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 BlueSky, 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:
I’ve been out in the Alps testing upcoming things, as well as checking out the Women’s Tour de France, so stuff is a bit quiet right now. Here are all the latest posts on the site:
Wednesday: FIT File: Summer Cycling Roundup! New Bike Computers, Groupsets, Wheels, Trainers, and More
Thursday: Tour de France Femmes 2025: What Bike Computers & Sports Tech Are They Using?
YouTube Videos 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 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) Insta360 To Start Making Drones: This article is actually interesting because it outlines some big changes that are happening in this space. While DJI announced their first 360 action cam this past week (bought one, review soonish), Insta360 inversely announced an upcoming drone. DJI’s 360-action cam entrant is very strong (albeit with some quirks). And while I’ve flown the Insta360 drone, I’ll save my thoughts for later once it’s officially unveiled/announced. However, more important than the tech, is actually the US market, which is massive for both companies. DJI is pulling out (or being forced out) of the US market, as evidenced by numerous recent launches and their official statements, owing mostly to their impending ban at the end of the year. Thus, Insta360’s biggest advantage is the simple fact that soon DJI won’t be able to sell any products in the US (the ban specifically covers wireless chipsets, which is basically every product with Bluetooth or WiFi, including all cameras/drones/etc…). Whether or not Insta360 can take advantage of that, remains to be seen. Likewise, whether we see other drone companies, like Skydio, get back into the consumer market, remains to be seen.
2) The comparative impact of riding the full Tour de France as an amateur: I had opened up this tab weeks ago, but only finished reading it yesterday. This piece was *far* better than I expected, to be honest. Turns out there was a study done on what happens when a group of amateur riders go out and ride the full length of the Tour de France in one go, the day before the TdF. And then compared that to TSS/HR/sleep/etc values of pro riders. Super interesting.
3) Whoop’s Medical Mess: This happened a few weeks ago, but is worth mentioning somewhere. Essentially, Whoop marketed the new Whoop MG as a ‘Medical Grade’ device. And indeed, the ECG feature was certified by the FDA & EU as such. However, the blood pressure piece was very much not certified as such. And the FDA is pretty angry about it. What’s super interesting though in this letter is looking at the timelines. It appears, quite clearly, that Whoop was hiding the blood pressure piece from the FDA, while concurrently working on the ECG piece. You can see in that FDA letter that Whoop met with the FDA on May 15th, just a mere 7 days after Whoop launched/announced the Whoop MG. In other words, someone from the FDA likely saw the announcement and did a ‘WTF?!?’, and thus the flurry of documented meetings immediately following the announcement. Look, I actually think Whoop’s estimations are pretty good in my testing, but that doesn’t mean it’s a medical device – and all of Whoop’s marketing is heavily aimed at pretending it is. Before seeing the FDA letter, and hearing the story, I was vaguely agreeing with Whoop, but after reading that FDA letter (seriously, read the full thing), it’s a solid smackdown of Whoop’s actions.
4) Fitbit Charge 6 gets expanded HR broadcasting: This now also includes Hydrow & Hydrow Wave rowers, Spinning bikes, and Echelon machines. That’s in addition to Strava, Wahoo, Zwift, and more. Though, they specifically note both Garmin & TechnoGym don’t work. My guess here is this comes down to the craptasticness that is the encrypted Bluetooth standard for a secure BT HR signal. Who to blame in this case is anyone’s guess (last time there was a BT broadcasting failure between Amazfit & Garmin devices, it was because AmazFit was incorrectly tagging the BT connection as secured, and thus Garmin completed a secured pairing, which promptly failed when Amazfit didn’t then follow-up with a proper secure channel for the actual data. Amazfit has since fixed that).
5) CYCPLUS L7 Radar Review – Another Low Budget Failure: I really wish that lower budget radars didn’t suck, but by and large, they do. Shane does a good job at outlining how this recent entrant fails. Notably, one of the things I’ve seen with radar testing is that it simply takes a CRAPTON of hours on the bike with comparative radar units to know when a specific unit is failing. It’s largely why my Wahoo TRACKR radar review isn’t out yet. Just when I think I’ve got it all figured out and it’s working well, it goes off and repeatedly craps itself. Sigh. Kinda at the point there of ‘it is what it is’, and hitting publish like GPLAMA (one of the reasons I tend to delay negative reviews is to ensure I’m not the one screwing up, I’m reasonably confident at this point with multiple units, multiple reviewers, conversations with Wahoo, and months of data, I’m not the issue here). Anyways, for something much more ‘eeks’, here’s Shane’s CYCPLUS L7 Radar Review:
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Ok, I didn’t really plan on typing up that much about each one of these. Typically, it’s like a line or two. Thus, we’ll just leave it here for now.
Thanks for reading!
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„ I tend to delay negative reviews is to ensure I’m not the one screwing up“
I hope this is not the reason we are still waiting for the Venu X1 in-depth review?