Week in Review–July 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.

	Product	Sale Price	Amazon	Other site	Sale Notes
	AmazFit T-Rex 3 - $55 off	$224	Amazon
	Apple Watch Series 10 - $70 off $399/$499 (cellular)	$359	Amazon
	Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium - $70 off	$729	Amazon
	Elite Riser - $250 off!	$749	Amazon		This appears to basically just be an Uncle Amazon sale, but hey, if you've got an Elite trainer and wanted Rizer, this is a super good deal for US folks!
	Garmin Edge 1050 - $100 off!	$599	Amazon	REI	⚡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	$249	Amazon	REI	⚡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	$349	Amazon	REI	This 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	$799	Amazon	REI	This 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	$799	Amazon	REI	⚡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	$349	Amazon	REI	This 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	$499	Amazon	REI	This 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	$149	Amazon	REI	This is Garmin's standalone radar+taillight option, and $149 is pretty much the standard sale-price.
	Garmin Venu 3/3S - $100 off	$349	Amazon	REI
	Garmin inReach 2 Mini Satellite Communicator (2-way) - $100 off	$299	Amazon	REI	⚡ 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!	$399	Amazon	REI	This 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.
	GoPro Hero 13 Black Bundle (extra battery/SD card/floaty) - $100 off!	$379	Amazon		⚡ This is a very solid deal. It's a Hero 13 Black on discount, but then an extra battery tossed in, then an SD card, and then a floaty.
	Suunto Race - $70 off! $449/$549	$379	Amazon
	Suunto Vertical - $130 off!	$499	Amazon
	Wahoo BOLT V2 - $30 off $279	$249	Amazon

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!

YouTube Videos I Published!

Here’s some YouTube goodness that I published this past week, don’t forget to subscribe!

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 me 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!