Heads up!!! Here’s your massive holiday sports tech deals list! This includes the Garmin Epix for just $419, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for just $699, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $249, (or the brand new Hero 13 or $299!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list of 100+ deals here!
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In Depth Product Reviews
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
2
Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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Have some fun in the travel section.
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My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
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I think you could even have a spin around the block aith one of these on the bike? Do a hill workout on a flat course…
Erector sets made this possible. Right? I saw that and all I could think of was that.
That looks like it would have been useful on rollers, which had almost no resistance. Kids and their trainers today will never know what’s like to crash on their trainer!
1. I think it’s beautiful.
2. What’s anon talking about? My rollers have tons of resistance.
How cool. Wonder how this matches up with the traditional dynamo-kit used to power the slightly illuminated area directly in front of my bike from almost the same time period.
Totally awesome. Love it.
What if you set this up on your bike on normal road rides? Liek Baruch said, it would add more resistance to your daily rides giving some resistance to your daily rides…
Awesome! I used one of these all the way into the ’90s to train on my rollers (old school steel rollers of course). They were definitely a trick to set up, and easily damaged too.
Pretty Sweet setup. Definitely kills the aerodynamics of a modern bike.
> However, based on our playing around with it – the overall resistance is nowhere near what a modern day trainer can provide.
BUT, you can always us it to add additional resistance to your current trainer or ride if you’re feeling like a man :)
I can send you the original length rails for that, if you want them. Can replace the bearings, shaft, fans. Still have other parts too. The rails were made to be cut off if you needed to to clear the seat.
That is the original Windload Simulator and was very popular in-the-day and could in-fact be used on the road, but would wear out the roller pretty quickly with all the little rocks you picked up.
Long dead before the time of the Internet – hence little that the oracle or Google could find.
Actually, it follows the exact same load curve as riding a bike on a level road at speed (AKA windo-load). No more that that, but the faster you go, the more load it makes.
Those came with a rubber strap that was perforated like a belt. It came with a hook that attached to the brake bridge of older frames. The other end of that same piece was also a hook of sorts that after you threaded the belt around one of the “bars” above the roller. That is how resistance was applied. It could apply alot of resistance or a little depending on how felt that day. I loved mine when I was using it.
This is the gold standard of wind trainers. Yes it is noisy but the action of the fans is to pull down the unit onto the tire- hence no slipping. I used one when it first came out and went on to my best year ever in racing. Maybe I’ll surf eBay for one now :)
I still own one of these, complete with the bike stand and the rubber strap that holds the resistance wheel tight against the tire. After 37 years (mostly in storage) the rubber strap has dried and cracked, but could probably be replaced with a bungie cord. Back in the late 1970s I tried using it in an apartment, and it made so much noise that the neighbor on the floor below complained!
The bottom bracket of the bike rests on the stand in order to elevate the rear wheel, and the front fork is also clamped in the stand. You can get adequate resistance with this thing, and the increase in resistance with increasing rpm feels just like riding on the road. Because the rear skewer is not used to elevate the rear wheel, you might even be able to use this trainer on a bike with an internally geared rear hub.
Mark, is it for sale?
I’ve got one of these trainers too and it is still in use. Very well made.
It does have a rubber strap to pull it towards the wheel. The photos here indicate the aluminum sides rails have been cut down several inches and that is why there was difficulty mounting the unit. Mine has seven of the large holes visible from the wind generating fan so it is much longer and easy to mount on just about any kind of bike.
As you can guess, I’ve been riding for more years than I want to say. I even have the granddaddy of all bike computers the Pacer 2000 made by Veltec.
Neal , is it for sale?
Sorry, I gave it away last year. I’m now trying to find a home for my Pacer 2000 bike computer. This was the first bike computer ever made.
As others have mentioned, the elastic strap was key to holding the unit on the wheel and assembly was somewhat cumbersome. My band eventually disintegrated and I replaced the unit with a more convenient fork-mount stand wind trainer. While my Racer-Mate is, I believe, long gone, I kept the literature.
Here’s one look.
And here’s another!
Went for a power workout today in my 1985 Eddy Merckx, Corsa Record group, Cinelli rollers and Racermate. So many memories!!! Such a good ride!
Nice post