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!
Sports Tech Deals of Note:
Ok, not much left this week. Sorta a lull. But hey, if ya need a GoPro Hero 8 Black or AirPods, it’s still on sale!
| Product | Sale Price | Amazon | Other site | Sale Notes |
 | Apple Watch Series 10 - $50 off
$399/$499 (cellular) | $349 | Amazon | | |
 | Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium - $75 off | $725 | Amazon | | This is a nice little deal for this unit which just came out. |
 | Fitbit Ace LTE Kids Activity Smartwatch - 22% off | $179 | Amazon | | This was just announced this summer, and is their first full smartwatch focused on kids activity tracking and gamification. |
 | Fitbit Charge 6 - 38% off!
$159 | $99 | Amazon | | This is the go-to sale price for the Fitbit Charge 6. It happens often, but it still doesn't take away from the fast that it's argueably the best bang for your buck fitness tracker out there. |
 | Fitbit Inspire 3 - $30 off | $69 | Amazon | | |
 | Fitbit Sense 2 - $70 off | $179 | Amazon | | |
 | Fitbit Versa 4 - $40 off | $119 | Amazon | | |
 | Garmin Edge 1040 Cycling GPS - $100 off! | $499 | Amazon | | This is a good deal, especially since it's gotten virtually all of the Edge 1050 updates, and then a boatload more. That said, it wouldn't surprise me to see this drop further to $449, as it did this past summer. |
 | Garmin Edge 540 - $100 off | $249 | Amazon | REI | ⚡⚡This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 540 to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well. This is kinda an insane deal for this unit. |
 | Garmin Edge 540 Solar - $100 off | $349 | Amazon | REI | This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 540 Solar to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well. |
 | Garmin Edge 840 - $100 off | $349 | Amazon | REI | ⚡⚡This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 840 to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well. This is one of my main units I use daily. |
 | Garmin Edge 840 Solar - $100 off | $449 | Amazon | REI | This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 840 Solar to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well. |
 | Garmin Edge Explore 2 - $40 off
$299 | $269 | Amazon | Competitive Cyclist | This is a great little unit, though, with the sales on the Edge 540 and 840 series, you might want to look at those instead. |
 | Garmin Epix Pro Series - 20% off!
$899/$999 | $649 | Amazon | REI | ⚡ This is the lowest price to date for the Garmin Epix Pro series, likely due to the Fenix 8 coming out a few months back (Epix as a brand was merged into the Fenix 8 branding). Still, if you don't care about diving or voice bits, this is an incredible deal. |
 | Garmin Epix Sapphire/Titanium (Gen 2) - $400+ off! | $449 | Amazon | | ⚡⚡⚡ This is a crazy super strong deal. Note the Epix received all of the software updates of the Epix Pro. While we saw a slightly better deal at $399 for a day back in October, this is otherwise the lowest price we've seen it sustained at. |
 | Garmin Fenix 7 Pro - 31% off (All Variants)
$799+ | $549+ | Amazon | REI | ⚡ This is the lowest price to date for the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro series, likely due to the Fenix 8 coming out a few months back. Still, if you don't care about diving or voice bits, this is an incredible deal. |
 | Garmin Forerunner 165 Music - $50 off! | $249 | Amazon | | This is the first time we've head a meaningful sale on the Forerunner 165, released earlier this year, down to $249 for the Music edition, and $199 for the non-music edition. |
 | Garmin Forerunner 255/255S - $100 off | $249 | Amazon | | This is Garmin's mid-tier running watch, and is a very polished option with good multi-band GPS, and of course, a boatload of running metrics. |
 | Garmin Forerunner 255/255S Music - $100 off!
$349/$399 | $299 | Amazon | | This is Garmin's mid-tier running watch, and is a very polished option with good multi-band GPS, and of course, a boatload of running metrics. This model also includes offline music such as Spotify and Amazon Music. |
 | Garmin Forerunner 265 - $100 off | $349 | Amazon | REI | This is the first time we've seen the Forerunner 265 on sale, and it's solidly priced right now at $349 |
 | Garmin Forerunner 265s - $100 off | $349 | Amazon | REI | This is the first time we've seen the Forerunner 265 on sale, and it's solidly priced right now at $349 |
 | Garmin Forerunner 955 - $100ish off! | $399 | Amazon | | This is one of Garmin's most popular running watches, and it's down to a very strong price. I often use this in my accuracy testing comparisons when validating other watches, due to it's very strong GPS performance. Note this is the base edition without solar. It'd be hard to find any better deal in sports watches today, from any company (given this has full mapping, tons of new features even this week, etc...). I say '$100ish', because it's usually been on forever sale at $499, so $399 is a strong price, though, it dipped to $319 for Amazon Prime Day. |
 | Garmin Forerunner 965 - $50 off! | $499 | Amazon | REI | This is the lowest price we've seen ever on the Forerunner 965, since it's launch. It's still Garmin's top-end Forerunner watch, and I expect it to stay that way for a while. It's one I often use in comparative testing as a reference device. |
 | Garmin Instinct 2X - $100 off! | $349 | Amazon | REI | This is a solid deal. Garmin Instinct 2X - $100 off!It's best thought of as an Instinct 2.5, as it has almost enough features to really be more of an Instinct 3 (which doesn't exist at this point). |
 | Garmin Tactix 7 Pro - 20% off | $1,049 | Amazon | | This is the largest discount we've seen to date on the Tactix 7 Pro unit. Note the other Tactix 7 Pro units/variants are also on sale for 20% off too (this link takes you to all of them). |
 | GoPro Hero 12 Black - $100 off! | $299 | Amazon | | The new Hero 13 just came out, which mostly just adds a bunch of new accessory options. If you don't plan to purchase those accessories, then this is a solid deal. |
 | GoPro Hero 13 Black - $60 OFF! | $399 | Amazon | REI | This is the first time we have seen the newly announced GoPro Hero 13 Black on sale. Solid deal, this is my daily use action cam! |
 | Google Pixel Watch 3 (41mm) - $70 OFF | $279 | Amazon | | Click to add $70 coupon into the cart. Bringing price down to $279! |
 | Insta360 Ace Pro Action Cam - $50 off | $299 | Amazon | | This is the previous edition, as the Ace Pro 2 just came out a few weeks back, but this is still a very solid camera from a year ago. |
 | Insta360 GO 3S Tiny 4K Action Camera - $60 off! | $239 | Amazon | | This is a great deal for this tiny little thing, which should really be named the Go 4, given how many new features it has (including 4K). It also has all the Insta360 sport integration features with Garmin & Apple, to overlay your Garmin/Apple data automatically on your footage. |
 | Jackery Portable Power Station - $60 off! | $199 | Amazon | | This is something I use frequently when shooting out and about and I need to re-charge a crapton of drone batteries, action cameras, or just cameras and such. I also use it on trips to Eurobike and elsewhere to keep equipment charged. I've even bought a solar panel to hook up to it (surprisingly effective). Heck, I've even powered a KICKR trainer ride from it! |
 | Tacx Flux 2 Smart Trainer - $200ish off
$899 | $499 | N/A | REI | I mean, I guess. Really, I don't see why anyone would buy this trainer at any price above $299. With the JetBlack Victory at $399 being more accurate, quiter, including WiFi, including Zwift Cog support (or mechanical cassette), including dual-Bluetooth, including Race Mode, and...one could go on and on. |
 | Tacx NEO 2T Smart Trainer - $200-$300 off
$1,399 | $899 | Amazon | | This is the go-to sales price for the NEO 2T, though has become more frequent over the past year. It's still an incredible trainer, and is the top-end non-moving trainer from Garmin/Tacx. |
 | Wahoo KICKR CORE Zwift One (COG V2) + Play Controllers
$499 | $499 | N/A | Zwift.com | This package includes the KICKR CORE with the Zwift V2 Cog, but notably now also includes the Zwift Play controllers. Basically, this saves you about $100 or so, and is the first time we've seen them bundle it. |
 | Wahoo KICKR MOVE - $300 off!
$1,599 | $999 | N/A | REI | ⚡⚡ This is actually a very solid deal, and the first time we've seen this discounted. In fact, frankly, this is the first time in years it feels like Wahoo is actually doing a legit sale on something. Kudos. |
 | Wahoo KICKR ROLLR - $100 off
$599 | $499 | N/A | REI | |
 | Wahoo KICKR SNAP - Lowest Price Ever
$499 | $199 | Amazon | REI | This is lowest we've ever seen the KICKR SNAP priced. While the trend has moved towards wheel-off/direct drive trainers, this is still really solid deal if your budget it tight. That said, if you're in Europe, Decathlon has the D100 on sale for $199 also, and in my testing, I'd go with that almost every time. |
DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week, as noted last week, I planned for this past week to be pretty quiet as I prep for this upcoming week
Monday: Week in Review – August 17th, 2020
Wednesday: Garmin Shows off Smart Trainer Integration on Fenix 6 & Forerunner 945
Friday: Suunto Rolls Out New Popular Routes & Starting Points App Features
So hold onto your hats folks, we’re in a for a wild week ahead…
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 (and in this case, some of these are from the past few weeks to clear out the backlog):
1) Ghost Pacer Heads Up Display Augmented Reality Glasses For Running: These glasses use augmented reality to see a virtual pacer overlaid onto the real terrain. It’s also probably easier to watch their video on their Kickstarter page. I’ve got a long history with trying out various glasses/goggles/etc for sports. I think this is a tough pitch, less because of the tech, and more just the Kickstarter timelines. Delivery of July 2021 is basically saying in Kickstarter lingo ‘Maybe early 2022’, which…is like five pandemics from now.
2) The Tour de France Starts Next Week – But Should It? Of course not, but that won’t stop it. I won’t be going this year – the first time in nearly a decade. I just don’t think it’s right to go at this point and add to the 3,000+ staff/riders/media/support organization situation that meanders across France for thousands of miles. Also, with access highly restricted (no team bus access even for media this year), there’s little reason to go for what I tend to cover (the tech). There’s always next year…hopefully.
3) The Case of the Top Secret iPod: This is just geeky interesting. Plus, remember Nike Running on the iPod with the old footpod? See, now it’s vaguely sports tech related.
4) Zwift Enrolls Ambassadors for Paid Support Tier: This actually might make sense. While these people won’t have access to personal information, they can easily help with the umpteen million questions on what a burrito is, and which way you stick your ANT+ dongle.
5) Apple Watch Continues to Dominate Smartwatch Sector: Though, Garmin now takes nearly 10% of the market, coming in at #2 – surpassing Samsung and others. As a reminder, the official and singular definition of a smartwatch is simply “one that supports 3rd party apps”. At least according to IDC, which isn’t the publisher of this study, but hopefully at least these groups can coordinate that definition this year. As always, that definition changes on a yearly basis, often to support whatever agenda said research firm wants to further.
6) Early findings from Fitbit COVID-19 Study with 100,000 participants: As with the other studies from wearable companies I’ve linked to, this doesn’t mean they can predict whether you have COVID-19, but it’s still interesting to see what companies are doing in this space. In this case, these specific metrics would do more or less the same thing for numerous other illnesses. However, their detailed symptom tracking of the 1,000 people who did test positive for COVID-19 was also super interesting (more of that data linked above).
7) 2022 Tour de France Rumored to have 1-week Women’s Edition: This would be a major step up over the last few half-hearted variants. Though, I’d prefer to see it run concurrently, as by the end of the Men’s Tour de France, the media covering such an event simply don’t care anymore. Running it concurrently (perhaps on week two) would make it easier for media coverage.
8) Random Tidbit Time: In the 1989 Cycling Tour de Trump (an actual cycling event), one of the Dutch teams was sponsored by a brothel. No kidding. Photo of said team (totally safe for work) at the Tweet above.
Sports Tech Device 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, Wahoo, Polar, and a few other firmware updates.
Garmin Edge 530/830/1030/1030 Plus Firmware Update: A boatload of fixes/tweaks, new workout menu functionality, as well as various other minor changes. It’s a huge list though.
Garmin Forerunner 45 Firmware Update: Bug fixes.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Firmware Update: Bug fixes and added LiveTrack Course Display, plus other tweaks.
Garmin Forerunner 945 Firmware Update: Same as FR245 but also added Smart Trainer integration as noted in my main post earlier this week. Also, a bunch of other fixes/improvements.
Garmin Instinct Firmware Update: Mostly minor tweaks.
Garmin Instinct Solar Firmware Update: Added a number of minor things, including battery % in main menu (previously only showed when charging)
Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT/ROAM Firmware Update: Stability improvement and wheel circumference for LEV
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With that – thanks for reading!
Do you anticipate commenting or writing a piece with your take on the Garmin ransom hack? I’m curious to hear your thinking here. Should I stop waiting? Just seems like one of the biggest Garmin tech stories and I’d love to get your take.
I don’t think I honestly have much more to add at this point. Maybe down the road if more insights are gathered, but I think most of the security folks sites like Bleeping Computer have covered it well enough.
Outstanding questions are more around to what degree system were infected (versus being proactive shutdown). That’ll come out over time.
Is the 645 series being left behind? Don’t see it on list of updates
I checked with Garmin this week about it actually – at this point, in terms of new feature updates – “That ship has sailed.”
Also happens to be hugely on sale at Amazon. Music version is $285 in USA.
Presumably means a Forerunner 655 is about to drop. TBH, I think when a Garmin device reaches end of life that’s about the time the software becomes stable enough to be non-frustrating to use. It seems possible that the 655 has been delayed longer than anticipated, which doesn’t bode well for a non-buggy introduction.
Thanks for checking with Garmin. I’ll replace my 645 with a 945 or whatever version of 945 is available then. Do feel a bit stupid for paying full retail for my 645M, but I do use it a lot.
I just received a firmware update on my 645. It went from 6.40 to 6.70, but I have no idea what changed.
I’ve had this watch for 2 months and am disappointed with everything but the battery life. I went from using my phone with an ANT+ chest strap to the 645. GPS is no better, feels worse, and heart rate is much worse. The altimeter usually reads low, putting me below sea level at times. Just a bad experience.
2022 is a joke should have been years ago. It can’t be that difficult the only thing I can think of is the cost of the TV coverage as the setup they use is pretty complicated and I suppose it’s all sponsor funded.
If they wanted to set an example they should do it at a loss to promote women’s cycling in the hope of gaining the sponsors for later years.
Yup, I agree. But if they can get commitments from towns now for then – that’s progress. I can see why pinning it on 2021 would be iffy right now, especially for getting towns to commit to it (which is in turn based on tourism, which could and will likely still be more limited next summer).
Bought an Apple 4 Cellular when it was released as I wanted to leave my phone at home, then I got a Fenix 6 as I wanted a device that supports Ant+, never worn by Apple since… still think the Apple is the best “Smart Watch” going, wonderful device, but for Sports, well the Fenix is in a different class, but I don’t class the Fenix as a Smart Watch, its a Sports Watch and I love it
Can we bribe Garmin to finally remove the little radar icon on the top right of Edge devices when the Varia is paired? It was a nice visual at first, but now seems unnecessary and takes up real estate
I like to know it’s still communicating and not fallen off my bike on the roadside. I think I’d get a “disconnected” message too, but that little icon makes it super clear…
So if I were to receive an invite to be a Zwift ambassador, presumably there will be a further elimination process as I can’t believe I am in the top 15-20 potential ambassadors in the UK (suspect many people received the email as I did)
Maybe not that great of deals, but thought I saw Garmin twitter advertising discounts on the VA 3 and… Fenix 5 series?
Also, semi behind the scenes GPS update (2.70) pushed to FR 935 that seems to significantly improve open water swim tracking (course plotting, distance is more consistent too but always short). I think the same update went to Fenix 5 series?
Regarding a women’s TdF, I’d actually prefer that it take place as soon as the men’s race ends. It gives the women the full focus that they deserve, and it pushes off the inevitable “end of the TdF” blues ?
Yeah, I can see the desire there. Unfortunately from a media coverage standpoint, most organizations throw all their money and resources at the TdF, and then those folks are beyond exhausted after three weeks of that.
You’d get coverage from CyclingTips type folks that have dedicated women’s cycling resources, but not much else.
Having been to the TdF so many times (and spent time with some of the women leading this charge), the ability for them to execute a women’s race roughly 1-2hrs ahead of the men’s race would absolutely be a lesser effort than an entirely separate race. However, for whatever reason ASO really doesn’t want to muddy those mens waters.
You even saw that with La Course, it was insane how much effort they put into making it look like they didn’t care. Silly things like – you couldnt buy a La Course t-shirt/etc *ANYWHERE* on any of the days. Mind you, I get an e-mail daily from TdF (including just 8 mins ago) trying to pitch me t-shirts for the TdF. It’s the little things that people notice.
I’ve never seen the issue with a womens race starting 10 minutes after the mens race. It would be awesome for people who hike for a spot on a mountain since they’d then get two 5 minute windows of excitement. It would be awesome for the press since helicopters could be shared, media would stay in one spot etc. It would be awesome for women because they’d get the same race, not some half arsed small pink version of it. It would be awesome for sponsors because they’d get more coverage for approximately the same outlay. It woudl be awesome for teams because mechanics would be in the same place. If the experts are right and women are slower then there’s no issue with the finish line being shared. If not, then we get awesome TV as women overtake the men on the mountain…win win.
It would be terrible for sexist race organisers who try to block women in sport though, so it probably won’t happen.
Oh well at least we have women’s downhill mtb to watch where there is far more equality.
The Giro Rosa already has been taking place during the TdF for the last few years. If ASO would organize the Women’s Edition of the TdF in the second week, it would be really tough to have those stage races follow each other that closely. Maybe it would be feasible if TdF-W was organized in week 3 and Giro Rosa in week 1, bonus would be that men’s and women’s GC could end the same day and they could share the podium ceremony (or do they do that already?)
I guess you’d want the Giro Rosa to be organized during the men’s Giro as well, but that’s not ASO’s call to make. And I think the Giro Rosa benefits from being organized during the TdF, it gets more publicity. For example in my country (Belgium), we have a daily talkshow during the TdF that covers the Giro Rosa as well (a little, the lack of good camera footage doesn’t help), but there’s no such talkshow during the Giro.
Yeah, I think though the Giro Rosa timing is a prime example of why the Giro Rosa fails from a coverage standpoint.
Having gone to it last year for a stage, it was desolate. Like, kids soccer games have more fans on the sidelines than the Giro Rosa did. This, despite the fact that it was a time trial stage specifically designed well for fans.
Just look at my photos from last year – nobody is around: link to dcrainmaker.com
Yeah from the local spectator angle you’re right, I was mostly thinking about television coverage and my own habits (I don’t really keep track of road races outside of the TdF and the Classics). But it is kind of depressing watching races with no spectators.
I agree although I’m sure there could be arguments made about the need for more cars etc and the risk of cars getting through if both fields bunch. But really it is just because the women remains a low priority and all the normal nonsense they spin. As a Yorkshirewoman (hosts of World Champs/TdF in 2014/Tour de Yorkshire etc) I can tell you that there are places that will turn out to watch a women only day.
It’s so depressing that it’s 2020 and we are still having this conversation.
Yup, totally agree. One of these days I hope ASO comes around.
In talking to the women last year, it was super interesting in that one of the key things they’ve shifted to doing is applying pressure to the sponsors of the men’s events (such as the Tour of California, TdF, etc…). And we’re talking big sponsors – the Coca Colas of the world.
And what they found was surprising to them. They expected to walk in the front door and find hostility to equality, but in reality, many times these sponsors of events at the executive level didn’t even realize there wasn’t equality. Sure, for the TdF they knew that – but in many other more regional events (ToC for example) – it was a huge shift in the conversation.
I just finished reading Nicole Cooke’s book “The Breakaway” and I agree that it is a bit depressing that many of the same problems she was battling 20 years ago still exist today. However, things appear to be moving in the right direction for women’s cycling and the fact that there is a discussion about a women’s Tour de France happening on a technology site is an encouraging sign.
I just hope that more people discover women’s cycling because often the women’s racing is more exciting than than the men’s. Plus, more diversity will only make the sport stronger.
Ray you might revisit your Garmin software post. That big update for the devices you list comes after the last update bricked a number of 1030 units. It appears one issue has been having BT and Wifi concurrently enabled. I had two 1030 units in a row replaced by Garmin after the 9.5 firmware version caused them to only boot up after a soft reset which would delete profiles and BT pairing. Folks are already encountering issues with Version 10.0, see the forums.
Re the Forerunner 945,I saw in the 5.0 release notes something about support for workout videos. What’s this about?
Latest Element update seems to have borked the Di2 Gear field? I’ve used it for two bikes and now neither shows the current gear despite the Di2 showing up a a sensor. Anyone else use that data field?
Ray – on the 830 update? Have you seen/ heard of issues? I put in on ahead of my Saturday ride and had repeated, probably a dozen over three hours of momentary drop outs of ANT+ radar (Garmin) and Powermeter (Quarq) and Bluetooth (Phone) each only probably a couple of seconds but the Scosche on the arm was fine and didn’t drop out. Seems like they have tried to get clever with the power management and taken it too close to the edge? This is of course ironic (also known as a bit of fail) when the updates purports to have “improved sensor connectivity” and iPhone pairing!
On the plus side, its the first time in 3 rides that it hasn’t cut out at exactly the same point at the top of exactly the same climb before exactly the same turn so fingers crossed the random mid ride meltdowns have been sorted!
What’s a burrito??? ?
The most fantastic food device ever made.
Is it lunch yet?
I want to upgrade to Fenix 6 Pro in this year. Do you have any intel whether there will be new model of Fenix series in this year, please? I’m bit hesitant whether to wait for new model or not. Thank you
Any plan to look at new FitBit devices?
Yup: link to dcrainmaker.com