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Week in Review–September 23rd, 2013

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

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

DCRainmaker.com posts this past week:

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

Monday: First look at Garmin’s new FR620 & FR220 GPS running watches
Tuesday: Week in Review–September 17th, 2013
Tuesday: Initial hands-on with Polar Loop activity tracker
Wednesday:

Running hill repeats with the Velib bike share

Now kicking off Interbike 2013!

Power2Max drops power meter prices nearly 20%, adds Praxis Works for chain rings

Wahoo Fitness debuts Wahoo RPM, shows off Android KICKR control

Stages Cycling adds new power meter metrics, shows off high-speed data streaming

BKOOL demonstrates KICKR compatibility, new user-video route upload function, Android app

Thursday:

Redshift Sports demonstrates Switch Aero System quick-release and quick-change aerobar/seatpost system

4iiii’s announces Cliiiimb Strava segment competition app, new low-priced hardware bundles

A night at the Las Vegas Super Sprint Triathlon Grand Prix

Friday:

Kinomap demonstrates route builder software, adds CycleOps PowerBeam support, Sony Action Cam integration

Hands-on with SRM’s upcoming iPad app for their new PC8 head unit

K-Edge adds new mount options for GoPro, Sony Action Cam, and Garmin Edge units

Barfly shows off slew of new bike computer, camera, and gear mounts

Saturday:

Hands on with the Shimano’s Di2 ANT+ SCIO shifting bike computer

A look at the new (and crazy silent) Elite Turbo Muin trainer with power output

Interbike News That Didn’t Fit: Tacx iPad App, iBike, BikeSpike, Pioneer, Garmin FR220/FR620 notes, and more!

Sunday:

A look at the competitive booth games of Interbike

Phew, done!

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) Mike Bowen, Army Veteran Runs 58,282 Miles: One mile for every American who didn’t return from the Vietnam War.

2) The Slowest Generation –  Younger Athletes are Racing with Less Concern About Time: Or, somehow, it was overlooked that the number of people now running in these events has exploded – thus times will naturally get slower with a more diverse group of people.

3) A look at what’s involved in organizing a bike race: I always love to see more of the behind the scenes on races from race directors, as I think a lot of athletes overlook just how complex putting on a race is.

4) Teenage track star runs at 12MPH on treadmill, aces test: A fun little video from a recent show that hosted her. (via Wahoo Fitness Twitter)

5) GarminSync.com now CopyMySports.com: I’ve gotta believe there was some legal tangle here. GarminSync.com stopped being able to copy Garmin Connect activities last week, and then magically it’s now renaming itself to CopyMySports.com.

6) Thoughts on USAT and upcoming board elections: An interesting read, and one I definitely don’t agree with.  Ultimately our national bodies need to balance both Age Grouper and Elite needs.  I want to see Elites end up on the Olympic podium just as much as supporting AG-specific activities and races, it doesn’t need to be either/or.  As pointed out in the comments, the total spending on elites per year is relatively small considering how travel-heavy the sport is for ITU elites (one weekend you could be in South Korea, the next Central America).

7) Strava adds bulk activity export: This happened a few weeks ago, but a reader just pointed it out.  I had railed on the removal of this functionality from their API a bit during my July Strava post, so it’s good to see it added back in.

8) Making a trainer ANT+ speed to power sensor: This is what the Kinetic inRide should have been.  In short, many trainers have predictable power curves, which means that at X speed, the power will be Y.  By simply measuring the wheel speed you can easily convert that to a known power value.  This is effectively how TrainerRoad works.  I love this idea (link above), especially if it can be made and sold cheaply, and updated wirelessly as new trainer power curves appear.

9) Thanks for the mention!  I was included in the WTOP (radio station) Running Gear recommendations list. Woot!

10) Citi Bike BMX: Outside of the occasional wrong-way-street riding, a pretty fun look at taking the CitiBike to a whole new level. (via WashCycle)

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. 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.

I didn’t really see anything this week that I thought fit the bill for inclusion here.  Perhaps next week!

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?

Site/Firmware Updates:

Quarq iOS App: Call this the ‘do not update’ notification. Quarq notes that iOS7 currently doesn’t work with their Qalvin app. Hopefully they’ll sort it out faster than they’ve done for their Android app.

Training Peaks looking for Android beta testers: The title pretty much says it all.  Well, actually, on second thought, sneak peek here.

iPhone App updates this week:

IMG_2799 IMG_2796

IMG_2797 IMG_2800

IMG_2891 IMG_2887

IMG_2888 IMG_2889

IMG_2890

iPad App updates this week:

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Additionally, I’ve been told that the iPad app Altifondo has also been updated – but I’m not seeing it on my iPad yet.

Android App updates this week:

Screenshot_2013-09-22-19-41-23 Screenshot_2013-09-22-19-40-01

Screenshot_2013-09-22-19-38-50 Screenshot_2013-09-22-19-37-59

Windows Phone App updates this week:

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Thanks for reading!

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12 Comments

  1. Seb

    About the City bike BMX riding, you can also watch the french version here, with a Vélib !
    link to youtube.com

  2. so that citi bike bmx… interesting piece, not sure if it was sponsored by them or not… It sort of looks like it was, but I can bet after this video a lot more people are going to be doing deliberate damage to those bikes.

  3. On the Slowest Generation article, I agree with your observation that “it was overlooked that the number of people now running in these events has exploded – thus times will naturally get slower with a more diverse group of people.” But even if the average times have gotten slower, the fastest people in the younger age brackets should still be faster than that of the older age brackets. Unless there’s so many events that the fastest young people are competing in different events than the fastest older people.

    • “Unless there’s so many events that the fastest young people are competing in different events than the fastest older people.”

      This. Basically I think we’re seeing so many events that the field is so spread out at the pointy end. We see this even enumerate itself in the pro ranks for example, at the 70.3 events (simply too many now to get more than a handful of pros at a given event), or the specific Rev3 events where they don’t offer a prize purse.

  4. KeithS

    Like the IOS7 early adopter approach. :)

  5. Hello,
    You should update your iPad to iOS7 in order to see the iOS7 version of AltiFondo.
    Apple took it right, you can download only the last version compatible with your version of system.
    Check http://www.altifondo.com to see screenshots of AltiFondo for iOS7.
    Regards,
    Gilles.

  6. Craig

    Some extra news for your weekly round up

    link to wpcentral.com

    would it be possible to queue the adidas micoach and their equipment in the near future?

  7. Matt Dreyfuss

    Is anyone else having trouble with their FR910XT taking longer to lock onto GPS satellites after the recent slew of updates?

    • I haven’t heard of any uptick there. However, what you describing happens from time to time when a Garmin device gets an no longer accessible satellite stuck in its cache. Simply doing a soft-reset will clear the cache.

  8. Eli

    wind noise reducer:
    link to kickstarter.com
    which seems like an easier to put on version of:
    link to slipstreamz.com
    or more recently:
    link to cat-ears.com
    (guessing the cat ears are the better version, but don’t know)