Week in Review–June 21st, 2020

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!

Sports Tech Deals of Note:

A new slate of sports tech deals began over the last few days. These are typical deals that Garmin does *every* single year, usually starting about a month out from Father’s Day. Suunto also often jumps in the fray (and others too). Note that most of the Garmin deals end on/around fathers day (June 21st – today).

	Product	Sale Price	Amazon	Other site	Sale Notes
	Apple Watch SE (2022/2nd gen) - $30 off $249/$299 (cellular)	$219	Amazon
	Apple Watch Series 8 - $70 off $399/$499 (cellular)	$329	Amazon
	Apple Watch Ultra - $70 off!	$730	Amazon		This is actually one of the lower prices we've seen for the Ultra. Note that there's a checkbox on the Amazon page to add another $50 discount to get it to the $730 price. This seems to work for most Apple Watch Ultra band editions.
	DJI Mini 3 Fly More Combo with DJI RC - 7% off	$798	Amazon
	DJI Mini 3 with DJI RC - 13% off	$609	Amazon
	DJI Mini 3 with RC-N1 Remote - 16% off!	$469	Amazon
	Elite Direto XR Smart Trainer- $400 off! $1,000	$599	N/A	REI
	Garmin Instinct Crossover - 20% off!	$399	Amazon		This is an oddly unexpected sale since this watch only just came out. But hey, take it and run!
	Garmin Rally RK200 (LOOK KEO Dual Sided) - $220 off	$880	N/A	REI	⚡ This is a very solid deal that happens twice a year, if you were looking at the Look KEO Rally setup (which can be swapped between pedal types), grab these before this disappears (and it usually disappears). This deal is via REI for REI members using the coupon code MEMBER23.
	Garmin Rally RS200 (SPD-SL Dual sided) - $220 off!	$880	N/A	REI	⚡ This is a very solid deal that happens twice a year, if you were looking at the Shimano road SPD-SL Rally setup (which can be swapped between pedal types), grab these before this disappears (and it usually disappears). This deal is via REI for REI members using the coupon code MEMBER23.
	Garmin Rally XC200 (SPD Dual Sided) - $240 off!	$959	N/A	REI	⚡ This is a very solid deal that happens twice a year, if you were looking at the Shimano MTB SPD Rally setup (which can be swapped between pedal types), grab these before this disappears (and it usually disappears). This deal is via REI for REI members using the coupon code MEMBER23.
	Tacx NEO 2T Smart Trainer - $280 off! $1,399	$1,120	N/A	REI	This is Tacx's current top-end trainer, and while sales have been more frequent the last year, this is still a solid deal for a solid trainer. This deal is via REI for REI members using the coupon code MEMBER23.
	Wahoo KICKR 2022/V6 - 11% off $1,299	$1,149	N/A	REI	This is for the current model Wahoo KICKR 2022/V6, which includes built-in WiFi. This has mostly been on sale for a while, which doesn't mean there's a new variant coming, but rather likely just trying to get people to buy into a trainer towards the end of the winter season.
	Wahoo KICKR Core Smart Trainer - $200 off! $899	$699	Amazon	REI	This has been the mainstay price on the KICKR CORE for a while. While the new Zwift Hub came out that's relatively similar and cheaper, the KICKR CORE is a better option if you want to combine it with the Wahoo CLIMB, or, if you need multichannel Bluetooth.
	Wahoo POWRLINK ZERO (Dual-sided) - $200 off! $649/$999	$800		REI	⚡ This is a very solid deal that happens twice a year, if you were looking at the Wahoo power meter pedals, grab these before this disappears (and it usually disappears). As with the Garmin Rally pedals, I continue to use Wahoo power meter pedals for accuracy testing of other brands/units. This deal is via REI for REI members using the coupon code MEMBER23.
	Wahoo POWRLINK ZERO (Single-sided) - $130 off!	$520		REI	⚡ This is a very solid deal that happens twice a year, if you were looking at the Wahoo power meter pedals, grab these before this disappears (and it usually disappears). As with the Garmin Rally pedals, I continue to use Wahoo power meter pedals for accuracy testing of other brands/units. This deal is via REI for REI members using the coupon code MEMBER23.

DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:

Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week:

Sunday: Week in Review–June 14th, 2020
Monday: How to Load Zwift or TrainerRoad on a Peloton Bike: A Geek’s Guide
Tuesday: Garmin Edge 1030 Plus In-Depth Review
Tuesday: Garmin Edge 130 Plus In-Depth Review
Friday: Hammerhead Refreshes Karoo User Interface ahead of Karoo 2

YouTube Videos This Past 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 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 (and in this case, some of these are from the past few weeks to clear out the backlog):

1) The Impact of Civil Rights Legislation on Triathlon: A good look back at the details of how shifting the laws and paradigms around women participating in sport has dramatically increased participation numbers there, and how that could potentially be applied in other areas to increase diversity.

2) The story of Ahmaud Arbery – Death, Running, and Racism: No matter where you live, you should read it. (via Leah Flickinger)

2) UCI outlines ‘Team Bubble’ Strategy for return to racing: While well-meaning towards getting athletes back in racing, I continue to be somewhat astounded at the UCI’s determination to try and salvage this season. Especially in a sport that (perhaps more than any other I can think of) tries to pull 20-25 athletes/staff/etc that form a team with 19-22 teams in a race, to locales from previously around the globe to then travel across hundreds or thousands of kilometers of open roads as part of competition.

3) Run/Bike Power Ratio vs Run Economy: A simple tweet of data. Worthy of discussion no doubt.

4) Garmin Fitness Engineering Development Manager Job Posting: For many years, from time to time I post interesting sports tech job positions in the Week in Review when companies reach out. This position is within Garmin’s Fitness teams, and is focused on partnerships. A similar position (well, an exact person of this exact position) on this team was mostly single-handedly responsible for landing on the Spotify, Amazon Music, and other streaming music partnerships on Garmin wearables. The hiring manager says they’re looking for some kick-ass people to join that team on a high-performance position. Roughly. [And again, seriously, if you’re a sports tech company that has unique positions, happy to include them from time to time.]

5) Tomorrow we’ll find out what’s in store for Apple Watch: Each June as part of WWDC, Apple announces what’s coming to the next version of Apple Watch OS. While that doesn’t tell us every feature that’ll be on the Apple Watch Series 6 (or whatever it ends up being called), it will generally cover the majority of them. And most of the features announced at WWDC tend to be backported to existing units. The festivities kick off at 10AM US Pacific Time. But swing back here for all the details as the event closes up.

6) Running FulGaz on the LEOMO Type-S Head Unit: Hmm, maybe I’ll give it a whirl!

7) Bicycle Sunday’s Extended! Cool little tidbit for New Yorkers in that the long-standing tradition of closing down 13 miles of highway for cyclists each Sunday is being extended this year to July and August. Thanks to DCR reader Yonah for sending this in!

Sports Tech Device 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 Edge 1030 Plus Firmware Update: Basically a baseline firmware update for the Edge 1030 Plus launch.

Garmin Edge 130 Plus Firmware Update: Same baseline firmware launch

Garmin Fenix 6 Series & MARQ BETA Firmware Update: Minor improvements, some golf stuffs. Carries through other recent beta additions.

Garmin Fenix 5 Plus Series Firmware Update BETA: Randomly increments build version, I guess.

Garmin Instinct Firmware Update: Two minor bug fixes.

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Thanks for reading!