Week in Review–January 21st, 2012

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, Facebook, and Google Plus, 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 this past week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page of DCRainmaker.com this week:

Sunday: Week in Review–January 15th, 2012
Sunday: Are you a rockstar WordPress template developer?
Monday: New products, cold runs…and homemade cheese balls!
Tuesday: CES 2012 Health and Fitness Gadget Roundup- Part II
Wednesday: Hands on look at the Magellan Switch and Switch Up GPS Multisport watches
Thursday: Sorry about the site outage, was not a day late on SOPA
Friday: CES 2012 Garmin updates for Vector, FR910XT and more

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) Cool inside stuff from Team Sky Training Camp: The TrainingPeaks guys apparently found an excuse to go over and hang out with the Team Sky Pro Cycling team (lucky them!).  They’ve posted a handful of funny/interesting posts thus far, such as 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Pro Cycling.

2) A good breakdown of the new Cervelo P5: While I have absolutely zero plans to pickup the new Cervelo P5 (simply because I don’t need a new triathlon bike), I still found this post a good and easy to comprehend breakdown of the new ride.

3) Remembering Sarah Burke: This week you probably saw a few notes about world class freestyle skier Sarah Burke, and her passing this Wednesday following a skiing accident on January 10th.  The above link has some moving photos, though, not nearly as moving as the below video.

A Sarah Burke tribute video. from Downtofilm. on Vimeo.

4) Very interesting and eye-opening article on bike theft: A great article in Outside magazine about bike theft, and the underworld of it all.  Good stuff (the article, not the activity).

5) Nike introduced Nike+ Fuel Wrist tracking band: Like just about every other tech company on earth, Nike’s getting deeper into the ‘fitness tracking’ segment by introducing their Nike Fuel wristband.  The wristband is similar to the Jawbone Up, or the FitBit, in that it tracks steps and your general daily wanderings.  I’ve hit up the Nike PR folks to get a unit for review.

6) Addictingly cool GoPro 2 video: Saw this earlier in the week – some crazy cool snippets of video, all shot from normal users and just compiled into a giant montage.  For those curious, I did actually buy a GoPro 2 before Christmas, though, for the most part, for what I use it for – it’s not much different than the original GoPro HD.  Easier to use for sure (due to new LCD menu system), but I use both units interchangeably without much notice.

GoPro2 HD Video Montage

7) Boeing employees go assembly-line on a ton of bikes for schools: A cool post from the  Boeing folks as they mass-built a massive pile of bikes for 1st and 3rd graders.

8) A good follow-up interview to Chrissie Wellington’s recently announced hiatus: Most of you saw the news earlier this week that Chrissie will be taking a year-long break from racing in the sport to enjoy other things in life.  This Slowtwitch interview dives into it a bit more.

9) Comparing the body of a 70 year old triathlete to a 74 year old sedentary person: Some fascinating cross section imagery of the quads of both individuals, and another 40 year old triathlete tossed in there for good measure.

10) Garmin Rebate for Student Athletes: Are you a student athlete (or a school coach?)?  If so, Garmin’s giving you a chance to purchase one of their units at a discount…well, a rebate discount.  I suppose this is sorta like the educational programs that companies like Adobe offer.  Good stuff.  Valid on FR210, FR610 and FR70 (FR70 with footpod only), with a valid student or faculty ID.

Random:

Earlier this week Suunto announced their new GPS-integrated Ambit watch.  In line with expectations, this watch isn’t focused on triathletes, or really even your casual road runner, but rather hikers, ultrarunners and folks hanging out in the mountains.  It’s a fair bit more rugged than most GPS watches, but sports some pretty solid battery life.  The unit doesn’t use ANT+, but is compatible with Suunto’s previous ANT (not ANT+) heart rate strap.  I’m looking forward to giving it a whirl, and the Suunto folks are aiming to get me a unit to play with here in the near future.  Until then, I don’t have much else to base an opinion of the device on – though I think it may be an interesting option for those looking for a barometric altimeter and the awesome battery life (50hrs at 60-second update intervals).  Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading all – and have a great weekend!

FOUND THIS POST USEFUL? SUPPORT THE SITE!

Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of “Shed Talkin’”.

Support DCRainMaker - Shop on Amazon

Otherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. It could simply be buying toilet paper, or this pizza oven we use and love.