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!
Just a heads up for those US folks, REI is having their semi-annual 20% off coupon deal. Basically, you can take 20% off most things. That excludes “items with GPS technology”, and a few other categories – but does allow for things like power meters, Garmin Varia radar, and more. Use the link below and it helps the site:
A few other things have popped up this week to add to the pile, so here’s a quick mention:
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.
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.
⚡⚡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.
⚡⚡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.
⚡ 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.
⚡⚡⚡ 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.
⚡ 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
⚡⚡ 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.
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.
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:
1) Is Polar considering going back to Wear OS? It seems as if that’s in the cards. Their CEO recently gave an interview with Wearable where they hint at it. I reached out to Polar, asking a few more questions about the topic. I got back a longer variant of ‘no comment/hang tight’. Ultimately, I think this would be a brilliant move for Polar. First, as their own CEO noted in that article, the previous Polar M600 was a bit ahead of its time. Sorta. WearOS just wasn’t ready then, and when it launched, neither was Polar. It lacked many of the features found on their own watches, for example, it didn’t support cycling sensors. If Polar does this again, they really need to go all-in. It needs to at least have the features of the Polar Pacer Pro. If it does that, then they’ve instantly got a hit on their hands. Also, note that while Google/Samsung restrict their own Wear OS 3 watches to Android, there are actually plenty of non-Google/Samsung out there that are compatible with both iOS and Android.
Anyways, as I’ve said many times, I think for Polar and Suunto, going to WearOS makes a ton of sense for at least one of their watch lines. Suunto last did so with the Suunto 7, which was a good first step – but was heavily limited by the WearOS hardware platform limitations of the time – as well as limited a bit by what Suunto wanted to roll out at first. The good news is I think we’re past both of those limitations/concerns if they were to launch new offerings on the latest gen Wear OS platform.
2) Pro Cycling’s TV Moto Mess: A look at the impact of TV motos on pro cycling. Also, one of the first pieces from the new Escape Collective site – which is basically where all the best CyclingTips folks ended up/created when Outside effectively killed CyclingTips.
3) Whoop revamps UI: In the unlikely event you’re a Whoop user and didn’t notice, Whoop has significantly revamped their user interface. I don’t mind it, but I don’t entirely love it either. It might take some getting used to. The previous homescreen was a giant waste of empty space, but the new one inversely feels really cluttered text-wise – with a lack of focus on where I should be looking. I think just a bit of UI text sizing on the main recovery/strain scores would help significantly. Here’s what mine looked like the other day, and then as you scroll down.
5) Garmin says Netherlands gets best sleep scores: Garmin has posted a bunch of sleep stats on countries/genders/etc by sleep stuffs. Apparently my current country has the highest sleep scores. I promise you, it’s not me. That said, having normal marathon race start times at 10-11AM is probably an indicator that people here really like their sleep.
6) Casio launches the Casio G-Shock GBD-H2000 powered by Polar metrics: I don’t have one of these yet. I might buy one, we’ll see. The watch has a slate of Polar algorithms powering it, specifically: Nightly Recharge, Sleep Plus Stages, HR Zones, Serene Breathing Exercises, Training Load Pro, Running Index, and Energy Scores. As I said, while I don’t have one yet, I have heard from those that I trust that do have one, that the watch itself is making some nice progress over previous Casio units – including the Polar metrics onboard. However, as was also previously the case, the app is currently a proper dumpster fire. You can’t export to anything yet, including even Strava. Which is why I’m not bothering with it at the moment. If I can’t get data out, I can’t really do any review on it. Still, I am excited to see how the Polar pieces work on this watch, once Casio sorts out the app side.
7) Peloton says they’ve got technical sidestep for import ban: For those not keeping track, somehow Peloton managed to get sued by Dish Network – yes, the satellite peoples – over streaming video. As always, welcome to the US patent system. In any case, as a result they got slapped with an upcoming import ban, which would impact their ability to import bikes into the US to sell. However, Peloton says they’ve got an alternative video streaming tech that they’re going to roll-out.
Historically Garmin has released those watches (Vivoactive/Venu) either the last few days of August, or, at CES (first few days of January). There was a year when one of those got released at MWC (late Feb), back in the years when MWC was seen as a cool place to announce wearables.
The more recent singular exception was the Venu 2/2S, which got released April 2021, but I’d chalk that up more to COVID-related timelines getting dorked up and Garmin finally coming up for air on some of their production lines.
Reader opinion re Vivoactive 5: I really doubt that the Vivoactive line will be continued. I’d expect transflective color screens to remain an option in the extreme endurance high end for a long time (Fenix/Enduro/Tactix), but I suspect that they consider lower price demand for passive-capable displays served by the Instinct family.
Personally I’m a bit torn about this, because I really like my Vivoactive 4s as a sweet spot between colorful and low-key. But then a part of me is actually happy that I don’t have to deal with the temptations of an update, one restraint challenge less. In an ideal world, Garmin would continue the Vivoactive line but only bump it to current state of the art every couple of years (e.g. Va5 after Fenix9).
Ray would be under NDA if he knew anything about a future Vivoactive, so I’d expect him to also remain quiet if he knew or suspected there wasn’t any. Because if he made a habit out of spreading knowledge of absence, remaining quiet (in case of something upcoming) would become an implicit confirmation of presence.
Yeah, I think I’ve said before, but I’m not terribly sure where a Vivoactive line fits anymore.
One of Garmin’s biggest problems is the never-ending SKU sprawl. Sometimes that can be justified, but I’d make the case there’s no reason or demand for a Vivoactive unit as-is today. Specifically, for a MIP-based display in the mainstream user market at that price point. These days it’s Apple Watch, Samsung Watch, or Venu, with a growing side of Pixel – and declining Fitbit. All of which are AMOLED and all of which compete for the non-endurance person.
Ultimately, I agree with USR. I think Fenix probably has one more MIP-based generation, and then I think Enduro becomes the MIP for the future people that want that kinda crazy battery life. By then AMOLED battery life will be on-par with MIP-based displays of today, heck, they aren’t that far behind for GPS-on time, it’s standby time that’s more challenging.
Not sure Garmin really considers SKU sprawl a problem: the your-watch-your-way programme suggests that they are looking for ways to boost direct to customer without alienating conventional distribution channels too much and SKU sprawl could be considered a tool for that job: “feel free to order whatever subset of our portfolio you want, we won’t force anything on you, if your would-be customers choose something not in your subset it’s your fault, not ours”.
On the software side, sure, they need a good architecture of their development process to easily do mix&match of feature subsets. But they are long past the point where they might get away without being very good at this and once they are, having a few more sub-variants will be very low cost (particularly when non-flagship devices continue to be lesser-amongst-equals in terms of updates).
(an interesting observation about your-watch-your-way: apparently it’s locale-dependent, e.g. in de-DE|nl-NL|en-GB I still see Fenix 6 and vivoactive 4 at the also-ran tail of that list, whereas in en-US the only non-recent still available through that direct-only programme is the original Venu Sq, and whatever they might consider non-recent in the vivomove flock)
It could be interesting if Polar went back to Wear OS. I had an M600 which I loved on so many levels but it never felt finished. I’m currently using a Garmin 255 for sports and a Suunto 7 for daily use but I’m still looking for one device which does everything I want. A Wear OS watch with all the features of a Polar Pacer Pro or a refreshed Suunto 7 could be what I’m looking forward but I do love Garmin for sports features. I’ve tried wearing the 255 as a smartwatch but found it limiting and frustrating. What do you think about the possibility of Garmin releasing a Wear OS watch?
Yeah, agree with the ‘never felt finished’ on the M600. And like-wise on the Suunto side, I just wish the Suunto 7 had the same sport/etc features at the Suunto 9 Peak Pro. Effectively, let the consumer choose which battery life/smartwatch feature balance they want.
As for Garmin releasing a Wear OS watch – I’d say 0% chance.
There’s little reason for them to at the moment. They got in early and got both payments and offline music streaming, and more recently, have voice assistants too. Meaning, while there’s still a notable hard-wall on the iOS side for text message replies (due to Apple limitations), most of the other smartwatch things are actually really in their own camp.
Yes, one could make the argument that there are more apps on Wear OS, but for Garmin’s sporty audience, most of those apps kinda suck in terms of features/functionality/polish. Certainly, there’s some good ones here and there, but you have to combine a lot of those apps to get even a fraction of what a Garmin Fenix has. And i’d struggle to see why Garmin would want to promote Wear OS watches, since the cost of those is much higher than their current hardware.
The Netherland has the best sleep of all countries? And Japan and Taiwan the badest?!
Easy to explain: The Netherlands is full of weedheads. It is a narco-state. Marihuana is legal and you can buy it in coffee shops. Marihuana drug abuse leads to sleepiness.
In Japan and Taiwan weed is strongly prohibited. No weed, no sleepiness!
I feel kinda weird that I, being Dutch, can’t tell whether you’re serious or not 😳
But from personal experience: while having one or two glasses of wine in the evening will lead to sleepiness for me, it also pretty much diminishes recuperation. On regular nights Garmin’s body battery restores (almost) completely whereas with alcohol it climbs only very little if at all during sleep.
Seems like for OSes for watches if Polar and Suunto switch to wearOS only wearOS, Apple watch, and garmin will have OS development going for advanced watches. Will google be a good partner to work with if they don’t have a backup os to use if they aren’t able o do what they want to do? Does simplify their development needs if they don’t need to worry about the OS side of things.
Hi Ray, looks like $700 may be the new landing spot for first level direct drive trainers. Saw that the Stages SB20 was on sale for $1300 (missed it and kicking myself a bit). Have a dedicated space in the basement, would you recommend the SB20 if it’s ever at $1300 again or a Kickr Core/Hub/Direto XR?
Have a tacx vortex wheel on I’d like to upgrade, but only an old 7 speed bike dedicated to it, so would likely need to spend some additional money to upgrade the bike to get it to work with direct drive.
I think it really depends on how much you want to deal with dragging bikes to/from basement.
I never thought I’d really want to get a dedicated indoor smart bike, but this past Black Frida when there was some really good KICKR Bike Refurb deals, we got one for home to get rid of the bike clutter between myself and my wife, and it works out pretty well for us. It does the up/down thing, but about 95% of the time I’m on TrainerRoad, so that doesn’t matter/happen (and would be akin to your Stages Bike).
That said, a KICKR CORE at $699 which is what I think it is today, is a great deal, and basically gives you an extra $600 to buy a Wahoo CLIMB, or just a lot of ice cream. :)
Ray — The SB20 is still an ERG mode disaster, right? I didn’t pull the trigger on the $1300 deal because of this, and will cry a bit if it’s been fixed and I somehow missed it.
That’s true. ERG mode isn’t solved there, and even Stages will admit that.
There are basically two categories of people there:
1) Those that know it’s an issue and it drives them crazy
2) Those that pretend it’s perfectly normal to have ERG mode be inconsistent
Obviously, there are people in the second category that don’t mind the inconsistencies, and that’s fine. Some try and justify it that it’s like riding outdoors, which is fine, but that’s not the point of ERG mode. That’s what SIM mode is for. Either way…
I went with buying a cheap dedicated trainer bike. The geometry is the same as my other bikes, and the lower-level drivetrain and heavy wheels don’t matter. :-) Having a setup always ready to go is a huge win.
Hey Ray, can’t really find this info, but is there a way to benefit from Garmin’s Training Readiness by sleeping with a smaller band instead of a watch? Can’t really sleep with a huge watch, so something like a Fitbit Inspire or even better Oura Ring would be more than welcome. Does unified training work with smaller devices? Cheers!
“normal marathon race start times at 10-11AM”.
Wow the only runs with sensible start times in my country (SA) is parkrun at 8AM. Everything else is 5/6AM.
i am having trouble using my forunner 955. maybe someone can help or explain. Garmin points out in their articles that climbs and air temperature are now taken into account when calculating training efficiency and vomax levels. For me, every running workout starts either with an uphill or downhill. in the first case, the watch gives the training efficiency “-5” in the first 5 minutes, and at the end of the training it always reduces vomax. In the case, if the training begins with the descent – the opposite is true. Zero objectivity. Is there any possibility in the watch to actually take into account the periods of uphills in training?
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
You'll support the site, and get ad-free DCR! Plus, you'll be more awesome. Click above for all the details. Oh, and you can sign-up for the newsletter here!
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
Want to compare the features of each product, down to the nitty-gritty? No problem, the product comparison data is constantly updated with new products and new features added to old products!
Wanna create comparison chart graphs just like I do for GPS, heart rate, power meters and more? No problem, here's the platform I use - you can too!
Think my written reviews are deep? You should check out my videos. I take things to a whole new level of interactive depth!
Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Check out
my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
Get all your awesome DC Rainmaker gear here!
FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
![clip_image001[7]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2023/03/clip_image0017.png "clip_image001[7]")
any venu 3 rumours??? thanks for all the great content
Not sure.
Historically Garmin has released those watches (Vivoactive/Venu) either the last few days of August, or, at CES (first few days of January). There was a year when one of those got released at MWC (late Feb), back in the years when MWC was seen as a cool place to announce wearables.
The more recent singular exception was the Venu 2/2S, which got released April 2021, but I’d chalk that up more to COVID-related timelines getting dorked up and Garmin finally coming up for air on some of their production lines.
appreciate the reply
i just know that if i was infatuated with any other model like I am with the venu, garmin would be releasing 5 venu’s a year!!! :)
Since you mentioned Vivoactive line, wondering if you have any thoughts on whether Vivoactive line will be discontinued in favor of the Venu line?
Reader opinion re Vivoactive 5: I really doubt that the Vivoactive line will be continued. I’d expect transflective color screens to remain an option in the extreme endurance high end for a long time (Fenix/Enduro/Tactix), but I suspect that they consider lower price demand for passive-capable displays served by the Instinct family.
Personally I’m a bit torn about this, because I really like my Vivoactive 4s as a sweet spot between colorful and low-key. But then a part of me is actually happy that I don’t have to deal with the temptations of an update, one restraint challenge less. In an ideal world, Garmin would continue the Vivoactive line but only bump it to current state of the art every couple of years (e.g. Va5 after Fenix9).
Ray would be under NDA if he knew anything about a future Vivoactive, so I’d expect him to also remain quiet if he knew or suspected there wasn’t any. Because if he made a habit out of spreading knowledge of absence, remaining quiet (in case of something upcoming) would become an implicit confirmation of presence.
Yeah, I think I’ve said before, but I’m not terribly sure where a Vivoactive line fits anymore.
One of Garmin’s biggest problems is the never-ending SKU sprawl. Sometimes that can be justified, but I’d make the case there’s no reason or demand for a Vivoactive unit as-is today. Specifically, for a MIP-based display in the mainstream user market at that price point. These days it’s Apple Watch, Samsung Watch, or Venu, with a growing side of Pixel – and declining Fitbit. All of which are AMOLED and all of which compete for the non-endurance person.
Ultimately, I agree with USR. I think Fenix probably has one more MIP-based generation, and then I think Enduro becomes the MIP for the future people that want that kinda crazy battery life. By then AMOLED battery life will be on-par with MIP-based displays of today, heck, they aren’t that far behind for GPS-on time, it’s standby time that’s more challenging.
Not sure Garmin really considers SKU sprawl a problem: the your-watch-your-way programme suggests that they are looking for ways to boost direct to customer without alienating conventional distribution channels too much and SKU sprawl could be considered a tool for that job: “feel free to order whatever subset of our portfolio you want, we won’t force anything on you, if your would-be customers choose something not in your subset it’s your fault, not ours”.
On the software side, sure, they need a good architecture of their development process to easily do mix&match of feature subsets. But they are long past the point where they might get away without being very good at this and once they are, having a few more sub-variants will be very low cost (particularly when non-flagship devices continue to be lesser-amongst-equals in terms of updates).
(an interesting observation about your-watch-your-way: apparently it’s locale-dependent, e.g. in de-DE|nl-NL|en-GB I still see Fenix 6 and vivoactive 4 at the also-ran tail of that list, whereas in en-US the only non-recent still available through that direct-only programme is the original Venu Sq, and whatever they might consider non-recent in the vivomove flock)
Ray, you should do a review of Ki2 (it’s changed a lot since your first mention) and interview the guy doing it. It’s pretty impressive
It could be interesting if Polar went back to Wear OS. I had an M600 which I loved on so many levels but it never felt finished. I’m currently using a Garmin 255 for sports and a Suunto 7 for daily use but I’m still looking for one device which does everything I want. A Wear OS watch with all the features of a Polar Pacer Pro or a refreshed Suunto 7 could be what I’m looking forward but I do love Garmin for sports features. I’ve tried wearing the 255 as a smartwatch but found it limiting and frustrating. What do you think about the possibility of Garmin releasing a Wear OS watch?
Yeah, agree with the ‘never felt finished’ on the M600. And like-wise on the Suunto side, I just wish the Suunto 7 had the same sport/etc features at the Suunto 9 Peak Pro. Effectively, let the consumer choose which battery life/smartwatch feature balance they want.
As for Garmin releasing a Wear OS watch – I’d say 0% chance.
There’s little reason for them to at the moment. They got in early and got both payments and offline music streaming, and more recently, have voice assistants too. Meaning, while there’s still a notable hard-wall on the iOS side for text message replies (due to Apple limitations), most of the other smartwatch things are actually really in their own camp.
Yes, one could make the argument that there are more apps on Wear OS, but for Garmin’s sporty audience, most of those apps kinda suck in terms of features/functionality/polish. Certainly, there’s some good ones here and there, but you have to combine a lot of those apps to get even a fraction of what a Garmin Fenix has. And i’d struggle to see why Garmin would want to promote Wear OS watches, since the cost of those is much higher than their current hardware.
‘0% chance’. That’s my feeling too. I’ll wait and see what Polar or Suunto come up with. Thanks
Any plans to add the FR265 to the product comparison DB?
The Netherland has the best sleep of all countries? And Japan and Taiwan the badest?!
Easy to explain: The Netherlands is full of weedheads. It is a narco-state. Marihuana is legal and you can buy it in coffee shops. Marihuana drug abuse leads to sleepiness.
In Japan and Taiwan weed is strongly prohibited. No weed, no sleepiness!
marihuana
I feel kinda weird that I, being Dutch, can’t tell whether you’re serious or not 😳
But from personal experience: while having one or two glasses of wine in the evening will lead to sleepiness for me, it also pretty much diminishes recuperation. On regular nights Garmin’s body battery restores (almost) completely whereas with alcohol it climbs only very little if at all during sleep.
Seems like for OSes for watches if Polar and Suunto switch to wearOS only wearOS, Apple watch, and garmin will have OS development going for advanced watches. Will google be a good partner to work with if they don’t have a backup os to use if they aren’t able o do what they want to do? Does simplify their development needs if they don’t need to worry about the OS side of things.
Hi Ray, looks like $700 may be the new landing spot for first level direct drive trainers. Saw that the Stages SB20 was on sale for $1300 (missed it and kicking myself a bit). Have a dedicated space in the basement, would you recommend the SB20 if it’s ever at $1300 again or a Kickr Core/Hub/Direto XR?
Have a tacx vortex wheel on I’d like to upgrade, but only an old 7 speed bike dedicated to it, so would likely need to spend some additional money to upgrade the bike to get it to work with direct drive.
Hmm, that’s a tough one.
I think it really depends on how much you want to deal with dragging bikes to/from basement.
I never thought I’d really want to get a dedicated indoor smart bike, but this past Black Frida when there was some really good KICKR Bike Refurb deals, we got one for home to get rid of the bike clutter between myself and my wife, and it works out pretty well for us. It does the up/down thing, but about 95% of the time I’m on TrainerRoad, so that doesn’t matter/happen (and would be akin to your Stages Bike).
That said, a KICKR CORE at $699 which is what I think it is today, is a great deal, and basically gives you an extra $600 to buy a Wahoo CLIMB, or just a lot of ice cream. :)
Thanks for being a DCR Supporter!
Thanks Ray,
That’s pretty much where I’m at with not wanting to drag a bike up and down to the basement. Core/Climb combo sounds like it may be the way to go.
Appreciate the response and the consistently valuable content!
Ray — The SB20 is still an ERG mode disaster, right? I didn’t pull the trigger on the $1300 deal because of this, and will cry a bit if it’s been fixed and I somehow missed it.
That’s true. ERG mode isn’t solved there, and even Stages will admit that.
There are basically two categories of people there:
1) Those that know it’s an issue and it drives them crazy
2) Those that pretend it’s perfectly normal to have ERG mode be inconsistent
Obviously, there are people in the second category that don’t mind the inconsistencies, and that’s fine. Some try and justify it that it’s like riding outdoors, which is fine, but that’s not the point of ERG mode. That’s what SIM mode is for. Either way…
I went with buying a cheap dedicated trainer bike. The geometry is the same as my other bikes, and the lower-level drivetrain and heavy wheels don’t matter. :-) Having a setup always ready to go is a huge win.
Hey Ray, can’t really find this info, but is there a way to benefit from Garmin’s Training Readiness by sleeping with a smaller band instead of a watch? Can’t really sleep with a huge watch, so something like a Fitbit Inspire or even better Oura Ring would be more than welcome. Does unified training work with smaller devices? Cheers!
Adorama has the Epix 2 for $675 link to adorama.com that should be in the list of deals
“normal marathon race start times at 10-11AM”.
Wow the only runs with sensible start times in my country (SA) is parkrun at 8AM. Everything else is 5/6AM.
i am having trouble using my forunner 955. maybe someone can help or explain. Garmin points out in their articles that climbs and air temperature are now taken into account when calculating training efficiency and vomax levels. For me, every running workout starts either with an uphill or downhill. in the first case, the watch gives the training efficiency “-5” in the first 5 minutes, and at the end of the training it always reduces vomax. In the case, if the training begins with the descent – the opposite is true. Zero objectivity. Is there any possibility in the watch to actually take into account the periods of uphills in training?
Chat GPT is pretty topical ATM Ray… could be worth a comment… link to linkedin.com