High-end cycling-apparel company Rapha is launching a free iPhone app that promises to make group rides a little easier to organize. The app, called Rendezvous, tracks not only the obvious stuff like mapping, terrain, etc., but also meeting points and the riders themselves. (See screen caps below.) A message board organizes the comments of those who will be joining the ride and, inevitably, those who will back out or show up late.
I haven't had a chance to play with Rendezvous yet, but I suspect it will be both fun and very helpful. Rapha comes into occasional criticism for its high prices, but no other apparel company has done as good a job of defining and playing into the unique culture of road cycling, both on and off the bike.
Rendezvous will be available in the App Store by this weekend, for free.
In an effort to bring you the best in outdoor news each day, we comb through a lot of Web content. And trust us, there's a lot out there. A good story can take a lot of clicks to find. But those clicks often lead us to content that, while not particularly newsy, is too good not to share.
Below, our first weekly roundup of the best links from the week.
Best Answer to a Question You Never Asked Physics of Wet Dogs Shake Out in High-Speed Videos (Wired Science)
Best Reason to Brew Your Own Beer (here's how!) Beer Enthusiasts Pick the Worst Beers in the World at RateBeer.com (Huffington Post)
Christina Erb, here. Here's where we left off: I was debating running a marathon on a bum knee. Thanks, all, for weighing in. I decided not to. But, I still went to support my friend and Outside's assistant managing editor, Ali Troxell, who nabbed her goal. And here's the story:
The night before Nike’s Women Marathon, Ali and I discussed our game day strategy during a carb-heavy dinner at the delicious if not slightly mafia-like North Beach Restaurant. (Read: we ate in the basement surrounded by dozens of hanging salted ham shoulders).
Since my left knee had officially sidelined me from running, we decided I’d skip the starting line and head to mile three to cheer her on and then grab a bus to mile 18 and walk to the finish line. It seemed like a glorious plan.
Officials unveiled the 2011 Tour de France route on Oct. 19, and the cycling world can't decide if the climb-heavy route is good or bad.
Tour Director Christian Prudhomme said, "The route of the 2011 Tour has been determined with two objectives in mind: to set the pace from the beginning of the race and maintain suspense right up until the very end."
