Week in Review–December 16th, 2012

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 this past week:

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

Sunday: Week in Review–December 8th, 2012
Monday: More trainers, a touch of snow, and a new bike
Tuesday: A Monday night Parisian long run and a look at the gear I ran with
Thursday Morning: A day of continuous heart rate monitoring
Thursday Night: Polar adds GPS based elevation data to PolarPersonalTrainer.com
Friday: A Vienna Runaround

Paris Blog Posts:

Here’s all the Parisian fun we’ve been having on our Paris sub-blog.  And yup, they’re back in the main RSS feed now!

Thursday: Bertie’s CupCakery (that’s our Cupcake shop) featured on a popular local blog (it’s a really cool piece)
Friday: Paris Blog- Free hugs!

To see all previous Paris Blog posts, simply click here.

The Queue posts:

The Queue is a place where I post quick galleries of products that have just started the review cycle.  Here’s more from the onslaught of new products that have come in lately (tons more planned over the next few weeks). At the moment, these don’t show up in the main RSS feed since they are just quick galleries.  You can however subscribe specifically to The Queue RSS feed here (mostly to just use it as a notification mechanism).

Monday: Tacx Genius VR Trainer with TTS 4.4
Thursday: Pear Square One ANT+ enabled sports tracker

To see all previous Queue galleries, simply click here.

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) Apparently you can get your Garmin Fitness battery replaced for $35: Funny, hadn’t heard of this before, but it looks like there’s an eBay person who will swap out your fitness battery.  Obviously, voids your warranty, is possibly sketchy, and everything else you might expect.  But hey, for  device on its last legs $35 might be a good hail Mary. (via GPSTrackLog)

2) How to ride cobbles: Given my current location, I need to get up to speed on this action.  Because at present, the cobbles are not my BFF.

3) Looking for ski gadgets?  Never even knew half of these crazy things existed.  A little robot that pulls you up a ski slope?  Nuts.

4) Nike adds new fitness startup accelerator program: Will be interesting to see what comes of this.  Oddly enough, they talk about open SDK’s, API, and the sort – yet Nike+ as a platform is the most closed platform on earth.  It makes the walled gardens of Apple look like Swiss cheese. (via Julien R.)

5) SRAM goes all Gangnam style: Left without comment.

6) Suunto adds new GPS pod, doesn’t do ANT+: This is somewhat strange for a few reasons.  First, who buys separate fitness GPS pods in new watches these days anyway?  Evidence I receive from lots of you daily in the form of comments suggestions most of you hate them.  Ignoring that though, if they had at least made it ANT+ other devices could have potentially taken advantage of it down the line.  The ANT+ GPS device profile has been in a bit of perpetual beta waiting for a company to simply ask for it and push it out, Suunto would have made a great push company.  Sigh…so much good done recently on going towards ANT+ away from the proprietary Suunto ANT, only to misdirect. (Yes, they could have done both, which would have solved old device and new device issues).  That said, it’s physically cool looking. :)

7) Want to knit a new sweater with your bike?  No?  Ok, well, just pretend you do and check out that crazy contraption.

8) Crazy Zip Line tied to a cliff and the back of a boat video:  Ignoring the fact that some of the folks in the video are probably incredibly annoying in real life, the video itself is really darn cool.  It almost makes me want to tie a zipline onto a boat and jump off a cliff also. Then again, maybe not.

9) A detailed look at how the UCI selects Pro Teams: Pretty interesting piece with graphics and all, a good look behind the marketing machine that is pro cycling. (via CyclingTips)

10) By the numbers: The Ironman Swim: This article will take you about 20 seconds to read.  A few interesting stats though.

11) Pippa Middleton to compete in NZ triathlon: She’s been known to compete in past tri’s.  This one will be the Coast to Coast triathlon in New Zealand.

12) Top Cycling Instagram Feeds: If you’re into cycling and Instagram – here’s a pretty comprehensive list of the two topics merged.  Of course, you’ve always got my Instagram feed too – but that tends to be a bit more life/travel/me.

13) Into the Mind trailer: Some pretty wicked special effects shots in there for this adventure/ski movie.  Though, very little clarity on what the movie is actually about. The article explains it a bit more though.

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) 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?

Spot Connect updated: They’ve cleaned up some auto-reconnect issues and added a power saving mode. (Via GPSTracklog)

Strava adds more power meter analysis: Clearly making some inroads towards what other platforms like Training Peaks have already in this space.

Strava adds weekly goals: For Premium Members, but continues the streak of new Strava things lately.

iPhone Apps that were updated this week:

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