News Roundup

These are some of the less mainstream stories that came across my desk recently.

CYCPLUS Cube

Leave your pump or CO2 canisters at home. The CYCPLUS Cube shows if it has a sufficient charge that will typically inflate two tyres to a preset pressure of your choice. It fits much more easily into your back pocket. But at about $100, how long will that battery last?

45 products at Eurobike won similar awards to CYCPLUS but only 9 got a gold medal

1. SRAM Corporation Europe for SRAM XX Eagle Transmission
2. MOUSTACHE – Cycle Me SAS for Toolbike No 01
3. Robert Bosch GmbH for Bosch eBike ABS
4. Thule Sweden AB for Thule Epos
5. Tout Terrain GmbH & Co. KG for Tout Terrain Pamir
6. Shimano Europe for AUTO SHIFT & FREE SHIFT
7. SCOTT SPORTS SA for SCOTT Lumen 900 SL
8. Scholz & Volkmer GmbH for Call a Bike bicycle station
9. Pinion GmbH for Pinion E-Drive MOTOR.GEARBOX.UNIT

Enhanced Games

There’s this Australian guy who seems to be aiming to host a 2024 Enhanced Games, basically, you can dope all you want to.

The story even made its way onto the BBC. Here is how the feedback seems to go

1. Current Athletes – Shock Horror
2. Former Athletes – Shock Horror
3. Athletes That got caught and temporarily banned – Shock Horror
4. People That Don’t Want to offend anyone else – Shock Horror
5. Athletes serving a lifetime ban for doping and with zero sponsorship income – Hmmm.
6. 95% of the population – That would be cool, I’d love to see someone on steroids beat Usain Bolt’s record.

Except no one will beat Bolt’s record by just doping in 2024. If they can be enhanced in some other paralympic-type way then perhaps it could be beaten next year.

He is the fastest man in the world. He has broken Usain Bolt’s 100m record.

But the world isn’t ready for him. The Olympics hate him.

He has been vilified. He will be vindicated.

Come watch him compete at the 2024 Enhanced Games. pic.twitter.com/iop3IUptGz

— enhancedgames (@enhanced_games) June 19, 2023

Muscle Oxygen To Determine LT1/LT2

It seems that the slope of recovery in muscle oxygen levels after intervals can be used to determine Lactate Threshold levels (orange lines). I might write some more about this another time

Apple WatchOS 10 adds Power Meter Calibration Results

I moaned about this not existing and now Apple has made it exist. That’s the power of moaning…or just a coincidence

With WatchOS 10 you now get to see the results of your bike power meter’s calibration. So it’s good to ride.

However, the result is very un-Apple. I would have imagined the end result would have been way prettier and in green.

new Suunto Features Get Rolled Down To Older Models

New features for Suunto 9 / Suunto 9 Baro / Suunto 9 Peak

• Strava live segments on the watch
• Thai and Traditional Chinese languages enabled in the global edition
• Readability improvement through font colour changes and backlight improvements

Fossil Watches

Fossil Watches running Wear OS 3 get Google Assistant support

WINDPULS Windo Direction/Speed Sensor

More: Windpuls.com

This is a potentially super cool product that simply tells you measured live wind speed and direction. Similar information is available on Garmin CIQ from weather services but that’s not real, live wind that takes into account wind shadows.

I’d love to better understand how certain wind directions play out on some of my local loops.

I’d love to be able to map that info to briefly analyse after I’ve finished or maybe even map it for one lap and then ride the next lap hard.

No doubt there will be an app for this and I’d normally say that they would need to closely integrate with Garmin CIQ to succeed but they might just about get away with a standalone app with mapping.

Shimano 105 12-speed Mechanical

Shimano’s last 12-speed groupset was the entry-level performance called 105 (Ultegra and Dura-Ace are the performance groupsets above that)

12-speed 105 was assumed to be electronic/Di2-only. at least that was until Eurobike when Corratec Bikes inadvertently displayed it.

CYCPLUS Power meter Pedals

CYCPLUS showed a set of power meter pedals similar to those first made by Favero Assioma. They are rumoured to be priced at under $300 for a pair of Look-compatible or Shimano-compatible BLE/ANT+ pedals. It’s not clear if you get a dual-sided version for less than $300 but you might get the claimed 1% error accuracy. That’s a market-breaking set of options if true.

ROTOR 2 In Power SL

The lightest ever power crankset. I quite liked the idea of that and the 1.5% accuracy is OK.