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One of the things in this year’s tour that is really making an impression on me is riders choosing to make their bike heavier.  Normally, cyclists (or any endurance athletes) strive to have nothing extra.  No cost is too big, no weight savings too small.  So when you have more and more Tour riders choosing to put a Garmin GPS and a PowerTap hub, it deserves a closer look.

I had the chance to interview Jake Jacobson, Garmin’s Senior Media Relations Specialist, who was actually in France with the Tour riders, the lucky guy.  He was gracious enough to answer my questions despite moving from town to town in the French countryside.

I’ll point out here that saying Garmin’s hundreds of thousands of dollar investment in the Garmin-Chipotle team was a move into a niche market was probably not the wisest of moves for me.  Luckily, Jake didn’t hold against me and was gracious enough to answer anyway.

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Levi’s is quietly spreading its mobile phone presence out in Europe and they don’t seem to be nearing a stop any time soon, since Orange France has been granted the exclusive privilege to market its tri-band GSM, 3G network connected handset. No other details about the deal have been provided, except to say that there will be a free 1GB memory card for every purchase, which customers can use to upgrade the memory of their devices through the built-in microSD card slot. It also sports a 2-megapixel camera for your regular snaps, and don’t forget, it’s a 3G network enabled handset. That means you can transfer all you want - or not - but it’s a few notches faster than any old GPRS or EDGE connection can ever give you. The features aren’t that bad, I have to admit, but at 279 Euros or about $444 USD, this hardly seems a bargain.

Via [PhonesReview]