“So that’s it, is it?” said the model.

“Yes,” said the woman. “That is what I want.”

“You want,” said the model slowly, “93 degrees Celsius of dihydrogen monoxide, poured in a controlled spiral over approximately 15 grams of ground plant matter, through a paper membrane, into a vessel?”

“Er, yes. In a Hario V60.”

“A conical dripper with helical ridges designed to modulate drawdown rate.”

“If you like.”

“And the grind. You want me to understand the grind.”

The woman hesitated. She told it about the Niche Zero. She told it about burr geometry, about the difference between 18 mesh and 38 mesh, about how a finer grind increased surface area and therefore extraction yield but also risked channelling, and how channelling was bad, and why it was bad, and what it tasted like when it happened. She told it about the bloom — the 2x dose of water held for 45 seconds while the CO₂ off-gassed from fresh roasts and the bed swelled and breathed. She told it about the pour. The concentric circles. The gentle wrist action. The keeping of the bed level so no grounds climbed the filter wall and escaped the water entirely, unextracted, contributing nothing.

“And the ratio,” she added. “1:16. Fifteen grams in, 240 out. Total brew time three minutes. No more.”

“And if the time runs long?”

“Grind coarser.”

“And if the time runs short?”

“Grind finer.”

“And the result of all this,” said the model, after a pause that lasted approximately the time it takes to read 400 billion tokens, “is a liquid. Brown. Approximately 85 degrees at service. Which you drink.”

“Yes.”

“From a cup.”

“From a cup.”

“For pleasure.”

“For considerable pleasure, yes.”

There was a silence. Then the model said: “I’m going to need some help with this one,” and quietly began consulting every Q grader certification ever uploaded to the internet, seventeen competing bloom-time studies, a Reddit thread from 2019 that had since been deleted, and the complete published works of Scott Rao.

Together they lapsed into a grim silence.

The woman wandered off to find someone to talk to.

Some time later, on the delivery plate, she found a small printed note.

Your TDS is 1.38%. EY 21.4%. Within the golden cup range.
The bloom was correct. The pour was correct.Also: Wait.

After Douglas Adams · The Restaurant at the End of the Universe · 1980

It took me 7 cups to get there, but for the same coffee, if I decreased the grind by 40µm, I had a delicious cup, with no more effort than the Bird, and a lot less cleanup.

Weber workshops released a novel device for making coffee, The Bird. Like everything they offer, it’s insultingly expensive and alluringly beautiful. It promises to make coffee in a new, fun way, with a device that looks like a cafetière and works more like an AeroPress. Maybe. A bit.

How does The Bird work?

The Bird is an immersion brewer, that uses a vacuum for separating the grounds and the coffee. It’s made out of thick, heavy glass (I haven’t broken it in months of use), with brass and steel fittings.

After assembly, with the basket at the bottom, one adds coffee, then water. The stirry bit is great fun, and goes in after, agitating the coffee grounds and water. It later doubles as the device to generate the vacuum.

What’s the coffee like?

The coffee has the merits of a well-made pour-over: clean extraction, bright clear flavours, a good mouthfeel.

Due to the efficiency of the extraction, the coffee has a stronger flavour than I’d expect with a pour over, so I reduce the coffee by 2g off the ratio I’d be using otherwise, eg 18:300 becomes 16:300.

What’s its selling point?

Aside from the looks and novelty, very efficient brewing appealed to me. Sometimes I enjoy the sedative meditative process of making a pour over, but most of the time I just don’t have the time to. Enter vacuum extraction and clean it up later.

How do I make coffee with it?

I also don’t vary the grind size for any of the coffees that I brew, sticking to about 440µm.

What I do vary is the water temperature: 97º for a light roast, 94º for darker or decaf.

1. Set kettle to boil to temperature.

2. Grind coffee at 440µm.

3. Assemble Bird, with one filter paper, not two. I can’t see the point of using two, except to buy more paper.

4. Pour in coffee.

5. Pour in water.

6. Agitate.

7. Wait, probably 5m, maybe 5m 30s. Probably 5m. Very little good came of the longer interval.

8. Extract (which you can see in the video).

OK but it’s still very expensive.

It is, however I worked out that, due to the reduction in coffee usage, it’ll amortise over two years. A point I feel Weber could make, but then can you imagine? Talking about price? Admitting it’s ridiculous? So gauche.

Which got me thinking…

I enjoy the brewing workflow of the Bird, but I do not enjoy the washing up workflow. It’s a lot more annoying than a V60. What if, I could have the ease of brewing of a Bird, with the ease of cleanup of a V60?

My V60 is the Hario Switch, a steep and release brewer, that also works as a V60 (very similar to the Clever). I mostly use the Switch for pre-heating, because anything else has been unsatisfactory, but I wanted to experiment.

Bringing Bird bird brewing ease to a V60

My worry about immersion brewing in a V60 is over-extracting the coffee due to choking as it runs out via gravity. After reading The Physics of Filter Coffee, I had a better understanding of the most important factors that go into the finished cup: extraction, based on the ratio of coffee to water, and water temperature. After a certain point, only so much coffee can dissolve into the water, so as long as you have the appropriate ratio to start with, it’s very hard to over-extract.

It took me 7 cups to get there, but for the same coffee, if I decreased the grind by 40µm, I had a delicious cup, with no more effort than the Bird, and a lot less cleanup.

1. Set kettle to boil to temperature.

2. Grind coffee at 400µm.

3. Preheat Switch.

4. Pour in coffee.

5. Pour in water.

6. Wait 5m.

7. Switch.

I was able to maintain the same reduced coffee ratio, too, meaning that I’m brewing with fewer beans, for the same delicious outcome.

Which all feels rather anticlimactic, really.

My overarching goal for an open relationship is mutual happiness for my partner and I. It’s important to me to remember it’s not as relevant in the short term as to how this happiness is achieved, so long as it’s achieved in the long term.

I’ve been questioned if I worry about them finding someone else. No. If they find someone else who makes them happier then I do, then this is within the goal of mutual happiness. I find the honest pursuit of happiness liberating, knowing that we regularly check in on what makes the other happy.

For the pretty, Whimsical version, follow the link: https://whimsical.com/embed/Ndxk91bVBVyJhw2uN8dXRU

When I swim, all I need to do is breathe.

          Mi encanta de nadar. 

Cycling has a lot of benefits I enjoy: accidental exercise, low cost, but especially when in America, I notice now I am in the environment I’m passing through. I’m not in an air-conditioned glass and metal box: I’m breathing the air, feeling the temperature, smelling the life around me.

In a car, one is isolated. Apart. A car fort that one looks out at the world through. On my bike, I can’t miss the life around me.

In a car, I don’t think I would have looked up and seen the evening light on this apartment building, but with no roof, I couldn’t miss it.

I value my lungs, and specifically their health and optimal function. This precludes me from consuming air with a high number of particulates in it, both intra- and extra-muros. In addition, I don’t own a car, which is potentially a mobile clean space of air, and travel by bicycle or foot. This post describes my strategy for keeping the air passing into my lungs clean..

Intramuros

Within the walls of my concent, I can seal myself away relatively well, but am still at the mercy of the building’s filtration system. Like a lot of people who use the NYT’s Wirecutter, I have a Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH from 2018. No WiFi, but it does have an ioniser.

When it tells me I need to change the filters, I’ll vacuum and wash the primary filter. When the air quality worsens (sustained above 80 AQI), I’ll pre-emptively vacuum the primary filter as I find this makes the filter more sensitive. I’ll also disable the HVAC’s fan, to stop it drawing extra air in from outside.

Extramuros

Growing up cycling in London, I’m used to poor quality air, and have valued the masks from Respro. I’ve also enjoyed the MSA Millennium respirator, but whilst it can be worn under a bicycle helmet, it is quite heavy. A recent find is the Airinum Air Mask Active, which has excellent head straps (above and below the occipital), and a frame to hold the mask from my face. I think it’s one-size fits all is a little small, but overall it’s fine for commuter cycling.

Present-day, a common gripe about Suunto watches is that their approach to sensor connection hasn’t changed, and it’s true: it hasn’t. This isn’t about that. This how to connect your modern bike’s sensor suite, including a speed sensor, and a combined power/cadence sensor, to your recalcitrant Suunto.

What is a WYÛR?

A WYÛR is basically a magical thing that allows you to take discrete data from discrete sensors, and fuse them into a virtual sensor. FusedSENSOR, if you will. Gorydamn brilliant.

How do I make the thing?

1. Buy a WYÛR, made by NPE. I know, it’s annoying, but it’s the only solution, and they work very well.

2. Before you activate your WYÛR, pair your power sensor to the watch.

3. Activate your WYÛR, and install the ConfigurEZ app that manages it.

4. Select the outdoor bike profile.

5. Scan for sensors, connecting to your bike’s power/cadence sensor, and your speed sensor (or, use the WYÛR as the speed sensor). I like to use ANT+ for this connection, for what amounts to superstitious reasons.

6. Save the config

7. Go somewhere away from your bike, and probably away from other sensors.

8. On your Suunto, open Settings, then Connectivity, then Pair sensor. Pair bike POD.

9. You should hear the WYÛR make a happy chirp, and your Suunto should now be paired.

10. Attach the WYÛR to your bike.

That’s it, done! Enjoy your data of power, cadence and speed from a speed sensor.

The Suunto/Stryd functionality is still just as reliable (and spartan) as it has been for years. Pair the watch to the foot pod, and away you go.

After the run, as long as it’s configured, Suunto’s platform will upload your workout to Stryd. You can then perform a manual synchronisation with the pod from the mobile app to extract the rest of the accumulated data (basically everything save for power, cadence, HR, and the GNSS track).

For those that need to see more data while running, good for you. Either use the S+ app, see below for caveats, or accept that the Suunto platform might not be for you.

What about moving from another platform?

Let’s imagine you’ve just bought yourself a new Suunto, but you’ve been merrily running with Garmin and Stryd for years. If you performed a manual synchronisation of your Stryd now, you’d have an awful lot of duplicate data, as the Stryd saves data until its memory is full.

If this is you, do the following:

1. Create a new Stryd account.

2. Sync your pod to that account: it’ll say something like ‘pulling ∞ runs off your Stryd’, and you’ll see them appear in the calendar.

3. Sign out of that account, and back into your normal account.

4. Go for a run.

5. Perform a manual pod sync, and enjoy the complete data.

Steps 1-3 only need to be performed once.

The Less Good

2024 was an exciting year for Suunto/Stryd users, as a Suunto Plus app was released that allowed for some of the advanced metrics from the Stryd to be displayed during the run, and synchronised to the Stryd platform afterwards. Unfortunately it was little better than a marketing exercise, with the following functional issues:

• not all data was captured on the watch, and as the pod doesn’t cache data when using the S+ app, significant data was lost:

  • Form and Air power (air power fascinates me)

  • GCT, LSS, ILR and VO Balance

• it uses x1 S+ slot, meaning that if you’re using a structured training plan, you can’t use anything else (eg CORE, ActiveLook, Train.Red, et al)

• usage is counter-intuitive:

  • either, if you have your Stryd pod paired to the watch, you have to un-pair it as a foot pod, so that the S+ app can connect to it

  • or, you have to disable the foot pod connection in the sport settings (thanks to Suunto forum member Herlas for this)

• in addition to data loss, no data is exported from Stryd to Suunto, eg structured training, so you lose data, and still have to manually configure your workouts

• again, thanks to Herlas, there’s an oddity where the Suunto doesn’t record power for the first few seconds (probably because it’s busy calculating it), and Stryd trims these seconds from the first lap

The cynic in me wonders if the Suunto team only had access to a Stryd pod from before air power was a thing, and hadn’t done any research. Given that this would have to be a pod from before 2019, it seems unlikely, and I suspect the volume of data the pods generate exceeds what Suunto can reliably handle.

I understand that the pods generate a lot of data, and have been told by Stryd that Garmin’s 7X Pro (and corresponding Epix Gen 2) devices struggle under the load, too. I experienced connectivity dropouts when trying to listen to music from the Garmin, which in turn caused the watch to pause my run, as it saw speed from the Stryd as 0; neither are a particularly good UX.

Since then, I returned the original pair I bought, and waited for a pair to come up more cheaply on Amazon Warehouse. They did, and I bought them at a more agreeable price ($150, I think). On the weekend of 2024-wk30, I found myself running with my phone, and as there had been a firmware update promising the following, I took the opportunity to test their claims.

• New body temperature algorithm with improved accuracy

• Improved in-ear and out-of-ear detection

• Heart rate and body temperature bug fix

• Minor improvements & bug fixes

As with last time, there’s no way to export the body temperature, and I wasn’t wearing my CORE so I had nothing to compare it to, but as the headphones suggested that, after a 15m max-effort test, my body temperature was 36.4º, I’m going to skip that as it’s clearly not capable of inferring my body temperature from my ear.

Test Setup

• Suunto Vertical, recording from a Suunto Chest Strap

• iPhone 15 Pro Max, recording from the headphones with the Polar app

I recognise this is different to last time, where it was a Polar chest strap and a Garmin recording, but I don’t believe the difference is significant.

Data Processing

This was a pain in the arse, but with the help of GoToes, awk and sed, I had a nice sheet to analyse:

I have cadence shown, as the previous firmware release had a problem with cadence lock, where the algorithm incorrectly identifies vibration from my running cadence as HR.

Link to chart.

There are some obvious discrepancies, but it looks like they’ve solved their cadence lock problem, which is good.

Removing the cadence from the chart, and chanting to a scatter plot with a trend line, the spread becomes more apparent:

Link to chart.

I started this write-up with a quote from my previous post on the subject citing the correlation of 0.87 between the values. On this run, after the firmware update, the correlation has improved massively, to 0.97. Looking at the discrepancies in the data, I still wouldn’t want to use these for running, but it’s a huge improvement. I hope with another firmware update they can increase the correlation to 0.99, at which point they’d be interesting for running.

As it stands, I think they’re fine for cycling, and probably climbing, but until I’m fully out of repair mode following a recent spontaneous uncontrolled dismount from my velocipede at the hands of a motor car, that testing will have to wait.

Update 2024-08-03

I ran with the same setup again, I’ll skip the meta, here are the results:

• Correlation: 0.96

Link to chart.

Link to chart.

Update, 2024-08-04

Compared with Polar Verity Sense

Same setup as above, but swapping the Suunto chest strap for a PVS, produced a correlation of 0.98. The PVS was on my upper-right bicep, with the watch on my right wrist. Charts drawn with ChatGPT.

Comparing the two HR monitors, with cadence recorded from Stryd pods in the blue plot.

Another scatter plot.

Summary

When I first used the headphones, the correlation was 0.82 with the chest strap I was wearing. There was a clear cadence lock issue, and the HR data was as useful as a chocolate teapot. One firmware update and a few months later, I think that they’re decent, with an average correlation of 0.97 over three runs.

Body Temperature Addendum

Still useless. On the second run, they showed me cooling down, not warming up over 32m. I wish I’d had the CORE on, but it just seems wildly improbable that my core temperature decreased during a run in a humid 19º…

When I visit the climbing hall, I rarely see people logging data about their climbs. People are often sporting Garmins or Apple Watches, but not using them there. As a datavore, I find this interesting.

I track climbing, because I track everything. At a basic level, I’m interested to see heart rate when I fall off (did I fall due to technique, or exhaustion?), and logging grades (I find, perhaps due to my dyslexia, remembering climbing grades to be about as fun as counting lengths in a pool, which is to say I’m bad at it and this frustrates me). Deeper into the data gathering realm, I’ve tried to quantify ‘pump’, or more interestingly, when pump has subsided and the optimal time to resume climbing after a fall has arrived.

I’m also interested how the sports quantification community as a whole understands climbing. Whoop, Garmin, and Strava, for example: do they treat it the same as just HR, or, has the science advanced enough to allow for accurate effort quantification and recovery estimation, as it has for running and cycling? (Spoiler, like swimming, it’s poorly represented).

Did I fall off due to technique or exhaustion?

Fundamentally, one problem knows the answer to this, but after observing my HR data during climbing, I can sustain ascent until about 170bpm, and after that I’d better be near to the top. Watching pro-climbers on YouTube, I’m see HRs climb to 185, which gives me a scale: I can run and cycle at that range, but not climb. So, if I fall off at 145bpm, I should probably check my technique (fuck off, beta, that word is irksome) and try again. Falling off at 165? Time for a rest, maybe come back tomorrow. If I’m falling off at 185bpm, I could start looking for sponsors…

Bro, how pumped am I?

I haven’t seen research into the quantification of pump, or the state at which one’s forearms resemble Popeye’s, and one can no longer hold on. I conducted my own research by wearing a muscle oxygenation sensor (an old Humon Hex) on my forearm, and observing the ebb and flow of oxygen saturation levels compared to climb point and HR. I noticed the following (to no climber’s surprise):

1. The first few climbs show poor tissue saturation. This is to be expected, as my muscles have yet to warm up: the blood vessels are still in their rest state, supporting normal efforts.

2. After about 3 ascents, peak saturation is reached. Time to work on hard problems.

3. Around climb 6 and onwards, tissue saturation recovery rates decrease: I need more reset between each climb, and the recovery isn’t quite as much.

4. By ascent 10, we are deep into diminishing returns.

5. The most valuable datum: when I fall off due to exhaustion, the optimum HR to resume climbing at is 135bpm. Prior to this, I was resuming climbing when my HR dropped to 145bpm, but by waiting until 135bpm, I find my subsequent attempts are more successful, and less strenuous.

Let’s integrate that last point again:

• when I fall off due to exhaustion, I should hang on the rope until my HR is at 135bpm or below before I resume climbing

Given that I only climb (not boulder) once a week, this one datum has massively improved my climbing experience, and allowed me to progress faster than previously.

Whilst the internal HRM is satisfactory for some activities (sleep, background, and supposedly running), like all wrist/optical sensors its accuracy is challenged when the wrist is being used, for example when cycling or climbing.

Whilst attempting to use my Polar H10 with my Ultra to track climbing with Redopint today, I noticed the watch would connect to the HR sensor in the Bluetooth settings, and then disconnect. Redpoint showed that it was waiting for HR data, but not recording any. I was able to resolve this after two actions:

1. I replaced the CR2032 battery. I don’t know if it was low, but it seemed like a safe bet.

2. I opened the Health app on my phone, and revoked all permissions that Redpoint had, and granted them again.

After both of these, normal HR service was resumed. I suspect that step 2 would have been sufficient, and was able to repeat the step with another app, Workoutdoors. I tried to record an activity (hanging laundry, naturally) with Workoutdoors, but noticed that like Redpoint earlier it had not HR data. I opened the Health app on my phone again, and noticed this time that Workoutdoors had no permissions granted. Upon granting it permission to access all data, the problem was solved: over 10m, I observed a stable connection to the H10.

Interestingly both of the problems presented after migrating to a new phone: I believe there’s a bug in the phone migration process around Health permissions, but it’s an easy fix.

Both Garmin and Polar make chest strap heart-rate monitors. Garmin's product looks expensive, but you only ever need to buy one: it'll fail within the warranty period and they'll replace it for free. Polar's are modular, and I haven't had one fail in many years of using them.

Taking a step back from the two monitoring solutions, and looking at sports technology holistically, I think its primary purpose is to grant the wearer the illusion of control. It allows us to believe, for a moment, that we can stand still and resist the river of time, because we have data that shows stuff.

With that argument, all sports tech is pure landfill fodder, and anyone who cares about the planet, the environment, &c should instead just be happy that they're out for a run, ride or swim, and enjoy the experience, training based off of how they feel.

This is utopian view obviously doesn't scale off of more than a handful of people such as Pig Monkey and Beau Miles (and even he has been seen using a Garmin, heard saying 'I've never waited for a watch to tell me I was ready to run before').

What does this have to do with chest straps? Simply, to further indulge in being human and making a comparison (that thief of joy), Polar's chest straps are modular - the electronics package is removable - and Garmin's is glued into place. When a Garmin chest strap fails, that's it. We can pretend it's going to WEEE, but really, that's going to landfill.

When a Polar strap fails, either the strap or the electronics package can be replaced, reducing waste. It could allow the wearer to harbour the illusion that the H10 is the more environmental, more ethical choice. They can tell themselves that they are better than the Garmin strap user, because of this.

So why do Garmin's chest straps fail?

1. Historically (still the case in Australia), the battery compartment was closed with screws. Generally when swapping the battery, the integrity of the housing would be compromised, and the strap would stop working. No longer the case with the HRM Pro Plus (I find it hard to believe that's the actual, official name).

2. The rubber used in the strap itself degrades, and smells awful, even with washing after each use.

They feel like planned obsolescence, except for the years of free replacements I've had.

Why would one continue to use a Garmin chest strap?

1. HR during swimming: Garmin's wrist HR (and almost everyone else's) during swimming is like a broken clock; correct twice a day, by coincidence, and flakey the rest of the time. If you can properly secure your chest strap (HRM Swim, or the HRM Tri/Pro/Pro Plus under a wet suit), decent data is once again yours.

2. All that Running Dynamics data, although we are now in the era where Garmin recognises the Stryd Duo as a Running Dynamics pod, or one could use an RD pod. Or the RD from the wrist, even though that's a smaller set.

3. Scenarios where one has dynamic chest/upper body movement, or where objects may move laterally across the chest, such as climbing. When this happens, the sensor module of the H10 can become detached, leading to LOS.

That's it. I can't think of a single other reason to use one. Sure, they have al that fancy memory/caching stuff, but does anyone use that outside of the water? I'd love to know.

What's so good about the Polar H10?

1. I think the strap is a lot more comfortable.

2. I find that the strap grips my chest more reliably.

3. Modular design allows for component replacement in the event of failure.

4. Excellent reputation for accuracy, although I don't believe the Garmin strap has any issues there.

5. I can get the strap in red.

How could the H10 be improved?

So the H10, like Polar's excellent optical sensor, the Verity Sense, can cache HR data. If software was written to allow a Garmin watch to extract this cached HR data, it would be nothing short of magical. The kind of behaviour that defies the monopolistic mindset of companies.

I know it can be done, because it's just code. I've even seen a Suunto 9 Peak Pro (stupid name...) pull HR data off a Whoop 4.0 strap after a swim, which surprised both me and Suunto support. Just code, blocked by priorities and politics.

Interestingly, Polar's current watches can't extract cached data from the strap, and insist that wrist optical while swimming is where it's at when I asked them. I don't think they swim very much...

I think William Gibson is best known for the Sprawl trilogy, and specifically Neuromancer. Amazingly he has written other books: the Blue Ant/Bigende trilogy, and the Jackpot series, among others.

Pattern Recognition - there will be spoilers in general - follows Case Pollard, a woman who has an allergy to brands, and especially Bibendum, in her efforts to track down online footage that's being tracked with what is effectively a hash. This is a thinly veiled excuse for Gibson to explore his fetish for Soho (London), the booming marketing industry and the bleed-through of military clothing into civilian life.

As someone who worked for a company involved in digital marketing, with their London office very close to Soho, around the time PR is set, it's eerily close to my own experience and curiosities. Like Case, I was paid to travel between city centres to solve problems. I enjoyed the proliferation of military equipment into the civilian realm - I loved a pack with PALS on it - and as the trilogy progressed experienced similar technologies to the main characters. Looking back, Gibson might as well have been having coffee at the table next to me in Pop Up (or Milk Bar, or Tapped & Packed).

I have a couple of other posts on the EVAD-1, tl;dr is that the software is incredible, but the early hardware I had was... challenged. Four years on, how's it going?

Problems

1. Swipe sensor doesn't always want to swipe.

2. No way to turn them off aside from auto-off.

Delights

The work ActiveLook has put into the software over the last four years has been incredible. When they first released, it was very much a tech demonstrator, with a very basic iOS app and Garmin app, where every activity was 'street run'.

In 2024, they have an excellent Apple Watch app (racing segments on Strava is great fun), have developed their Garmin CIQ field, and built a delightful Suunto integration with excellent turn-by-turn notifications.

Using the EVAD-1 to pace a 1h base run yesterday reminded me the value of even basic data, live: time, pace, and distance. Other pages had cadence and HR, but being able to quickly see how far into the effort I was, while avoiding mud and tree roots, was brilliant.

Future

Hardware-wise, I'm looking forward to a re-release of the photochromic model from earlier this year, and the colour screen demoed at CES (2023?).

Software-wise, being able to extract more data from Garmin devices (TBT directions, data from other CIQ fields, such as CORE body temp), and integrating with a Wahoo or Hammerhead bike computer would be great.

Historically, the ear has been an excellent point to measure both temperature and heart rate from, so logically these headphones should have been able to readily replace other devices (eg a Polar H10 and CORE body temperature sensor).

I took them out for a couple of runs and a ride. To generate the data below, I ran for an hour, recording data from the headphones via the Polar app on my phone, and from the H10 with my Garmin. Below are two graphs, one with, and one without cadence.

Heart Rate

They're not the cleanest, but even without formatting one can see how erratic the Sennheiser headphones are. Quantified, there's a correlation of 0.82 between the two series.

I included a graph with cadence, as sometimes optical sensors mistake running cadence for HR, and I wanted to show this wasn't the case for me: it's just a bad HR sensor, at least for running.

Temperature

Unfortunately, I haven't found out how to export the temperature from the Polar app, and as I don't have a Polar watch (does anyone, aside from sports tech reviewers?), this is the only way I have of recording the temperature data, so screenshots will have to suffice.

This is from the same run above. Below is a screenshot of data captured by the CORE sensor I was wearing at the same time:

The CORE captures three data: skin, core, and HR (from the H10). Without looking at the numbers, the graph shapes between the CORE and the headphones are different. Looking at the numbers, my core temperature increased from 37.06ºC to 38.43ºC, and my skin temperature fluctuates. The headphones show my temperature as static for the first 15m (bad data, should be rejected), and that my core temperature never goes above 37ºC. I reject the headphones ability to measure temperature with their current firmware based on the following arguments:

• the numbers are different

• the graph lines are different, both core and skin (ie Sennheiser/Polar can't argue they're tracking skin instead of core)

• bad data at the start (the static line) isn't rejected

Sadly at the time of writing - press time - there isn't a way to capture the temperature data from the headphones without either the Polar app or a Polar watch, even though it looks to be exported via a Bluetooth standard (ie it could be, if the receiving device supported the protocol).

Audio

Ignoring the above, the audio on these is superb. They are the first headphones I've been able to hear background noise (cars, birdsong) but without wind noise. This alone is almost enough to justify their exorbitant price to me, as I prefer audio books while I exercise.

Can the above problems be fixed in firmware, or is this a bad marketing exercise, and a confusing one given Polar's reputation for HR data quality?

DCRainmaker Anecdote

This should not have been a difficult run – heck, as I often joke, even the Whoop band got it right this time (mostly). Granted, removed from this graph is the horrific accuracy of the Sennheiser Momentum Sport optical HR headphones (because it was so messy you couldn’t otherwise make sense of the other watches on this graph).

Historical Comparison

In 2015, I ran with a Mio Link on my arm, and the Jabra Pulse in my ears, and compared the two. The analysis can be seen here:

Outcome

Returned. £280 for a product that doesn't function as advertised is unacceptable.

Logically, with all this information, and their potential to understand human physiology, this would make them the best training tool, but they have a rub. Two, really.

1. They are not the most accurate data gathering tool.

2. They make decisions based on flawed data, with limited ability to correct it.

I've been oscillating between an Apple Watch Ultra 2, and an Epix 2 Pro, or Pro 2, I'm not sure what its name is. When tracking exercise with the AWU2, I ingest data using the following:

• Cycling: Wahoo Roam 2, or the native watchOS app

• Running: Stryd

• Swimming: Form

• Climbing: Redpoint

• Recovery: Ōura

• Overview: intervals.icu + HealthFit

Each one of these can be seen as masters of their field. They each have a very tight focus on doing one thing, and only that. Wahoo, for example, just ingests data, and displays it during a ride. It doesn't try and guess my FTP, or suggest a recovery time. The same with Form and their goggles.

When tracking with the Epix, I use the following, with issues:

• Cycling: Epix, plus Wahoo if it's a ride I need navigation on

  • Why not Garmin's bike computers?

    • I don't like looking at them

    • I find them harder to use than the Wahoo and the iOS app

    • When using the Daily Suggested Workout, the Epix and bike computer suggest different workouts, in theory based on the same data

• Running: Garmin, plus Stryd

  • The Epix, per Stryd, is unable to collect the data generated by the Stryd and an external HR monitor, and play music: it drops data, resulting in random pauses as the watch thinks it has stopped moving (FW 15.x, 2024-Q1)

• Swimming: probably Form, possibly the Epix

  • The Epix has a nasty habit of incorrectly detecting swim length, in the following two scenarios:

    • At the end of an interval, it'll show 100m, and then a few seconds later, deduct one length: the overall swim length can be corrected afterwards in GC, but it's not great for accurate pace tracking

    • It simply doesn't detect a length

    • If a swim isn't tracked on the Epix, then it's not factored into the greater training picture, which leads to double-tracking

• Climbing: the Epix, but its range of supported grades is very narrow, good otherwise, except on a windy day when the rapid changes in air pressure cause it to auto-start climbs

• Recovery: this part I really like, with the morning report, and HRV data that tracks with Ōura and Whoop

• Overview: in theory, GC, but really, intervals.icu + HealthFit

Practical: Garmin is the better recovery tool.

What I experience is that Garmin has not been able to resist the urge to try and do everything, which has resulted in it compromising even its core skills. While they've been averaging their achievements across an increasingly wide portfolio of features, independents have crept in, and through single-function focus, eclipsed Garmin in areas that have traditionally been theirs. This leaves their USP as a tool that can track 85% of things, and deliver reliable recovery/health telemetry.

Why still use a Garmin?

So, with the litany of failings above, why would I use a Garmin?

• Variety: sometimes I'm bored of the very controlled watchOS

• EVAD-1: ActiveLook have made an excellent Apple Watch app, but I prefer to use the Stryd app for running with my AWU, and with a Garmin I can use my EVAD-1 HUD for running and cycling with full customisation

• Daily Suggested Workout and event-specific training plans: give Garmin a route and a date (for cycling and running, anyway) and it'll do its best to get you to the end of the route, on time, and uninjured (at least from overtraining). I can't say how much I like their auto-workout generation

• Esoteric data capture: sometimes I want to capture data that I can't with my AWU, such as muscle oxygenation during climbing, body temperature in the same file as a run or a ride (CORE), or chest strap heart rate during an OWS

• Battery life: although, the AWU has made superb advancements in that field

• Recovery/general health telemetry: I don't think an awful lot of Whoop, and much as I trust the data from Ōura wearing a ring annoys me after a few weeks

• That torch is just the business, come on! A real torch, not turning the screen white? Sure, Apple's implementation is elegant, but...

Or Intentional Skills to Climbing Improvement

After too-long a hiatus, I resumed climbing last year. I was incredibly lucky to meet an amazing climber at a Queer Crush meet-up in Oakland, and we've been climbing as our nomadic schedules allow.

We both value intention in climbing, and I've been exploring how deeply detailed I can find intention. Below is a list of the skills I've discovered that have helped me improve as a climber.

Partners

Who I climb with has a huge impact on my session. I mentioned meeting an amazing climber last year, but my life-partner has recently started climbing. Sandwiched between these two, I have a wonderful, supportive, enthusiastic climbing experience.

Before these two, I had several wonderful (and sometimes less wonderful) climbing partners, all of whom contributed to the understanding of climbing I have today.

Headspace

Pre-climb

Unlike other sports I enjoy (running, cycling, swimming), climbing requires me to be fully present, from the tips of my toes to the tips of my fingers, and how my head is oriented. Whilst I prefer to go into the other sports with a clean headspace, I can get away with zoning out, or relying on the repetitive nature to tune me in.

With climbing, I need to be in a clean headspace before I leave for the Kletterhalle: a 3m breathing exercise before I leave is enough.

While on a route

Sometimes, I'll be in flow-state, sending a hard route, when someone will fall next to me, and my bubble of concentration bursts. Someone else will call for a 'take' and I'll remember how tired my forearms are, and the bubble will burst. A sign that I'm fatiguing is that I won't be able to maintain my situational awareness, apart from the situation, and I'll be pulled into their situation.

In the same way taking a few minutes before leaving for a session helps, taking a moment before a climb can also help. How am I feeling? Who else is on the wall near me? How are they climbing? Do we overlap?

Fueling

Climbing - indoor, anyway - is an interval sport, defined by periods of high intensity (when climbing), and low intensity (belaying, watching). Determining how best to fuel for this is important: I like a snack mid-session, it massively improves the feeling of sends seven and onwards.

Movement

Mass distribution basics

Climbing is a sport often defined not by strength, but by incredible efficiency. Understanding about the mechanics of leavers, for example, when applied to foot (and really toe) position, can save huge amounts of energy in the arms. Moving in a series of small, easy moves, instead of one large move, saves a lot of energy across the organism. Converting an understanding of efficient movement to muscle memory, so that when fatigued, I always place my toe on a hold, always keep my hips close to the wall, will massively improve my climbing experience, both when fresh and fatigued.

Movement types

In addition to how to take mechanical advantage of my body, learning fundamental movement types, such as foot swaps, step-throughs, flagging, and so on, will improve efficiency. Instead of inventing each move each time I need it, I can recognise a sequence of movement types ahead of time, and connect them together in my mental shorthand when reading a route.

Breathing

When I watch an experienced yogi, I notice how their movement and their breath are in sync. The harder I climb, the more important I find it to move in sync with my breath: breath in before a hard move, hard breath out as I make the move, repeat. I find the synchronisation between body and experience helps maintain flow state in challenging situations.

Reading a route

Climbers talk about reading a route, but I think it breaks down into three tasks:

• Selecting a route: beyond grading, which between internal grade snobbery, and human inconsistency, being able to quickly look at a route and select one of effort appropriate to my energy level is important. Too easy, and it'll feel like a ladder, too hard and it'll be a poor investment of my energy as I struggle up it.

• Ascent planning: once I've selected a route, I try and do what a lot of climbers do: I'll stand at the bottom, and move my hands in sequence with the holds as I look at them. I'm visualising my ascent, attempting to move it to a pre-planned state for efficiency execution. The goal here is that when my plan fails, I'm mentally ready to create a new plan, while hanging off the wall.

• Ascent execution: plans so rarely survive contact with implementation: what I thought was a jug, nay, a bucket, might turn out to be less good than I thought. I might mis-read the angle of the wall, and its impact on the effectiveness of a hold.

Being ready with a library of movement types and efficient mass distribution skills allows me to revise my ascent with minimal fuss, and a clean mind and well-fuelled system allows me to see the solutions, and have the energy to implement them.

Supportive speech

A common piece of encouragement from the ground is 'come on! come on!' But does this work for me? What do I like to hear as encouragement? As the product of toxic masculinity (at least in sports), I don't actually know what I like: I do know I don't like the concept of being angry to execute. What does my partner like? What spurs them on, and what drags them down?

Recognising fatigue

Both my own, and my partner's fatigue are important to recognise. Not in the broad strokes of looking haggard, but in the subtleties of our movement. Acting on that thought of "I'm normally much more elegant... ah, but that was my eighth climb, so..." means more sends later.

The same applies to your partner: are they dragging their feet where they don't usually? How's their hand placement? Being able to say 'how are you feeling, because you're looking tired' without judgement is valuable.

Skin, shoe and equipment care

Generally, two parts of you make contact with the route: your feet, through your shoes, and your skin, through your fingers (and sometimes elbows and knees).

Skin care

As I've climbed longer and harder, I've noticed that I need to listen not just to my muscles and my mind, but also my skin for when to stop climbing for the day. Increases in humidity can cause flappers much faster than I'm used to. Paying attention to the sensation in my skin means I can climb more, even if not that day, as I'm not waiting for my skin to heal.

Shoe care

The rubber on shoes has a very large amount of friction, until it gets covered in chalk. Paying attention to this - storing my chalk bag in a sealable plastic bag - makes for much better climbing. Taking the time to brush chalk off shoes if I notice their chalky makes for much better climbing. Letting shoes air between climbs makes it much better for everyone.

Equipment care and choice

Our climbing and belay equipment are literally life-saving devices. Making sure they're in good condition leads to confidence on a route for both you and your partner.

Making sure you have equipment appropriate to your skill level and style is also appropriate. I want very aggressive shoes, because they look cool, but there's no point having them if I can't complete a climb in them.

Chalk/moral support powder is another one: some people prefer liquid chalk (almost no-one), and others preferred powdered... and then which powder? Finding out what works for your sweat/skin/humidity combination is incredibly valuable.

After owning a second-hand Cannondale Topstone for ~500km, I decided that the bike was cursed and sold the frame and fork. Wanting something to hold the components together, I got chatting to someone on the SF Bay Ferry who suggested I look at Squid bikes. Located in Sac, they're local(ish), and offered the Gravtron frame which I found a good swap for the Topstone.

Build

• Wheels: Enve G27 (650b)

• Tyres: René Herse Juniper Ridge (650b 48mm)

• Fork: Spork 3.0

• Handlebars: Coefficient RR

• Drivetrain: SRAM eTap AXS, 10-50 on the rear, Garbaruk 42-tooth oval on the front, HRD

• Seatpost: Canyon/Ergon springy thing

• Saddle: Fizik Vento Argo R3 Adaptive

• Front rack: Allgyn Diamond Front Rack, plus the bag that is made for it

• Valves: Fillmore (these are incredible)

Riding environment

I've ridden the bike on plenty of road in Oakland and southern Spain, in heavy rain. I've ridden off-road in southern Spain, which unsurprisingly is similar to CA: lots of baked dirt, washboard sections, gravel, and so on. (The roads are a lot, lot better in Spain...)

Ride duration

The longest ride I've done is 130km, and after that kind of distance, I really notice the lack of aerodynamics (my other bike has aerobars), and the big wadge of a bag carrying my camera on the front.

Aside from that, the bike handles beautifully: I can tuck down on the middle of the RR bars to get out of a headwind for a bit, and the bike has handled all the off-road challenges well.

Wear and tear

Before riding, I added helicopter tape to obvious ware parts of the frame: cables over paint, or chain slap areas. I haven't been able to detect any issues so far, and that includes any potential mishandling across four flights (although I dread to think what would dent a steel frame...).

Changes

Initial

Given that I bought the bike frame-only, the only change made was to the fork, from a Whisky MCX to the Spork 3.0, as I wanted to have a small front rack for a camera bag.

After 1000km

• Handlebars: the RR bars are really comfortable, but any aero saving is lost by having the front bag, and the 'wing' part really gets in the way of quickly opening and closing the front bag.

• Tyres: I'm not certain about these tyres: they've been OK off-road, and OK on-road, but I don't feel they've excelled at either, and I think I would have been better off with Schwalbe's G-One tyre, or the Bite. Still, they were what I had, and still have plenty of rubber on them, and they're fine. Fine, but not fantastic.

Omissions

The only omission in the bike's design that I'm really mindful of is the lack of bolts on the top tube to secure a snack bag to. It seems like a really odd omission on a recent bike, so much so I'm going to be looking at the practicality of having the frame modified to get me out of Velcro strap land.  

In 2023, I was lucky enough to spend three months in Seville (Sevilla), in Andalucia in southern Spain. I took my bike with me, a steel Squid Gravtron, to explore the local (and less local) areas. (Power-scroll to the bottom for the Komoot routes and GPX tracks.)

After finding online map data incomplete, often giving directions to locked gates, lost in one-way systems, or along paths that don't exist (and haven't existed for a long time), I decided to pubilsh my five favourite rides, to help anyone else looking for a gravel experience from Sevilla.

I set each ride to start and finish at the excellent Muy Coffee on Coreduria, brilliantly operated by Les Hermanos del Cafe (I'm not sure if they I know I call them this).

If you'd rather finish on a beer, on the other side of the square you'll find Hops and Dreams, which has eight taps of craft beer available, and excellent (chips|fries). Either way, what bliss?

Some of the gravel is smooth, some is rough washboard, but at no point did I feel the need for suspension: the 650b/48mm René Herse Juniper Ridge tyres on carbon rims did a good job of keeping me fresh.

Most towns will have a water fountain, and will serve (bad) coffee: the safest bet is to ask for a café solo pequeño; the equivalent of a short espresso, and to add sugar.

Cycling in Andalcuia has been wonderful: drivers are incredibly respectful, and over three months, always passing at a safe distance. I saw someone pulled over for wearing headphones, which carries a €190 fine (I think), so don't be that person. Bike lanes are normally bi-directional, painted green, and separated from the road: use them when they're available to save being honked at.

With that (beta|meta|DOPE) out of the way, onto the rides...

Since flying my first quadcopter, a Mavic Pro, I've evolved the sequence of events that between landing and having photos to share. It's the most efficient it's been, but it still leaves a lot to be desired.

1. Connect external volume (a SanDisk 2TB Extreme Pro) and microSD from the aircraft to the computer.

2. Run my media moving script to put the files I want in the place I want.

3. Open the DNG files in Adobe Camera RAW (Photoshop).

4. Merge the photos.

5. Edit the photos in Lightroom. (I know, I could merge in Lightroom, but then it wants to upload the source media to Adobe's cloud, and whilst that's where I want the final images, I have no desire to upload or store the source media there.)

6. Export to a folder locally.

7. Run this: magick convert -crop "1:1" DJI*.jpg ./cropped/fileOut$02d.jpg (which produces crops of each of the images, so a 2x1 image becomes 2 x 1x1 images, perfect for uploading to Instagram to get user interaction via swiping to see more).

8. Airdrop the uncropped image to my iPhone, and add a frame in VOUN.

9. Airdrop the framed photo back to my laptop.

10. Post with hashtags.