allowed to show any chest hair).

Once I passed the Mardi Gras station, it was back down the hill into the finish area to start my second loop.  As expected, this is where things got busy.

With all the folks behind me now joining in the fray, there was plenty of dodge and weave.  But honestly, I enjoy this – as it makes the run go by faster.

Before I knew it, another loop was almost complete.

Once again, back up the hill towards the Mardi Gras station I went.  This time to get the all important second necklace.

Woot, necklace unlocked!

With that, a quick jaunt down (and past) the busy finish area before doing a 180 and running back to the finish.  This particular setup actually works fairly well in that it gives spectators two opportunities to see runners in the final finishing sprint.

With that – race complete!  My total run time for what I had on two watches at 3.3 miles (5.3KM) was 21:04, or a 6:23/mile pace (3:57/km).

After handing in my chip, I got a water bottle

They had a big spread of food available in the finishers chute:

The only thing was, I had completely forgot to look at the finishers board upon finishing, which actually tells you your position.  Eek!

Post-Race:

While I figured I had done fairly well, I didn’t think I was podium quality.  I’d guessed within the Top 10, but then a guy a few minutes after me said he was #30 (according to the digital board upon finishing), so I didn’t seek out the results to heavily.

Instead, I just went over to check out the ceremony:

I then saw Sebrom (actually, he saw me), and he was scheduled to race later on in the day in the licensed category.  We ended up talking and walking over to where the race numbers were posted, and at the same time I ended up finding the results there too:

A quick check of the results revealed I actually did better than I thought.  Turns out – 3rd overall male, and 2nd within my ‘category’ (it’s strange here, categories are vast chunks of people – mine being 18-40yo).

By time I sorted this out and conferred with the English triathlon team guys, we rushed over to awards.  Literally about 12 seconds after arriving they announced my name.  Holy cow!

They bring up all three folks at once, and then each one steps forward (3rd place first, and then 2nd, and then 1st).  In this case, they were giving awards for category winners instead of overall winners.

And, as is customary here, each podium finisher got kisses on the cheek.  The women podium finishers got kisses from men, and we in turn kisses from the ladies.

Oh, and I got a giant goblet trophy.

Additionally, in my winners bag I got a pair of Mizuno running shorts and a tubular.  Plus, an assortment of very vibrant pens:

Here’s the whole podium.  Obviously, I need to get myself a fancy podium kit:

Post-podium the triathlon team had the champagne out:

Obviously, this was going to happen:

And like in the US, there’s always some food around.  Not a BBQ with hot dogs, but still an impressive spread (three chickens!):

With that, I packed things up and headed back towards the train:

It would take about 45 minutes to get home, but not too bad:

So there ya have it – my first triathlon in France.  Now I’ve just gotta get all registered for the license and get the next race all finalized on the schedule.  Thanks for reading!

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(Unrelated gadget deal side note of the week: As many of you noticed, REI will be starting a short sale on Friday on the FR910XT ($340 with the HR Strap, $300 without), and the original Ambit also cheaper.  For those waiting on that – just hang tight.  Given you’ve gotta hang tight anyway, then I’ll have something of note at 12:01AM Eastern on Friday.  Oh, and no, this doesn’t mean there’s a new FR910XT coming out.)