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Week in Review – May 19h, 2024

May 19, 2024 by |Sports Technology News and Reviews|Comments (11)

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.

ProductSale PriceAmazonOther siteSale Notes
Garmin Edge 1050 - $100 off!$599AmazonREI⚡This is the first time we've seen teh Edge 1050 on sale, since being announced last June (2024). It continues to be the most full featured bike comptuer on the market, and both reviews and consumers seem to be pretty happy with it. It's the unit I use if not testing anything else.
Garmin Edge 540 - $100 off$249AmazonREI⚡At $249, it's pretty much impossible to beat this deal in terms of bike computers. There's no competitive option that beats it on features/battery/etc at this price, or frankly anywhere near it. Sure, it doesn't have a touchscreen, but it's not as bad as it used to be (I did a stint on it this winter for a week or so, and was fine).
Garmin Edge 840 - $100 off$349AmazonREIThis is Garmin's main mid-range cycling GPS, it's what my wife uses and she's perfectly happy with it.
Garmin Enduro 3: $100 off
$899		$799AmazonREIThis is the biggest sale we've seen on this to date. As noted above, the Enduro 3 is simply the Fenix 8 with a MIP/Solar display (but without the scuba or voice calling features). It gets all the Fenix 8 features and updates otherwise.
Garmin Fenix 8 Series - $200 Off!
$999-$1,199		$799AmazonREI⚡The Fenix 8 is now down to $799 for the 42/47mm AMOLED editions, and from $899 for the Solar/MIP editions. This is the first big sale, outside of a short $70 discount back in January by Uncle Amazon.
Garmin Forerunner 265 Series - $100 off!
$449		$349AmazonREIThis is actually the biggest discount the Forerunner 265 has seen since launch. Obviously the FR570 (successor to FR265) just came out this week, though with relatively modest updates.
Garmin Forerunner 965 - $100 off
$599		$499AmazonREIThis is the lowest price to date on this watch, bringing it down to a very strong $499. This unit includes maps and is more or less a plastic Fenix 7 Pro. The FR970 just came out this week, adding ECG functionality and a few other software features...but at $250 more!
Garmin Varia Radar (RTL515) - $50 off$149AmazonREIThis is Garmin's standalone radar+taillight option, and $149 is pretty much the standard sale-price.
Garmin Venu 3/3S - $100 off$349AmazonREI
Garmin inReach 2 Mini Satellite Communicator (2-way) - $100 off$299AmazonREI⚡ This is my defacto satellite communicator when out of coverage area, and I've used it on a number of major treks over the past two years when well outside of cellular service, both in a 24x7 tracking mode for friends and family, but also there in case of emergency. Would strongly recommend for anyone doing anything in the wilderness.
Garmin inReach Messenger Plus - $100 off!$399AmazonREIThis came out last fall, and is the first time this has been discounted. The key difference with the new Plus model is that it adds the ability to send photos and voice messenges via satellite. I've used it a bit, and it's pretty cool because it makes it a lot faster to just say something rather than type it out, but the $499 price seemed excessive. $399 makes it slightly more palatable.
Suunto Race - $70 off!
$449/$549		$379Amazon
Suunto Vertical - $130 off!$499Amazon

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.

–

With that – thanks for reading!

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11 Comments

  1. Jack
    May 19, 2024 at 8:45 pm #1

    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.

    Reply
  2. Pavel Vishniakov
    May 20, 2024 at 5:08 am #2

    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.

    Reply
  3. Stuart Brown
    May 20, 2024 at 6:40 am #3

    The Polar payments solution was done by Garmin and Barclays in the UK in 2016!

    link to pocket-lint.com

    Reply
  4. Goncalo
    May 20, 2024 at 10:49 am #5

    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.

    😂

    Reply
  5. Claus Jacobsen
    May 20, 2024 at 2:36 pm #7

    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)

    Reply
    • Claus Jacobsen
      May 20, 2024 at 2:39 pm #8

      PS – and this is just the fun part – it does give a whole other meaning to “sharks teeth” and stop signs!!

      Reply
  6. chukko
    May 22, 2024 at 6:51 pm #9

    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?

    Reply