Internal Mono(b)log

I’ve been meaning to write this review for almost a year(!), but having waited has given me more training and racing experience with this kit.  So rather than doing a review and a subsequent follow-up, I can now roll it all into this one post.  So… yea it was intentional… really 😛    So lets get into it!

Finding the Pro In-R-Cool Tri Set

I first heard about the In-R-Cool clothing from an article about Pearl featuring Angela Naeth and wind tunnel testing. The results of the testing showed a drag reduction similar to what you’d expect from a set of race wheels.  I needed a new suit and I was “sold”.  I started looking, but to my surprise, I couldn’t find the set in my size anywhere (online, brick-n-mortar, distributors, etc.)  Eventually the folks at Shimano Canada who are also the Pearl Izumi distributor up here found me a display set, in my size, AND allowed me to pick it up on my way to Ironman Mont Tremblant.

Tremblant was a great 1st test for this kit: we got it all, hot, cold, windy, still, rain, sun, overcast, even a double rainbow (sure the clothes had nothing to do with that, but it was still pretty amazing).  I’ve since also worn it for gallons of training and for the Leadman Marquee 125 in Tempe, AZ (yes, it was very hot there 🙂 ).

Comfort and Fit

The In-R-Cool tri set just feels fast.  Kind of like the 1st time you wear a speed suit swimming, this suit just feels like it moves through the air better.  Unlike many tri sets, the Pearl Izumi In-R-Cool set is also super comfortable.  The tri-top has no zipper to rub and chaff.  I was concerned about the inability to open the zip for cooling, but in practice I was cooler where the tri-top covered than where it didn’t.

The tri-short chamois is, minimal (as you’d expect):

As minimal is it is though, it’s pretty darned comfortable.  Would I want to race RAAM on it?  Well, no, but I wouldn’t do that with a tri-short at all, so yea… for its purpose in life, its well done.

I was a little skeptical of the claims that the suit is cooling and reflects UV but, in practice, it was definitely proven true.  I do wish there was a men’s “shrug” (to cover the arms, shoulders and back of neck where the tri-top doesn’t cover), but unfortunately these are strangely only available for women.   When I raced in Tempe I actually only wore the shorts and wore a cooling long-sleeved shirt to prevent sunburn on all the exposed skin.  I wish I’d had some sort of solar protection in the In-R-Cool materials because I’d have loved to wear the full kit.

Finish and Durability

Pearl warrantees all their clothing with a lifetime guarantee!  That’s confidence in your product and having put a lot of hours into this kit I now understand that confidence.  This kit is bombproof: all the seams on the tri kit are welded and have no threads to pull loose, break or fatigue over time; the materials the clothing is made of feel “space-aged” and super technical, but rugged.  Again, when I first got the kit I was a little nervous that the technical nature of the material would make it fragile, but it’s tough… really tough.  Like, survives road-rash tough!

Conclusion

Pearl Izumi make many pretty outrageous claims about this clothing line.  I approached the claims with a skeptical eye, but was proven again and again that they were true.   Does the tri-suit save me as much time as my Madfibre wheels or my disc?  I can’t say, but it sure feels fast 🙂  Beyond that though, the suit feels good, cool and comfortable and has proven itself to be very durable.  Nice job Pearl Izumi! 

2 Excellence in Customer Service awards today.  One for Finis and one for Newton Running.

In the last week I’ve had truly outstanding experiences with both of these companies and wanted to relate them to you here.

In no particular order:

Newton Running:  When I was in Arizona I grabbed a new set of Newton Distance runners.  I previously had a set of 11’s and thought they may be a little small, so when I was in Tempe, I tried some 11’s and 11.5’s and thought I had a better fit with the 11.5’s.  After getting back to Toronto (with no box and no receipt) and putting a couple of hours into the 11.5’s I found that, in fact, they were too big. 🙁  I pinged Newton customer service to see if there was anything that could be done and to my amazement, after some pretty minor back and forth (proof of purchase in terms of a credit card statement, pictures of the shoes, etc.) I was given an RMA# to send the shoes back and have a pair of size 11’s shipped to me!

Finis Inc.:  I absolutely LOVE my swimp3.  It allows me to swim my 6+ hours weekly and have music or podcasts or audio books droning in my head rather than just the sound of water (which is ok sometimes but I really do like having some tunes in the background).  I baby my Swimp3: I store it in a hard case in my swim bag, never pull it by the wires, etc.  Essentially I want to make the device last as long as possible (they aren’t cheap).  Well my latest swimp3 started acting wonky last week: it probably had over 300 hours in the water on it and so I could hardly feel ripped off if it’d just died a timely death, but again, I pinged customer support to see what, if anything, could be done.  Other than showing proof of purchase there were no formalities with Finis.  A RMA# was issued and soon a replacement will arrive!

Companies around the world should look at these 2 examples of how it should be done.  So often we’re quick to slam companies for poor service and silent about great service.  I wanted to give some praise because it’s due.  Well done Finis and Newton.  Well done!

Some great drills here but more importantly what they correct for and how to tell if you should be focusing on them.  Nice!

Feel For The Water! Advice & Tips to Improve Your Swimming.: Should You Be Doing More Of That Drill You Hate?.

My coach is one of the best kept bike fit secrets in Toronto.  Why he isn’t run off his feet just doing bike fits is beyond me!

Seriously, if you’re a triathlete or cyclist in Southern Ontario, do yourself a favour: book a fit appointment with Ian and get your bike dialed in.

Yet another glowing review: Purchasing a tri bike based on numbers!.

Last weekend I had the opportunity via Klout and Cadillac to have a Cadillac ATS for a 3 day test drive.  I know it’s off topic a bit for my blog, but I really wanted to share my experience with this car.

2013 Cadillac ATS (Photo credit: Automotive Rhythms)

So let me start by saying, a Luxury Sport Sedan is not in my snack-bracket.  In fact, living in the city, a 15 minute walk from work and close to all my amenities, I would have a hard time justifying a car at all.  Autoshare, Zipcar and Car2go supplemented with traditional rentals works just fine for me and is more cost effective.  All that said, IF I were in the market for a luxury sport sedan, the ATS would be atop my list.  Does the Cadillac name hold the “name appeal” of Audi, Porsch, BMW, or Mercedes?  Well no, not today, but with offerings like the ATS this may change.

I’ve driven quite a few performance cars, though none as recent as a 2013, and I have to say, I’ve never driven anything that impressed me as much as the ATS.  I had the 2.0L turbo with winter tires on (actually) wintery roads in Toronto.  I had the opportunity to drive the car on messy side-streets as well as clear and dry highway.  The car easily has the pickup and handling characteristics of a mid-series BMW.  Even aggressively accelerating onto the highway it was smooth and effortless.  Really though, the things that impressed me with the ATS were all the electronics systems and systemic integration.

Frankly, the ATS is a geek’s wet dream.

Things I loved about the car, in no particular order:

• configurable HEADS-UP-DISPLAY (HUD) projected on the windshield for the driver – OMG yes!  I wish it was bigger and used more of the windshield to display more stuff but even as it is it’s amazing and so convenient

• 360 degree monitoring and alerting (blind spot, parking, being-tailgated, etc)
• lane-drift warning (if it detects road lines and you start crossing without signalling it alerts you)
• a haptic alarm in the driver’s seat (yes your seat vibrates when warning conditions are active – SO COOL!)
• adaptive cruise control (cruise up behind someone who is travelling slower than you and the cruise control slows you to keep a safe distance)
• dynamic driver’s console and center console, further the center console is all touch activated (no mechanical switches)
• heated seats AND STEERING WHEEL
• strong voice recognition that better understands informal speech

Would I buy one?  No, it really doesn’t suit my needs (if I could justify a car at all, it’d be a SUV, Jeep, or pickup to support transporting bikes and race/training gear).  Would I give away/sell one if I were to win it or be given one?  NOT A CHANCE! 🙂

Thanks Klout and Cadillac! That was a lot of fun.

Pecan Pie Ice Cream | Raw Ice Cream Recipes | Healthy Blender Recipes.

OMG this is SO good and 100% dairy free.  I could eat waaay too much of this far too easily.

I’ve been a long time fan of The Sufferfest cycle training videos.  As the name suggests these are true tests of your cycling mettle and the newest title The Wretched completely lives up to the Sufferfest standard.  In fact, it may set a new bar in Sufferlandia.

The Wretched runs for just less than an hour and is packed with suffer-inducing climbs, attacks and break away simulations using actual licensed footage from the Tour de France. 

The Sufferfest videos always include an RPE scale to indicate how hard you should be pushing in the given segment, but new to the Wretched is a cadence indicator.  So now with the effort and cadence guidance not only do you get a good hard (ok very hard) workout, but because of the cadence recommendations you’ll get to work different energy pathways and muscle groups while participating in a breakaway or a long and tortuous mountain climb.  The addition of cadence is a great idea and is well implemented.  You’ll love to hate this feature. 🙂

For those of you with computrainers, tacx trainers or other computer-integrated bike trainers, the sufferfest courses are programmed into Perfpro, Trainerroad and others so that the effort output is managed for you synced to the course.  The cadence is still up to you, but do it and feel the burn 🙂

If you, like so many of us, are stuck on the trainer for the winter months, I encourage you to try the Sufferfest videos, they really help you mix up the trainer work and keep it interesting.  

Enjoy the suffer.

You may remember the review that I did of the BK-1 a few months ago.  They’re a bluetooth-based multi-rider communication system that’s pretty sweet.  If you haven’t read my review you should check it out over here.

Anyhow. Cardo is stepping into the “Big Leagues” with a recent announcement.  Check this out:

Read more… »

I reviewed the Wahoo fitness bike kit a few weeks ago.  While I gave it a good review, I really hadn’t yet given it any extensive testing and, to be fair, I was a little overwhelmed by the exhaustive list of software that is available for the Wahoo devices.

Well, since then, I’ve just been using the Wahoo Fitness app: it’s pretty cool!  It shows you more info than you could want: HR info, zones, power info and zones, speed, navigation, cadence.  It’s very configurable so you can see what you want to see, pretty much how you want to see it.  But!  More important to me than ALL this stuff is that is pretty much totally solves one of my BIGGEST peeves with online fitness services: there’s no 1 service that I can update that will subsequently update trainingpeaks, dailymile, strava, etc.  Well.. the Wahoo Fitness app to the rescue!  Record your workout with it and then you can upload that data to multiple services (I have strava, dailymile and trainingpeaks configured, others are available).   It’s not single button upload, but a few clicks per service and still WAY better than manually uploading to multiple services.  AWESOME.

I’m definitely still, in my own personal training and experimentation, only scratching the surface of the depth of functionality available for the Wahoo fitness devices, but I still remain very impressed.

In this blog post we’re looking at the Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Bike Pack with Bike Case and Speed / Cadence Sensor for iPod touch and iPhone.

The kit comes, as you’d expect, with an ANT+ dual speed/cadence sensor to attach to your bike and the Wahoo Fitness iPhone case and handlebar mount.

The ANT+ sensors attach to the bike quickly and easily with supplied zip ties.  Note that there are small zipties in the packaging for the sensor and large zipties for the handlebar mount for the case.  If like me you’re a bit clutsy, you may want to have a few extra zipties around of both sizes, so you can tweak the setup after you’ve done it wrong.  Don’t get me wrong, its super easy to do right – but I was in a hurry, attaching it in a light rain and of course spent more time tinkering with it because I was rushing.  Typical. 🙂

The case is rugged. Seriously!  I’m not sure if it’s water proof but it is certainly very water resistant.  I don’t have the ability (read: budget) to test water proof-ness, but I bet it’d survive a drop in a puddle or a good rain.

With the extra space at the bottom where the Wahoo fitness electronics are located, the whole package is reminiscent of the old Apple Newton (remember those) in size and weight.  Yea, this case is not really meant for dropping the phone in your pocket day-to-day.  The case attaches to the handlebars with a very solid bayonette mount and though the mount is bombproof, installing and removing the case from the mount is very easy and quick.  Definitely a well thought-out design.

I think the biggest “problem” with this product (and really it isn’t a problem at all) is that there is SO much software out there that leverages the hardware combination of the iPhone and Wahoo fitness ANT+ dongle.  There are run apps, cycling apps, mapping apps, social apps.  Literally pages and pages of applications.  You could probably do a year of workouts and only use each app once or twice.  It’s kind of nutty, but it speaks to the power and desirability of this solution. The apps wouldn’t exist if there weren’t users 😉  One of the apps: the actual Wahoo Fitness app (and I’m sure others) will upload your workouts to multiple social/training sites simultaneously for you (dailymile, strava, runkeeper, trainingpeaks, etc. all updated directly from the app with little or no interaction required.  Now that’s cool!)

One app idea that occurred to me, that  surprisingly, doesn’t seem to exist is something like SRMlive: live updates of athlete performance and gps location sent to a web service in real-time so that friends, family and coaches could see how the athlete is performing, where they are, etc.  2 extensions of this idea are: real-time coaching feedback (“I told you to hold back – what are you doing pushing 800w on that segment!”), and a “call for help/panic button” feature where the athlete could pre-configure who to contact and how and the phone could detect sudden and extended stops or, using the accelerometer maybe even crashes, and call for help.  These apps don’t seem to exist, but someone should fix that 😉

Using the Wahoo fitness system is pretty much as simple as it can be.  You pair the ANT+ devices with the software and away you go.  It’s flawless in its’ simplicity.  I did have one small glitch with the solution, but figuring it out it was simple to avoid: if you have multiple apps running that are competing for access to the Wahoo fitness interface, none of them works well.  The, obvious, easy solution, is to make sure that only 1 app is running at a time.  Even better, find your favorite app and delete the others from your phone for bulletproof operation.

I now understand why so many people like or love the Wahoo fitness solutions (either the full case or just the ANT+ adapter).  If you have an iPhone 3 or 4 and you train with ANT+ devices you really should checkout this solution.  If you already have the phone, then you can skip the costs of a specialized watch and just pickup the appropriate sensors for what you’re doing and use the Wahoo hardware and your phone for data capture/reporting.  A pretty elegant solution, esp if you already carry your phone with you for music/emergencies.

One caveat, at the time of this writing, Wahoo Fitness does not have a solution to work with the iPhone 5. If you’re planning the upgrade you may find yourself out in the cold for a bit while Wahoo gets an iPhone5 solution out.