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/X 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!
DCR Posts In The Past Week:
Here’s all the latest on the site:
Sunday: Week in Review – May 12th, 2024
Monday: Polar Grit X2 Pro In-Depth Review: A Flagship Watch?
Wednesday: Hammerhead Karoo 3 In-Depth Review: Worth the Upgrade?
Thursday: SRAM RED AXS & Power Meter (2024) In-Depth Review
Thursday: Strava Announces Family Plan, Dark Mode, AI Cheat Finder
Saturday: Big Garmin Edge, Fenix, and Epix Sale (US): Quick Thoughts
Phew, it’s been a while since I had a threesome in-depth review week. Almost felt like September again! For better or worse, things gonna be busy for a while around here though!
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!
Spring Sports Tech Deals:
There’s a slate of new sports tech deals, primarily from Garmin, but also a few other companies jumping in on the almost summer-themed sales.
There are no deals currently.
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:
1) Polar (Sorta) adds NFC Payments: Polar has partnered with Fidesmo, who makes NFC bands/straps that can be used for contactless payments. These bands now perfectly fit Polar products. To be clear, there is *zero* tech inside the Polar watches that’s aware of these bands or anything (which is why they work on a bunch of older Polar watches too). The bands cost 59EUR, and are limited to European consumers. I’d have thought we’d see Polar do something with Curve or such directly, for their V3 & Grit X2 Pro watches, but I guess this kinda sorta works too.
2) Denmark is throwing sharks on bike paths: No really, real actual sharks. I’m so confused.
3) WearOS 5 announced, claims lower GPS battery burn: Specifically, they note that a user running a marathon will see a 20% lower battery burn rate. Will definitely be interesting to test out these claims!
4) Peloton adding new ‘Look Cam’ ads before classes: So far, this isn’t going over well, which is good to hear. I don’t mind Peloton’s existing pop-out shelf option if people want to buy the same gear as the instructors. But an additional 30-second ad before a class on a $45/month paid platform is just dumb. Seriously, it dumb.
5) Spanish City Wants to Require Insurance for Cyclists: Hmm, not a good trend.
6) Performance Gains Round-up: A new round-up of all sorts of semi-aero-focused, semi-performance-focused stuff. A good quick read.
7) How to perform a ‘factory’ spin down of a Wahoo KICKR: It’s been a really long time since I’ve done one of these. Kinda neat, but do note all the warnings. And also, really only do this if you know your unit is dorked.
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With that – thanks for reading!
The link for the cycling insurance currently leads to a 404 page not found message over at GCN.
In Japan, cycling insurance is mandatory. There’s a been a few instances of collisions with pedestrians that lead to sever injury and death. The insurance itself is low cost, about 2,000 JPY for the year and is sometimes integrated with automobile, homeowners, or renters insurance. Otherwise they are available at convenience store kiosks. Penalties for not having it is small.
I view this as a way to avoid having to deal with the other party if something was to happen. I’ve been in a taxi vs. cyclist (me) incident and did not have the cycling insurance at that time. It would have been a lot easier for me to have someone handle the paperwork and negotiation for me.
Before Apple Pay arrived to The Netherlands, I used one of these payment bands and I loved it – it was surprisingly more user-friendly (as there are no buttons to push – it’s literally a payment card chip baked into a bracelet, so you wave it at the terminal and the payment is done). Obviously, it’s more limited because of that compared to Apple Pay (i.e. the spending limit is there and is lower), but the fact that it works every time (no battery to charge, no buttons to push etc) is magical.
The Polar payments solution was done by Garmin and Barclays in the UK in 2016!
link to pocket-lint.com
Oh wow. What’s old is new again!
DCR: Specifically, they note that a user running a marathon will see a 20% lower battery burn rate. Will definitely be interesting to test out these claims!
DCR’s legs: wait, what?! What do you mean by interesting? And test? Anyway, the previous WearOS version worked just fine, nothing to see here.
😂
Haha…
Me: Let’s see what happens with a 14-hr hike.
My legs: FML, again.
Well – As a dane i should probably clarify a bit. – First off the shark was already dead when it was planted. The first guy who did it (and yes there have been 2 instances, or a couple of kids who thought it was a great joke the first time) was caught and explained it as a joke. He got it from a local fisherman, where it was caught in the net as he was fishing for herring or cod. The shark itself was about 1m in length. which is quite typical for that kind here in Denmark (we have no great whites or even a hammerhead)
And yes – it’s not a joke for a lot of danes, but when you fish like that in the north sea, other species will get caught sometimes. Originally he thought he would scare someone in the family, but then got cold feet and left it. (what i read from an article at a danish news outlet who followed the story. – He also got a fine for disorderly behaviour. (when first asked, the police said he would be fined, they just had to find out what he was going to be fined for)
PS – and this is just the fun part – it does give a whole other meaning to “sharks teeth” and stop signs!!
Although a couple weeks old, but i just noticed that on Apr 4th Cyclic released Fly6 Pro with 7hr battery life. Any plans for a quick review?
Yup, been riding it for almost a month now. Stuff soonish.
I know you have lots on your plate… any chance the Fly6 Pro review is coming soon? Lots of people waiting for an unbiased review :)