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5 Random Things I Did This Weekend

March 13, 2017 by |Blog|Comments (39)

It was a suitably busy weekend around these parts, with members of the family headed all which ways. Sorta like throwing a handful of balls at a wall, seeing which ways they bounce.

1) Catching up from days in Mallorca

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I spent the first 3/5ths of the weekdays last week in Mallorca for a product launch event.  That was great and all, and I got in some awesome cycling, swimming, and even a bit of running/hiking.  However, what I didn’t get in was much else.  I tend to use these trips away from Paris to cram in as much testing as possible.  Even after spending 8 hours on the bike on Tuesday, I was straight out of the hotel into the water to squeeze in an openwater swim.  Then it was off to dinner, and before you knew it, it was 11PM.

So Thursday/Friday were mostly about catching up. So much catch-up.  I had squeezed in numerous calls, so I think I spent much of Friday, even well into the evening, on calls.  With many of the companies being in the US, it tends to shift my time schedules a bit that way.

So by the time late Friday evening came around…not much happened.

2) Finalizing some shots

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I did spend Saturday morning getting some shots finalized – both outside as well as inside.  None of which I can share with you today.  Some soon, some later. Some half-way in the middle.  It was a cornucopia of new stuff to quickly iterate through.  Ironically some things were unboxing shots, while other things were getting the last couple of shots needed for reviews coming out this week timed to announcements.

So that took till about lunch time to get done, just in time for my Dad to soon arrive from the states.  My brother had arrived a few days earlier.

3) Taking the high-speed train

With both of them having successfully arrived from the states (albeit just barely), it was time to get on with a bit of a week-long boys trip.  The Girl and the Peanut (and The Dog) were concurrently flying as far and fast away from us as possible – off to Canada.  Thus we set off in the opposite direction from Paris via high-speed train down to Geneva.

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I don’t seem to have many pictures from the high-speed train.  And by ‘many’, I mean any aside from the one in front of the train station.  Nor any in Geneva when we arrived.  Likely because we were trying to make the quick connection to the airport to pick up our rental car.

Nor any photos at the airport – likely because we were too busy cursing how the entire process somehow took 90 minutes to pick up a darn car.  You know, I love Europe (I live here, remember) – but I fail to understand how in the US I can pick up a rental car from any vendor in a few *seconds*.  No human involved.  Yet no matter how many countries or airports or train stations I go to elsewhere in Europe, that’s simply an impossibility.  Said European rental car process must take incredible amounts of time, and incredible amounts of paper.  I just don’t get it.

All the information is already provided digitally for you – everything! Why am I re-writing it down again, and then you copying it via copy machine?  Sigh.

As for why using a rental car to get to Chamonix – the answer is simple: We’re headed onwards from Chamonix after a few days.  It’s just the first stop.

4) Skiing in Chamonix

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No matter my rental car frustrations – it all gets better the next day skiing in the mountains.  I returned to Chamonix (where I spent time hiking this summer) for the first few days of a week of skiing in the Alps.  I’ll save everything for a skiing wrap-up post next weekend, but the sun was peeking out a bit and all was good.  The rest of the week it’s supposed to be bluebird out (versus half and half today).IMG_9087

And for those curious – here’s my Strava file from Sunday’s skiing.  I used the Fenix 5 in skiing mode.  I’ve come to really like using the skiing mode available on many Garmin watches. It’s just silly easy and just works in my experience.

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More skiing tomorrow. You should be able to see each day’s skiing if you follow me on Strava as well. And maybe I’ll even post a picture or two to Instagram (The Girl says she’s going to take over my Instagram account if I don’t start posting more photos, as she says her account is more interesting…which…is probably true).

5) Après Ski to Wrap up The Weekend

Of course, no end to a ski day is complete without some après ski situation.  And luckily our little AirBNB has a nifty deck/shed combo thing that overlooks the valley below and the towering mountains above.  It’s pretty sweet.  But not quite as awesome as the meat and cheese and beer selection that we put together.

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Yup, we win.

Though, admittedly the massive on-hill party we joined in last year was pretty impressive (this video from our group is linked to that moment – including The Girl table dancing briefly…).

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With that – thanks for reading!  Also, new in-depth review up tomorrow mid-morning (US time) timed to some new product announcements. Enjoy!

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39 Comments

  1. circe
    March 13, 2017 at 1:54 pm #1

    Garmin 935!!!???

    Reply
  2. Jimmy Stevenson
    March 13, 2017 at 2:06 pm #6

    I’m guessing the censored photo is something new from Wahoo. They sent me an email announcing that they were going to make an announcement on the 14th. Seems like Ray’ll be right there to post some pics as soon as Wahoo gives the all clear.

    While I’m dabbling in speculation, let me throw out a guess that Wahoo is getting into the watch game. It seems like they are perfectly poised to add on to their elemnt and kickr offerings and add another competitor to Garmin et. al. This is a completely uninformed guess, but I hope I’m right.

    Reply
  3. Carl
    March 13, 2017 at 2:32 pm #13

    Arghh!!! The car rental companies in France. I was there with my family last summer and every rental was an ordeal. One day the 90 minutes I spent trying to sort out my reservation literally cost us our chance to see Le Tour by less than one minute, with gendarmes shouting ‘non!’ over the noise of the hovering helicopters and pushing us back towards our car as the peleton wheeled by just out of view.

    On the other hand the TGV absolutely rocks, I wish we had a system here.

    Reply
  4. iomk
    March 13, 2017 at 3:04 pm #14

    Please Quark review ASAP :)

    I want to buy my first power meter, haven’t decided yet which one.

    Reply
  5. Marc-Olivier Tremblay
    March 13, 2017 at 3:57 pm #15

    Go Seahawks !!!!

    Reply
  6. Durand Jo
    March 13, 2017 at 8:57 pm #16

    There is this new pics on wahoo web site… video not working, maybe tomorrow…

    Reply
  7. Stevwn K.
    March 13, 2017 at 9:46 pm #22

    Yeah, the rental car experience in Europe!
    And that paired with the inability to properly manage their waiting line.
    Who hasn’t experienced the unmanaged multiple lines with some moving and some dealing with a problem case not moving at all. Nobody of the staff cares!
    Folks, form one line and be called by the next available agent. It is not so difficult!

    Reply
  9. John B
    March 13, 2017 at 11:47 pm #24

    I didn’t experience any of those car rental nightmares in Germany.

    Reply
    • Robert
      March 14, 2017 at 7:51 am #25

      I go through MUC regularly, and the lineups at the rental car counters are either non-existent or epic. Epic as in – it’s a major ordeal to get through that section of the airport, even if you’re not involved into car rental at all…

      Reply
  12. Gerard Thijssen
    March 14, 2017 at 5:38 am #28

    Hello Ray
    question on using the fenix5 in skimode:

    Could you comment on the accuracy of the speed indicated? for example, how does the speed compare to popular iphone ski-tracking-apps?
    in my experience with the fenix3, the fenix3 tends to show the speed lower compared to iphone ski-track-apps.

    could it be that the ski-track-apps tend to show the maximum, ultrashort peaks, while the fenix is set to show a slightly smoothed, filtered result?

    i am curious for your views
    best regards and enjoy the snow!

    Gerard

    Reply
  13. Craig
    March 14, 2017 at 6:07 am #29

    It’s an image of a Garmin Fenix 5X displaying a music player that can be used via bluetooth, utilisng some of the available memory for downloaded songs.

    Thank goodness Garmin came through with the goods on their $1000 watch!

    Reply
  14. Bob
    March 14, 2017 at 6:21 am #30

    I read these posts and look at these pictures on Ray’s blog and am left to wonder where I went wrong.

    Reply
  15. mikecem
    March 14, 2017 at 6:59 am #31

    Polar V1000 or 900 or 1100 !

    Reply
  16. Rutger Kok
    March 14, 2017 at 12:34 pm #35

    I was skiing in Brevent/Flegere on the same day! Great place, enjoy the rest of the week!

    Reply
  17. Brian - All Day Ruckoff
    March 14, 2017 at 1:43 pm #36

    Pretty jealous of that watch… and that beer! April can’t come soon enough :)

    Reply
  18. Stephane
    March 15, 2017 at 6:43 am #37

    Seems that a little brother in on the way ?

    Reply
  19. Moshe
    March 15, 2017 at 8:13 am #38

    Ray, please i’d love to see you use Instagram more ;)
    there’s a whole fan base out there that arent on twitter and fb (i.e. me lol)
    ty

    Reply