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.
Saturday: Week in Review–March 30th, 2013
Sunday: An Easter You Choose The Gadget Giveaway!
Monday: A weekend tapering the run, increasing the bike
Tuesday: A detailed walkthrough of my 4:30AM 90-minute trainer workout
Wednesday: An Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia Runaround
Thursday: The Easter You Choose The Gadget Giveaway Results!
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) Rev 3 adds new swim safety measures: In addition to shifting the focus to openwater swim safety pros (vs just lifeguards and Kayaks), they’re also offering testing at events for heart rated conditions. Really good stuff, hopefully more race directors follow their lead. (Via Slowtwitch)
2) Think all pros riders use the latest tech? Nope, how about this rider racing Flanders sporting the uhh…well aged….Garmin Edge 305 (now 7 years old – a lifetime in technology). To put that in perspective, there were likely kids cheering for him on the sidelines that were born after that. (sent in via Gunnar)
3) A photographic breakdown of school lunch cafeteria food: This post is part food, part photography. Probably more photography actually. Worth the read.
4) Paris Marathon runners create electricity: Saw this earlier this morning in person a few hundred meters from the finish line. I’ll include some photos in my race report tomorrow.
5) Saudi women can now ride bikes…sorta: After spending this past week in Saudi Arabia, interesting development. Note, I saw no women on bikes. Though, I only saw a few men on bikes in the location I was at.
6) The Top 55 Men and Top 55 Women Triathletes…by Twitter followers: A pretty cool compilation from Slowtwitch. By the end of the week they had added a bunch more as well, so I believe it’s slightly more than 55 men/women now. Good stuff though.
7) New truck design aims to reduce cyclist deaths: This heavy duty truck changes the position of the cab in an attempt to minimize cycling related incidents. (via TriathleteTech)
8) Velcomputer bike ‘power meter’ offers SDK: I outlined this product back at Eurobike in the fall. It’s just hit the markets. I don’t yet have a unit in hand. However, I will note that charging $999 for a developer SDK isn’t a good way to boost adoption. It essentially says they don’t expect enough sales to cover the product’s R&D and proliferation. Field of dreams is the best way to get developer adoption: Build it, give it away, and they will come.
9) DIY bike trainer setup that taunts you: It’s sorta better to just go and check this out, rather than try and explain it. Definitely for the developer types. (Via TriExpert)
10) Ultra Marathon Runner wins battle against cancer: Also of note is that the reporter behind this story is really active in the endurance sports community, and even has a blog within the community as well. Good to see it being elevated into the mainstream media.
11) 40% of NYC cyclist injuries involve a taxi cab: Kinda a startling statistic from the Big Apple.
Crowd Funded Projects of Athletic Note:
This is a bit of a new section. Most of this content used to be found within the main section, but I figured I’d just call it out up here and make it easy to find. I regularly sift through Kickstarter and Indiegogo (plus a few others on occasion) looking for sports projects.
Here’s the athletic projects of note that are about to expire:
Bikespike: The Bikespike (a remotely viewable GPS tracking unit that locks onto your bike) is in it’s last two days and things aren’t really looking great. They were at 82% last I checked. They’re still down quite a bit on the funding. Remember the way Kickstarter works is that if they don’t hit the funding level, then you don’t pay anything. Really hoping this one happens.
Here’s the athletic projects of note that are new:
Revolights launches new bike wheel lights: These lights are now embedded into the wheel frames, as opposed to being accessories.
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 is perfect, or Tweet it at me) 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?
Site/Firmware Updates:
Suunto Announces new App Zone Updates: Sounds like a pretty big update is coming at the end of the month.
Garmin adds Mexico Topo Maps: If you’re headed across the border and want to know about them mountains, you now have said option.
FINIS Updates Website for Swimsense and Hydrotracker: If you’ve got any FINIS (previously branded as Sportsense) technology, then you’ll want to check out the new dashboard/site.
Navi2Coach gets firmware update: Updated to version 1.1.0.
New ANT+ Simulator Tools Available: A complete redesign for the ANT+ simulator and scripting engine. This looks to be a release one, with them expecting to expand it out more. Remember, if you’re a developer, you should be nailing standards (like power meter data collection) in the simulator. There’s no excuses for screwing up ANT+ power meter data collection (and yes, that applies to you too Garmin). Period.
iPhone/iPad App updates this week:
Android App updates this week:
Windows Phone App updates this week:
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Thanks for reading!
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Too true about the Velcomputer SDK. They want have to worry about being rushed off there feet at $999. I am not clear what the hardware will cost but it’s a none starter to have an SDK costing more than the hardware. Having worked in a developer relations 15 years ago what you had to do was give your hardware away to people that could do good stuff with it. Then have a good SDK with good examples that make getting baseline support trivial. You also need to take supporting the developers seriously, dedicated contact methods idealy directly to the people responsible for the SDK. You also need to have co-marketing oportunities etc.
They should give it away to those who might do big things with it, but I’m not sure there are many of those. By that I mean established players you’d expect to put this device to good use where a free SDK offering is more like promotional material.
I think its fine to charge the general public for the end user hardware and maybe add on a small fee if they want the sdk too but $999 is too high. Seems like the value of this device is because it is cheap
for o-sync, here is the link to see what changed: link to o-synce.com
As to the Ant+ simulator, seems very cool. The issue I have with Ant is why have code like this that seems to handle Ant+ so well while the demo source code that have doesn’t? I understand that they want the sample to be as simple as possible, but why not have a more advanced demo? And why is it that the Ant+ profiles are so well defined but interpreting the packets is basically up to the developer? Seems to me like they would want to share the code behind the simulator and maybe have a framework (user generated or from the Ant+ folks) to make it easier to just have the data from Ant in their application and not worry so much how to implement Ant.
I’m torn on Bikespike. As a security device it seems pretty easy to work around so not really sure what i’d use it for when I already have an Edge bike computer.
Many problems with the safer (for cyclists) truck design, but first and foremost, where are the engine and transmission?
Outside the box thinking is great, provided you start with reality.
Can’t really tell but looks like the load sits higher which would allow it to be behind the driver extending under the load