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Week in Review–October 19th, 2015

October 19, 2015 by |Blog|Comments (19)

Week days signpost

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 and Facebook, this is a better forum for sending it on to y’all. Most times these different streams don’t overlap, so be on the lookout at all these places for good stuff!

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

DCRainmaker.com posts in the past week:

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

Sunday: Week in Review–October 10th, 2015
Wednesday: 5 Random Things I Did This Past Week in Mexico
Wednesday: AmpStrip decides not to do fitness, refunds everyone
Thursday: Because it’s October: Garmin Edge 520 Giveaway Winner Selected!
Thursday: Garmin Varia Bike Radar System In-Depth Review

The DCR Podcast:

Here’s the low-down on what was covered this past week in the DCR podcast:

– Trainer Apps: Deciding between Zwift and TrainerRoad
– A brief side discussion of coaching plans
– Optical sensors and heart rate variability
– Whether to get a power meter or a power controlled trainer
– On marrying a Newfoundlander
– What happens when a power meter dies mid-race
– How to use all this data for actual training/racing benefits
– Is Garmin’s Connect IQ a dead-end?

Thanks for listening! Subscribing and rating in iTunes is much appreciated, and be sure to send in your questions via the voice mail widget at the bottom of the podcast page!

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) Redbull Rampage Mountain Bike Crash: While many might have seen the video clip on the Red Bull rider that had a not-so-good run (actually, more than one of them), you probably didn’t see this follow-up piece on folks questioning how far is too far.  After all, some 17% of the field ended up in the hospital. (via Neal Rogers)

2) Great white sharks takes out seal next to Alcatraz: Well then…who’s ready for the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon (glad I already checked that one off the list…)?  I prefer to keep my great white shark and triathlon experiences separate, thank you very much.

3) A New Sheriff in Irontown: A pretty interesting interview with the new owners of Ironman (Chinese company Dalian Wanda).  Obviously it’s largely a piece with marketing-esque answers, but still interesting snippets mixed in there.

4) Specialized Win Tunnel Tire Testing: You’ll see my gadget testing post soon (just gotta get past this week of upcoming craziness), but this piece from Tom on tire testing is a good start.

5) What if Volkswagen made power meters? A funny little post from Brim Brothers on how a company could try and fake my power meter accuracy testing process.

6) UCI loosens onboard camera restrictions: Good to see that teams can now add cameras as they see fit, without prior approval.

7) TRS Triathlon Gordon Ramsay Interview: Obviously I like cooking (and people who tell it like it is), and thus have a special place in my heart for Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsey.  Nice short little interview prior to race day at Ironman Kona.

8) Can artificial waves ever be as good as the real thing? I never knew competitions now occurred in gigantically long wave pools. I always find tech stuff like this in other sports fascinating.

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?

WKO4: Lots of new features have hit WKO4 over the past little while, here’s a roundup.

Polar V800: This rolls out Android Smart notifications, among other updates.

Polar V650: They now support more 3rd party power meters, as well as ensuring Windows 10 compatibility.

Garmin Asia Version Updates: There were no major Garmin fitness-focused updates in the last 7 days for the normal unit versions, but if you had a Taiwan/China/Japan edition, there were a crapton of updates for those devices – notably the Fenix3, Edge 1000 and FR225

–

Thanks for reading all!

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19 Comments

  1. Gingerneil
    October 19, 2015 at 4:43 pm #1

    Ray – noticed you don’t call out the TRS podcast in the list above…. Are you not feeling the love for this?

    Reply
    • Ray Maker
      October 19, 2015 at 6:06 pm #2

      Just a brainfart. I wrote the majority of this one on my transatlantic flight (sans-WiFi), and didn’t have the podcast downloaded to write-up the show notes for the post.

      By time I landed and posted in the 25mins or so I had until I had to board my next flight, just skipped my mind. Thankfully, this next flight has WiFi, so just updated it.

      Thanks!

      Reply
    • gingerneil
      October 20, 2015 at 5:06 am #3

      Excuses excuses… ;)
      The podcast is a great listen on those short runs. Good to hear Ben promoting TRS too – I’ve been a fan since your first interview on TRS in its early days.
      Your podcast still feels like its out on a limb a little though… he very rarely mentions it on TRS, and the releases don’t make it onto your blog front page like other new blog articles do. There is no link to it on the main page – either in the menu banner or the main body. Not sure what your download numbers look like, and if you’re still getting enough questions to keep it viable?
      I was hoping your partnership with Ben would grow – ie get you on TRS more often, digging into what pros use on the tech side etc. There must be some major pro tri data geeks out there… Or a live version of the DCR drinking game with Dark Mark! :)
      Lots of possibilities, but maybe one for when (if?) this becomes your full time job and you have more time ?

      Reply
  2. Robert Black
    October 19, 2015 at 7:03 pm #4

    Stay tuned for polar’s big reveal tomorrow. Optical hrm would be a good guess. Thing is, is this a mid range device or a game changing top end device with hrv? no doubt Ray will have a post up shortly after the official announcement.

    link to facebook.com

    link to polar.com

    Reply
  3. Dan Wells
    October 19, 2015 at 8:41 pm #7

    I thought Great Whites were well known to be in San Francisco Bay (this video says “first recorded hunt in the bay”). They’re notably common off Point Reyes, ~30 miles north. I also thought that one of the hazards of trying to swim to escape from Alcatraz (in addition to cold temperatures and currents) was the possibility of getting eaten by one…

    On sharks and triathlons, weren’t organizers worried that a Great White or two might try to enter the swimming section (only) of the Sydney Olympic triathlon, medaling by the simple strategy of eating the other competitors? I seem to recall the Aussies using anti-shark nets, and at least looking into the possibility of trained dolphins on shark patrol…

    Reply
    • Ray Maker
      October 19, 2015 at 8:47 pm #8

      They’re well known, but I believe this is the first time it’s been caught on camera (not sure if that’s feeding or at all past the Golden Gate Bridge). They started releasing GPS tracking data (link to topp.org) a few years ago showing great whites coming into the bay area (quite a ways actually).

      Reply
    • Bernard Maughan
      October 20, 2015 at 1:50 am #9

      It’s not only Great Whites that are of concern. Here’s just one of many instances in Sydney. I picked this one for it’s distance inland:
      link to sharkattackdata.com

      and to show you where it is…

      link to goo.gl

      Reply
    • Adam
      October 20, 2015 at 4:06 am #10

      I remember seeing a documentary on the Discovery channel about Great Whites around the Sydney area. They tagged a whole bunch of them and tracked them for a couple of seasons and found that they very regularly came way up into the bay and up around the harbour, even on Australia Day when the place is PACKED full of thousands of boats.

      It does make you wonder what’s lurking just beneath the surface…

      Reply
  4. Andrew
    October 20, 2015 at 5:10 am #11

    Ray – I am slightly surprised you linked to the tire testing article… I certainly would say it lives up to the scientific rigour you apply to your work (maybe my expectations are too high) but I found it to be a hotch potch of random tests with disparate technology that doesn’t really compare like with like or reflect the modern trends in technology (i.e. wider rims and tires on the latest Zipps, Reynolds etc)…

    Furthermore the piece raves about the performance of the Roval’s – shockingly a brand new wheel incorporating the latest aero tech using a tire purpose built to complement it out performs older wheels with “random” tech…

    Reply
    • Tom A.
      October 20, 2015 at 4:00 pm #12

      As described in the article, it was basically an “ad hoc” test…more about playing around and learning things than anything else.

      As far as using “older wheels” goes…in fact, 4 out of the 5 wheels tested are currently in production, with 2 of them being released within the last year. The only “out of print” wheel is the Zipp 101, which arguably represents a large number of similar depth “mid-width” rims. In fact, the only “narrow” width rim in the entire test is the H3.

      In regards to tire width effects on rims…it’s well known that putting on tires whose mounted width is wider than the rim causes a significant aero hit, especially at high yaw angles…that can be seen in the data as well. Nevertheless, there is additional data coming with more detail into that…

      Reply
  5. fraser
    October 20, 2015 at 7:50 am #13

    There is also a damn funny great white shark song:

    link to youtube.com

    :D

    Reply
  6. Tom A.
    October 20, 2015 at 3:53 pm #14

    Hmmm…reading the Brim Bros. musings, I guess I’d better hold onto my old non-ANT+ PT wheel and head unit. That’s a way to test outdoors without ANT+ ;-)

    Thanks for the link, too!

    Reply
  7. Megabit
    October 21, 2015 at 3:49 am #15

    Don’t know if the update had anything to do with it, but after updating my Polar V650, I was able to pair my Tacx Vortex Smart T2180 to it for the first time. Only speed and cadence, no power data though.

    Reply
  8. Nigel Pond
    October 23, 2015 at 7:23 pm #16

    “Win Tunnel” – typo or deliberate?!

    Reply
  9. Phil A
    October 28, 2015 at 2:14 pm #18

    Can see a little bit of a rant from people for the 2016 escape from Alcatraz in the link below. Apparently they have really peaved off a lot of people since the raised the price from $400 last year to $750 this year.

    link to slowtwitch.com…_5445.html

    Reply