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Week in Review–Feb 3rd, 2019

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–January 27th, 2019
Monday: 5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
Tuesday: My Strava Unique Uploaded Device Tally
Wednesday: Garmin HRM-DUAL Heart Rate Strap In-Depth Review
Friday: Polar Vantage M Multisport GPS Watch In-Depth Review

YouTube Videos I Made This Week:

Here’s what hit the tubes over on the You of Tube, definitely don’t forget to subscribe there to get notified of videos the second they hit!

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) GoPro tweaks cloud service to unlimited video storage, 50% accessory discount, 4K Backups: This is big, and shows GoPro finally getting it. Previously you were limited to about 35 hours of video backups (stupid IMHO), and it also downgraded your videos to 1080p. But this…this I like. Not to mention that GoPro’s accessories are now 50% off for members, which makes the prices finally reasonable. Interestingly, astute observers may have noticed that GoPro seemed to have tested the accessory discount increase price a bit back in December with a few-day sale period where they did some deals then with high discount rates. Seems like that did the trick.

2) Stick the landing in Dubai: There’s no shortage of creative marketing opportunities in Dubai with the tourism board. And this video reminds us of that. But of course, it’s still fun to watch.

3) The Mother of All Treadmill Tweaks/Hacks: Making the treadmill WiFi controlled, complete with specialized buttons added atop it. Love it!

4) The Battle of two ‘Dick Runners’: These two women battle it out on Strava drawing male members with their running shoes and GPS tracks. For realz.

5) Man builds bicycle powered mobile home: And because a bicycle powered mobile home wasn’t enough, it also converts into a raft. Note that you can click through numerous pages of photos (may not be obvious). (thanks to Fenton)

6) The Performance Bike Auctions Continue: As a follow-up to last week, things continue to get parted out.

7) Lindsey Vonn announces her retirement: While there are plenty of articles out there about it, I think reading her original long Facebook post on it is probably the correct source to go to for this one.

8) Your stomach will likely be sick watching this: Or, your butt firmly clenched. Pretty incredible stuff, of course, somewhat as usual from Nate.

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 and a few other firmware updates.

Garmin Instinct Firmware Update: Minor bug fixes

Garmin Vivosport Firmware Update: Minor tweaks

Garmin Vivomove Firmware Update: Minor bug fixes

Not much else in the way of firmware updates this week.

With that – thanks for reading, and have a great week ahead!

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6 Comments

  1. Neo.e92

    I don’t have the cajones with those kinds of trails.

    But nice place they got in Sedona.

    Thanks Ray

  2. Crispin E.

    There were some firmware and dashboard updates to RunScribe Plus this week; the most noteworthy being the addition of “Shoe Prints” (they’re pretty darn neat, with an example on the main RunScribe web page https://runscribe.com ). There’s details of the firmware update here link to community.runscribe.com and dashboard here link to community.runscribe.com

  3. That treadmill stuff is very interesting. It would be nice if treadmill makers took note and started innovating like this rather than churning out literally thousands of models all based on the same setup with slightly different buttons. Every company seems to have 8 basically identical models just to create a “range”. Automated workout control from external devices is just screaming out for implementation, yet this industry can barely even deliver Ant+ speed broadcast. A disruptive company here could really make a lot of money with one good model.

    • Agree. Treadmill tech is primed for someone to come in and do what Wahoo did with trainers years ago.

      The only challenge with treadmills though (from talking to a bunch of companies looking at the market), is the cost for shipping/etc make it really tough. Weight of treadmills instantly puts it in the freight category, and atop that, most require some sort of in-house delivery service option.

      The other challenge for most I’ve talked to is getting the price down. I’d love to see some really good sub-$2k treadmills, but it doesn’t sound like that’d happen. It’d probably be in the $3-4K range if it does.

    • Neil Jones

      I agree that the ideal is for treadmill manufacturers to implement a standard control protocol, which only a small number of high-end models currently seem to do, but this isn’t going to happen any time soon. However, there *are* device-controllable treadmills out there, but it just seems that they all use their own protocols often coupled with very poor iOS/Android apps. So, training platforms can take one of two approaches. They can say “we’ll use the standard protocol and if your treadmill talks that language, then we’ll talk to it and control its elevation” which is the approach most seem to take at the moment, and you’d be forgiven to think this was the only option. However, if you look at Kinomap, that’ll quite happily communicate with and control a range of treadmills because it looks like Kinomap have taken the time to implement bespoke protocols for a wide range of treadmills (their app currently lists 40 different manufacturers). Even my £600 DKN treadmill talks to Kinomap over Bluetooth and allows Kinomap to control the gradient.

      So maybe we’re not looking for a disruptive manufacturer, but a disruptive platform?

      I’d suggest that Zwift etc could attract a lot more treadmill runners if they took the same approach as Kinomap and supported treadmills on a device-by-device basis. It’s a messy and no doubt time-consuming solution, and you could argue that it doesn’t encourage adoption of a standard protocol, but it’s one that Kinomap have shown to be possible and more importantly it would offer compatibility with what people already own, rather than just future models incorporating a standard protocol.