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.
The Queue is a place where I post quick galleries of products that have just started the review cycle. 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).
I helped contribute to a bit of the Triathlete Magazine Spring 2013 Buyers guide. It’s on page 100-101, and you can grab it via the iTunes store as well (which is how I got it).
Also of note…
Is that this upcoming Monday I’ll be on the IMTalk Podcast. So if you have any questions you’d like answered in a more audible fashion – send them into the IM Talk folks.
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) How a room is prepared for doping: A really interesting walk-through of a hotel room by Tyler Hamilton on all the tweaks they make to a hotel room prior to delivering drugs to riders. Tyler is speaking in English, with the TV person in French (you just need the Tyler part though). (via Race Radio)
4) To my fellow Seattleites: If cycling…ride quickly away from pregnant woman. Else, face the stun gun. Seriously. From my hometown…enjoy!
5) Nike unveils Top 10 Startup Winners: This is part of the Nike program to fund sport and health technology startups. A pretty intriguing way to innovate at a corporate level by funding startups, this was the top 10 companies that made the cut. Given the very short descriptions; RecBob, Sprout, CoachBase – all seem viable to me.
6) Brim Brothers Power Meter Pricing Survey: Actually, it’s a survey about a lot of things, but in reality, the pricing piece was most interesting one to me. Gives a pretty clear definition that they expect pricing to fall somewhere between $500 and $1,500…since those were the top and bottom ends of their ranges in the survey questions. Which is good, because the world doesn’t need another $2,500 left/right power meter.
9)A pretty cool new skiing app: For the few of you on Windows Phones (and are on Nokia phones), saw this app come across – pretty cool. Automatically does run tracking and the like, but in a Strava-esque sorta way. Now only if I could squeeze in some more skiing this year. :-/ (Via SportTechNews)
10) An inside look at amateur rider wind tunnel testing:There was a big-long thread about this in Slowtwitch, mostly with folks likely taking things out of context. Ignoring all that, the actual post itself is pretty interesting just from an experience standpoint.
Crowd Funded Projects of Athletic Note:
This is a bit of a new section. Most of this content used to be found within the main section, but I figured I’d just call it out up here and make it easy to find. I regularly sift through Kickstarter and Indiegogo (plus a few others on occasion) looking for sports projects.
Here’s the athletic projects of note that are new:
Bike Spike: This mounted GPS logger attached (semi-permanently) to your bike and logs your bikes location. Really cool, sorta like a GTU-10, but stuck to your bike. I’ve already plugged in and ‘backed’ this project. (sent in by Eli)
Hubdock: A better way to change a rear bike axle. Pretty crazy if you watch the first 28 seconds of the video. It actually separates the wheel from the cassette (area), all without touching/dealing with the chain. Just watch the video, it’ll make more sense. I’ve gotta ponder this a bit. If this would work with the Wahoo KICKR, then I’m in.
Breezing: Portable Metabolism Tracker: This little unit enables you to blow into it and get a defined metric of your metabolism, and then watch it change over time. Interesting concept, but the price point is just too high. As they say on the TV show ‘Shark Tank’, “I’m out!”.
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?
Strava adds performance goals: These are more along the lines of PR’s, but with specific metrics such as wattage. Additionally, for segments. Now if only they’d release that Strava app for RFLKT…then we’d be talking (with the addition of goals).
(Note: For Windows Phone Apps it doesn’t always show update details, in which case I’ll just note like below that it was updated)
Thanks for reading!
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Is the point of the blood glucose monitor that it’s Bluetooth? (there are wireless devices that do that now) If cheap, could be useful to know when to refuel when exercising. (see: link to bicycling.com) They mention it can track multiple things at once but doesn’t say what else it checks
Brim Brothers is going to be >$500? Sad. I was kind of hoping it would be ~250e. That would be the price for a true revolution in power meters. You can already get a CycleOps Powertap hub for under $700. The price difference should be bigger.
Oh, I would have expected Brim to be far higher than the PT. Primarily because the PT limits your wheelset choices, the Brim limits only pedal type. That’s it. And since nothing is installed on the bike – you can literally walk into any bike rental shop anywhere in the world that supports Speedplay and rent a bike and instantly have power.
If it was $500-$1,000 – and accurate, it would truly be a game changer with respect to other PM companies.
Brim gives true left right power and has the possibility to do the newest profile 3.0 data so it is much more capable. Plus its really two separate devices for left and right so don’t see how it could be expected to be really cheap. Powertap only needs to one measurement of power so a bit easier.
While you can get a powertap hub for less then $700 the MSRP for the current powertap hubs they sell starts at $899 and they have to be built into a wheel as that is just the cost of the hub. So in my mind anything less then $1000 would beat the current generation powertap as a budget leader and less then $700 beats Stages
I agree, $500-1000 range would be a game changer in relation to other PM companies. It would definitely make people look around between different PMs, but it would not be a revolution that makes power meters as common as, say umm, high-end cycling computers amongst enthusiast cyclists.
The now projected price range doesn’t really make the potential customer base signifigantly bigger.
Thanks for “noticing” my friend Tim’s blog on our team page about the A2 wind tunnel testing. Tim is a good writer and the ST post was my idea, which I am still glad I did, but as with all things ST-related it can turn weird quickly. Glad you ”enjoyed” it!
one question kinda semi related – do you know of a way to get ANT+ data to the iphone 5 without an adaptor – ie is there a lightning adaptor available yet instead of the 30 pin?
Nuttin on that front. Wahoo doesn’t plan to make one for the iPhone 5 (primarily because the Lightening licensing costs are so high). They’ll instead likely go the way of the 4iiii’s Viiiiva, but probably in another form factor. See The Queue for the Viiiiiva product.
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A perfectly busy week! Lots of good stuff posted!
Sarah
http://www.thinfluenced.com
Watching him remove the rear wheel reminded me of OJ putting on the glove.
Also for being visible at night:
link to kickstarter.com
Is the point of the blood glucose monitor that it’s Bluetooth? (there are wireless devices that do that now) If cheap, could be useful to know when to refuel when exercising. (see: link to bicycling.com) They mention it can track multiple things at once but doesn’t say what else it checks
I think two items, one that it’s Bluetooth connected to your phone. But more importantly, that it’s actually under your skin.
Sorry I was late in posting about the other kickstart.
Under the skin isn’t new, diabetics have had that for awhile, but I think that was all proprietary protocols.
link to youtube.com
What do you think about this race. It is the hardest 400m race.
Brim Brothers is going to be >$500? Sad. I was kind of hoping it would be ~250e. That would be the price for a true revolution in power meters. You can already get a CycleOps Powertap hub for under $700. The price difference should be bigger.
Oh, I would have expected Brim to be far higher than the PT. Primarily because the PT limits your wheelset choices, the Brim limits only pedal type. That’s it. And since nothing is installed on the bike – you can literally walk into any bike rental shop anywhere in the world that supports Speedplay and rent a bike and instantly have power.
If it was $500-$1,000 – and accurate, it would truly be a game changer with respect to other PM companies.
Brim gives true left right power and has the possibility to do the newest profile 3.0 data so it is much more capable. Plus its really two separate devices for left and right so don’t see how it could be expected to be really cheap. Powertap only needs to one measurement of power so a bit easier.
While you can get a powertap hub for less then $700 the MSRP for the current powertap hubs they sell starts at $899 and they have to be built into a wheel as that is just the cost of the hub. So in my mind anything less then $1000 would beat the current generation powertap as a budget leader and less then $700 beats Stages
I agree, $500-1000 range would be a game changer in relation to other PM companies. It would definitely make people look around between different PMs, but it would not be a revolution that makes power meters as common as, say umm, high-end cycling computers amongst enthusiast cyclists.
The now projected price range doesn’t really make the potential customer base signifigantly bigger.
Thanks for “noticing” my friend Tim’s blog on our team page about the A2 wind tunnel testing. Tim is a good writer and the ST post was my idea, which I am still glad I did, but as with all things ST-related it can turn weird quickly. Glad you ”enjoyed” it!
ray – I like the look of that bike spike too!
one question kinda semi related – do you know of a way to get ANT+ data to the iphone 5 without an adaptor – ie is there a lightning adaptor available yet instead of the 30 pin?
Nuttin on that front. Wahoo doesn’t plan to make one for the iPhone 5 (primarily because the Lightening licensing costs are so high). They’ll instead likely go the way of the 4iiii’s Viiiiva, but probably in another form factor. See The Queue for the Viiiiiva product.