Week in Review–June 9th, 2017

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–July 1st, 2017
Monday: 5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
Monday: Elite’s new Direto trainer–Hands on!
Monday: Tour de France 2017 Behind the Scenes: Stage 1
Tuesday: Tour de France 2017 Behind the Scenes: Stage 2
Wednesday: Power2Max NG Power Meter In-Depth Review
Friday: Tour de France 2017 Behind the Scenes: Stage 6

Sports Tech Deals This Week:

With the start of July brings a fresh wave of new sports tech deals.  More interestingly, some of these are actually Europe-specific, which is a rarity around these parts!  I’ve noted which ones specifically are Europe-focused.

Also of note is that ELEMNT $80 rebate for the larger unit.  Helps to equalize the price compared to the smaller BOLT.  Both contain the same software, though the larger unit has an additional LED stripe.

The DCR Podcast:

It’s back baby!!!

We managed to coordinate for once in our lives, and even set a standing weekly time going forward.  Next thing you know we might even go as far as become presentable in public.  Nah, probably not.

Here’s the low-down on what was covered this past week in the DCR podcast:

– Catch-up of the top 3 product announcements in the month
– A recap of where cycling head units stand this year
– Detailed discussion of trainers of 2017, and where things are going
– A similar discussion of power meters and where things are going
– Discussion of the Tour de France and all the festivus that’s happening there.
– We even answered a reader question, and gave a bunch more detail than that person ever wanted. Like, probably TMI.

Thanks for listening! Subscribing and rating in iTunes is much appreciated, and be sure to send in your questions via the voice mail widget at the bottom of the podcast page!

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) Velon/GoPro Daily Tour de France videos: While none of these are mixed to music, there are some great edits in here.  Also some astounding (and painful) crash footage).

2) Using body heat to power your gadgets: After my hot run a day or two ago, you could have powered half of Paris with my body heat. Sweltering!

3) TdF power file analysis: Like past years, Training Peaks is doing analysis of the power files of various pro athletes.  Here’s one from the sprint of the infamous elbow crash a few days ago.

4) Triathlon Bike Aero Testing: I meant to link to this study last week, as I linked to the fund-raising a long while back.  Be sure to dig into the linked data study though. There’s also a massive Slowtwitch thread where you can ask questions and be politely told why you’re probably wrong by a bunch of people smarter than you or I on the subject.

5) Orca whales visit swimmers: I’m reasonably certain I’d crap myself more if these showed up mid-swim than sharks. Mostly, because I’m cool with sharks.  As a side note, you should subscribe to Bradley’s channel – especially if you like amazing aerial footage and/are from the Pacific Northwest.  Warning: Some strong language early on in the video.

6) Jawbone is going out of business: No real surprise here.

7) Lifeguard focused drone: This is pretty darn interesting. While this is no substitute for lifeguards at beaches, it could be a great supplement to them.  Especially in cases where a secondary person could get a flotation device very quickly to an individual in need, while the primary lifeguard gets there physically.  Also could be useful in tough to reach areas (i.e. against rocks) or with challenging sea conditions.  With today’s drones easier and easier to operate, and with lifeguards generally trending towards younger generations – it’s actually kinda a perfect fit.

This drone could save countless lives pic.twitter.com/00g8Xu3NG4

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) July 6, 2017

8) More pitfalls of crowd-funded products: This falls into my general theme of avoiding crowd-funded projects that try to do too many ‘firsts’ in a new product.  That usually means it’s not real or otherwise un-achievable within any realistic time frames.

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 firmware updates.

Garmin VIRB Edit Update (Desktop software): Largely bug fixes.

…otherwise, I think it was a pretty darn quiet week – likely driven by the holiday in the US and the start of general holidays in Europe.

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Thanks for reading and have a good weekend!