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:
None.
Nada.
Zip.
Zilch.
Yup, I actually enjoyed the week vacationing on a small island off the coast of Australia with The Girl and The Peanut. I believe that’s the longest period of time I’ve gone without a post (7 days). Fear not though, plenty of stuff lined up this week – within a few minutes in fact (Hong Kong airport WiFi notwithstanding). By the time you read this I’ll be on my second flight working my way home to Paris. 24 hours of flying with a 6-month-old in tow – good times!
Of course, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t testing things. I was putting in the final miles on the Apple Watch Series 2 Nike+ edition, along with mileage on Stryd, RunScribe, and Tune (Kinematix). Plus some other gizmos and gadgets you may have seen in my various tweets. You’ll also see the Feiyu Tech G5 Gimbal In-Depth Review, now that I actually have enough interweb bandwidth to get all my 4K video uploads completed. Australia’s hotels were not strong in that department.
Oh – and fear not, the podcast is coming back too. All my travel (CES, Australia) in January made the daily schedule highly unpredictable, and that’s before we tried to factor in the 14-hour time zone difference. You should see a new episode published this week. Enjoy!
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) More motor talk in the pro cycling ranks: Most have probably seen the 60 Minutes piece, which while not delivering any knockout punches, certainly contained some important snippets (the linked post discusses the specific snippets of note). Much of the focus on Team Sky of course, which doesn’t surprise me. As Caley wrote a few weeks back regarding the whole ‘medical’ delivery piece, there’s simply too many things that don’t add up. This starts to become the next of those situations, albeit in its early phase still. Give it a few more years I suspect – the truth always comes out on these matters.
2) Jawbone Customer Service Doesn’t Exist Anymore Apparently: I’m not quite sure who or why anyone is buying Jawbone fitness trackers these days. Do companies like Best Buy even sell them? But for those unlucky enough to have purchased one, this is just one more sign that Jawbone is a sinking ship. As if the last year or two’s worth of signs weren’t enough. Just a very…very…slowly…sinking…ship.
3) US Bike share Systems Ranked by Size: Cool to see bike share systems continue to grow in the US, and especially so not just in the NYC’s of the country, but in smaller towns as well.
4) How to use Stryd with SportTracks: This is a good primer for how to actually leverage some of the running power stuff. Training Peaks also put together a fairly similar piece a while back here. As for a review, yup, I’ve been running with the new Stryd version the last few months, and aim to knock out a review in February. For things like this – I really like to collect as much data as possible, since ultimately this is all about data.
5) Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview Drops: Getting closer… This will be most notably important for Polar and their M600, depending on how things pan out on the iOS side. Right now I think it’s just fine if you want to pick up an Android Wear watch with Android, but I think it’s a poor choice on iOS (any Android Wear watch, not just Polar’s). It’ll be interesting to see how things look, once not only Google finalizes the release – but then companies like Polar actually ship it on their watches. Those two things could very well be separated by a vast span of time.
6) 52 *year* daily running streak ends: Unreal story. Perhaps even more astounding is some of the injuries he’s fought through to get in a daily run for the last 52 years. (via Neil)
7) Triathlon fat bike is born: Yes folks, a TT variant of a fat bike. (via GPSRumors)
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 are 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? Oh – and if you want to get a head start on things, this page is a great resource for watching Garmin firmware updates.
Garmin FR920XT BETA Firmware Update: Skiing focused fixes, few other tweaks.
Polar M200 Firmware Update: Bug fixes.
Polar M600 Firmware Update: New languages, bug fixes.
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Thanks for reading folks!
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Ray, you forgot the Suunto Spartan 1.6.14 FW update. It seems to be quite an improvement with Glonass now activated.
Ahh, I thought I had that in last week’s. No worries, I’ll pull it into next weeks.
Well, that should cover it. My Spartan became at least a lot more accurat.
Sounds like a nice break. Recap of what else you missed here – ‘where are such and such reviews?’ ‘Does this device do this’ – clearly stating it does or doesn’t in your review… and ‘why can’t my hrm on my watch work in the water’ 😉
Another interesting note
Layoffs at Fitbit
link to google.com
Been waiting on the Feiyu Tech review since you mentioned it early January… Will you be comparing to the Karma Grip and/or plan to review it as well?
I’m a data hoarder so I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on Stryd.
Yup, review and corresponding videos have tons of Karma Grip comparisons.
I think you meant a TT version of a fat bike…
Thanks.
Hi,
I’m curious what your opinion is on the feiyutech G5 gimbal.
Used it couple of times now with the Garmin Virb Ultra, I’m pretty impressed.
link to youtu.be
Polar M400 1.9.25 firmware update – speed and distance from the wrist.
Without wanting to sound all Lance and “i’m sorry you dont believe in mircales” and seeing your comment somewhere around use of Oval rings to hide impact on power numbers of motors I do feel it must be hard to be so cynical.
To begin, Men’s Pro Cycling has given zero reasons in the last few decades to believe in miracles, or even luck for that matter. At almost every turn, doping/cheating has always proven to be the real answer to why a performance was what it was. It just takes a few years to find that out.
Next, we look at Team Sky – and they’ve clearly shown a disregard for some of these rules. Be it the questionable TUE for Froome, or the unexplainable medicine, or even the various cases of attacks on hills in races that can’t be explained by W/KG physics. All ignoring that a relatively unknown guy somehow becomes the top cyclist in the world, virtually overnight?
So no, I don’t believe in miracles for them – or anyone else. Though, if we come back in 10-15 years and they still look clean. Then maybe.
Ever since the 1998 Festina Scandal, those watching the sport closely know what’s up. Those involved directly have known much longer, as multiple credible sources verify (from former pro cyclists to staff to amateur racers on the brink of becoming pro). While UCI et al undertook numerous attempts for a clean reboot, I think around 2006 even the last hopeful souls lost faith in a clean sport. For the last decade or so, pro cycling has been a shell of its former self: sure, the big three (Giro, Le Tour, Vuelta) are still a huge draw – but the drain is very obvious in the smaller races, many of which have not survived the drop in credibility (look at the German cycling scene for example). All of this has nothing to do with cynicism. I am afraid, however, that the UCIs botched attempts to clean up the sports served as a warning to other organizations to better leave things covered in order to protect business (maybe that’s cynical).
re the TUE:
Do you mean Wiggins?
Oops, yup, reminds me not to try and form coherent messages on 3 hours of sleep.
@dcrainmaker
Is Apple Watch series 2 review still in your agenda ?
Cheers
Olivier
Yup, you’ll see it later this week.
I’ve got some calls with Apple early this week to sort through a few things I saw.