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!
DCR Posts in the Past Week:
Here’s all the latest on the site, as January plods along:
Wednesday: Garmin ECG Feature Is Now Live: Here’s how it works!
Friday: Strava Responds to Pricing Fiasco, What Strava Costs in Every Country*
Things will start to slowly ramp up this week and into the coming weeks…good times ahead!
YouTube Videos This Past Week:
Here’s what hit the tubes over on the You of Tube, definitely don’t forget to subscribe there to get notified of videos the second they hit!
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) On Specialized’s Sponsorship Changes and Eric Lagerstrom’s Signing: This is a good article, and something I’ve been talking about for a long time – merely being a fast athlete isn’t good enough to earn sponsorship dollars. And frankly, it really hasn’t been for a long-long time. The entire point of sponsorships in sports is to raise the profile of the sponsoring company (measured any number of ways). It’s a business transaction, that’s it. If an athlete doesn’t do that, then it’s effectively more of a charitable cause (which is fine too, if it’s actually for charity). Eric and Paula do an incredible job of not just raising awareness for the sport of triathlon, what it means to be pro, but also equally as important: Their sponsors. Don’t get me wrong, you can still be a pro athlete and at the top of your game and take home prize purses, but if you want the far more lucrative sponsorship money, you have to find a way to draw your audience in. Sure, there are exceptions when you get to the Messi’s of the world, but for the other 99.99% of pro athletes out there, winning is just one piece of the puzzle.
2) Google Reportedly Working on AirTags Competitor: Would it be too much to ask for these platforms to be halfway compatible in terms of relaying position points? I mean, just asking for a friend.
3) World Surf League Declares Apple Watch as Official Sports Equipment: This seems to imply that not only does each competitor receive a device, but is also seemingly expected to wear it too, to get real-time tracking of data. Of course, Apple isn’t the only game in town for wave stat tracking. But certainly, a notable win. This is using a 3rd party app, versus a built-in feature/app.
4) Hammerhead adds surface type planning to map planner: This is a minor change in the grand scheme of features, but it’s notable that it also notifies you of upcoming surface changes (e.g. pavement to gravel or vice versa), on the unit itself. It’s a nice touch.
5) New Levels for Zwift Runners: Previously these were capped at 21, now there’s up to Level 30.
6) Apple VR headset to feature health/wellness experiences: It’ll be interesting to see if VR headsets of the next few years (from any company) will meaningfully break into the health/fitness realm. One of the challenges for VR headsets (such as this VR demo I did with Zwift years back), is simply sweat proofing. Sweat is far worse to deal with electronically than just plain water, and most headsets aren’t designed for sweat. Meditation won’t likely be a problem, but yoga could certainly be.
7) Two women saved in Canada with Apple Satellite SOS: At this stage, Apple Satellite SOS calls are still relatively interesting/notable. This one being two Canadian women that tried to re-route around some road closures and ended up in a snowbank deep in the forest without cell coverage. In this case no helicopters or such were needed, they were able to get local police up this road to sort them out (whereas nobody was going up that road anytime soon otherwise). Easily solved with satellite connectivity, but potentially deadly without it.
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With that, thanks for reading!
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