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!
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
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You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.Want to compare the features of each product, down to the nitty-gritty? No problem, the product comparison data is constantly updated with new products and new features added to old products!
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Think my written reviews are deep? You should check out my videos. I take things to a whole new level of interactive depth!
Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
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Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
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FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
- Do you have a privacy policy posted?
- Why haven’t you yet released a review for XYZ product you mentioned months ago?
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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.
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!
Have some fun in the travel section.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
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!
The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
Looking forward to a Stryd review – this looks very interesting! In theory it’s similar to what Strava is doing with regard to Virtual Power (i.e. derived from other metrics).
GoPro getting involved in drones sounds like a good idea seeing as DJI has already got involved with camera technology.
Ray,
Do you still have the Trek city bike that you scoured the country for? Just curious because I see that you always take the Velib, maybe because you don’t have to worry about it once you get where you’re going but you said you just left it in your courtyard?
Brett
Yup, still have it (in fact, just gave it a nice clean on Friday). For me though, the Velib is handy because I often make a bunch of odd one-way trips where I might mix the metro in.
Can’t wait to give Ring a ring! For just US$270 I can get my hands on, er, in a fugly monstrosity that doesn’t do, you know, anything? Where do I sign up?
Ref the SteadyRack. Interesting. Looks good. What about Security ? I’m looking for a bike store solution for a ‘public’ area. For 4 Bikes at the bottom of the stair in our apartment block. The bikes need to be locked (to the wall) and secure, yet stored neatly and efficiently. Anybody got some good ideas/links? Thanks.
Get a Kryptonite floor anchor and use a good chain to lock the bikes to. This is what I have done. Just to give the burglar the “Oh, S..T” feeling once he got through the door.
They mention that you can lock your bike to the rack using your own lock (they show a U-lock in the image). However, it looks like it may be an earlier prototype of the rack. The hoop at the end is part of the arms. What I’m guessing is the “newer” version that they show appears to only have a rubberized loop at the end. The arms also look like they’ve went from round metal to flat metal. The rack doesn’t appear that it’s made for strength either – could possible be strong-armed.
But if you need to lock bikes to the wall, then you really just need a strong metal eyelet attached to the wall (or possibly a bar that has eyelets welded to it in the bike locations).
I’ve wondered whether SmOx and HRV could be harnessed to provide some form of indicative ‘power’ measure (once calibrated/modelled etc..) as it reflects the real time physiological effects of the external forces. However, knowing what the external forces (thus ‘real’ power) are would help correlate to physiological effectiveness of said running dynamics/efficiency.
Oh, and if it doubled as a smart watch and daily activity tracker then I’d be over the moon :)
Hi Ray
Any mention of course zoom on the 920xt’s firmware?
Nothing that I’ve heard.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for LogBar…
Any word on the bsx insight shipping date?
The link about the proposal is great, he should follow it up with the wedding day HR analysis. Standing in the church waiting for wife to be was definitely pushing my HR up in a nervous way
So, the Trainer Road iPhone mount gets the DCR seal of approval?
Yes. Though, I’d recommend ensuring you do the swirling the glue step with the toothpick. I did it by simply swirling the mount, figuring it’d achieve the same results. Instead, it’s just taking a heck of a lot longer to dry.
The proposal bit had me chuckling. So true.
Looks like stryd is from a hardware standpoint the same as runscribe, just with an altimeter to be able to measure the incline of what you’re running on. Makes it seem like run scribe could give the same watts on a connect iq app in theory. Wonder how stryde works with the efficiency of the running gate
Hi Ray,
How long has GC had the gear tracker? I’m sure it wasn’t there yesterday. Could that be why it was offline last evening? UK time zone
Just since this morning. ;)