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.
You'll support the site, and get ad-free DCR! Plus, you'll be more awesome. Click above for all the details. Oh, and you can sign-up for the newsletter here!
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
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!
Wanna create comparison chart graphs just like I do for GPS, heart rate, power meters and more? No problem, here's the platform I use - you can too!
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.
-
Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
Get all your awesome DC Rainmaker gear here!
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?
- Will you test our product before release?
- Are you willing to review or test beta products?
- Which trainer should I buy?
- Which GPS watch should I buy?
- I’m headed to Paris – what do you recommend for training or sightseeing?
- I’m headed to Washington DC – what do you recommend for training?
- I’m from out of the country and will be visiting the US, what’s the best triathlon shop in city XYZ?
- What kind of camera do you use?
-
5 Easy Steps To The Site
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.
Up all night, here I come! Woot!
I prefer this tool:
link to timebie.com
Work? Shmerk!
Ahh!! Finally I’ll be checking dcrainmaker.com every 30 minutes for something! Rules rules? Europeans too?
Yup, anywhere globally!
Sandro: this is the first time you’ve checked dcrainmaker.com every 30 mins? A few of us have this affliction regardless of whether there’s a give away or not
no, I meant that I would be checking every 30 minutes, as usual lately, but now with a better purpose than hoping the Epix review would be published ;)
Talking about that, eventually I decided to pull the trigger and order one, will give my impressions once I get it.
My first day of the holidays. I beat my wife will be real happy having me refreshing dcrainmaker.com on my laptop on the beach.
No reason to beat your wife *scnr* :)
Ups, sorry, not my language. I meant “I bet my wife” :)
Just tell her it’s an easy way to get you your birthday present this year – for free! She’ll be fighting you for that laptop ;)
Top tip for East Coaster’s: Stay up till midnight, do your first entry, sleep till 3:50, enter both the 2 am and 4 am contests, then just wake up before 8 am to enter the 6 am one, and you’ve gotten nearly eight hours of sleep and entered every contest so far!
Love this Ray!
Good plan Chris, adapted for use in the UK,
Can’t speak for everyone here but I’m always up by 05:00 so the start is not a problem for me.
Go to bed Tuesday night at 23:05 and wake Wednesday morning at 02:50 to enter the last two slots.
good luck
isn’t 12:00AM Eastern (0600 CET/CEST) 5am in GMT?
I though 12AM eastern is midday, not midnight.
maybe i have been wrong all these years.
Most Americans/Canadians would refer to 00:00 as 12:00AM – hence the usage there. Whereas noon would be 12:00PM.
so 06:00 CEST is the Wednesday then?
Rob (above) has got me confused with his 02:50 Wednesday morning UK time.
Arghh… Heading to the middle of nowhere without any data acess.
I follow and cross my fingers :D Do we have to do somthing to participate?
Just post a comment in the giveaway item page (when announced)
Oh how I hope the random number generator is finally kind to me!
Alarm clock is set and I’m looking forward to it!!
I was crushed last year when I didn’t win anything. So much so, I basically gave up on working out. Here’s hoping to getting back into it.
Thanks in advance for all my new goodies!
If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t even know about. Completely slipped my mind.
I hate it when life get’s in the way.
Guys and ladies, you can get your sleep, it’s all me this year, I’ve hacked the random number generator ?
Just kidding, I can’t hack an alarm clock ,lol
I sure hope to win something this time.
Cool website and lots of good information about technology. But I gotta say that visiting here has cost me a lot of money on tech goodies. Thanks Ray!
So Great! Thank you, Ray!
Slightly off topic…are you going to Outdoor Retailer, I know the starting dates of the show are roughly at the tail end of the giveaway. I know you can’t tell us what’s coming up with announcements, but i’m wondering if there will be anything new from the big boys.
Nah, not bothering to go this year. Just don’t expect much in the way of new products. I believe only Timex announced new stuff there last year.
The giveaway timing was mostly because I had wanted to do it a week earlier, but being on the small boat for a week had killed any hope of doing all the prep work needed for it.
Just practicing
lol at A-Aron Cowan
in it to win it…
By the way, the same procedure as last year, Ray?
Ray: The same procedure as every year, guys!
(1) refresh DCR page time_xx:58 & comment (item y) …. wait 3to4 minutes …. time_(xx+1):03 refresh & comment (item y+1)
(2) wait / go back to sleep for 3h_50min :D
repeat steps until 24hours are over :)
hoping this year’s giveaway post will outnumber the huge amount of comments of last year’s one. DCR brilliant work on this blog deserves it.
(speaking of which, I must carefully check not to post my comments under 2014 section. it could slightly lower my chances of grabbing something… :) )
OK,
I’m ready, alarm set!!!
Is there any estimation of how many participant for each competition? I mean, what are the odds…?
ok, I was bored, so:… last year, on average 1 in 3296 :)
So it basically means: only one comment allowed per item, right? But will there be an accompanying comment thread where we can vent all our excitement? I’ll be giddy as a schoolgirl all day, I suspect ;)
Yup, correct.
Oh, another question – I just informed my brother about the Extravaganza, but I wondered: is it one entry per email address, or per home (ip-)address? Because it would be nice to give his wife and kids a chance as well, but I can imagine you wanting to rule out people creating 300 hotmail addresses from their home to improve their odds.
It’s one entry per person per giveaway (so each in your family can enter once every two hours). Just ensure each person has a unique e-mail address.
I do some additional checking behind the scenes to weed out the 300 entries by the same person (seriously, it happens each year), that keeps out casual cheaters.
Cool, thanks for the quick reply, I’ll tell them :)
Who needs sleep? :-)
Can’t wait!!!
ALL NIGHTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That will be day to of employment at a large sports brand! :O I’m sure they’ll approve when I explain the circumstances….
Great stuff DC !!
Awesome!
I hope i find some good access to Internet to take a part in this craziness! Thank you, Ray!
One day you will have to explain how do you manage to keep such a good webpage and still have a private life with lot of sport.
Keep the good trend folk
Did you notice that Ray is often only in the pictures in little pieces (arms, wrists, ancles etc)? He has the testing cunningly outsourced to under paid school kids while he is cup cakering, showing his face only incidentally between munches. Yup. I’m sure of it.
Wait, I’m supposed to pay them?
Well, if they’re young enough, they would only require… let’s say.. free cupcakes? Which kind of would explain the need for the CupCakery. Thomas may be on to something. Or he’s just ‘on something’, of course, a certain special flavor of cupcake, perhaps?
Awesome!
Ray,
I have a 5 mile tempo on Wednesday, and if it doesn’t go well it’s your fault. Just saying.
*sniff, sniff*
Why twitter? Twitter is the downfall of intelligent life on this planet. :(
I’m new to this, so…how exactly DO we enter our name in these great giveaways? Thanks
Ow yeah! Looking forward to it!
Paris hour? It starts at 12:00am in paris?
France follows CEST, so it’s starting 6 am in Paris time
Sounds great!!!
Can’t wait:D
it’ll be my first time – be gentle ;)
Testing for Tuesday. Can’t wait, as always.
Wow it is like Xmas for sport tech.
This is epic!! Congrats to Ray for all these effort, and thank you so much!!! It will be superfun!!!
Marked this event within the calendar :-) Many thanks for your other posts and tests!
Good luck, everyone!!! Thank you, Ray and Clever!
1-2 testing
cool! bring it on!
Testing
Locked in
So it’s a 5am gmt start? This is my first time. I can feel the pressure already ?
Looking forward to this. Hope I finally get some hardware. :)
In it to win it !!!!
WOOOOOhoOOOOOO!! I’m up for the marathon
Excellent!
Yoohoo~!!!
Bushido Smart please….from 4-6pm
Practice post! Just making sure it’s working. I need to win a power meter!
Will be there :-) Thanks Ray!
This should go on all month with a new product every day and each give away lasting for 24 hours. That way I could get my name into each drawing. As it is, I’m going to miss a few. Bummer!
I’m ready!
So this Tuesday will be night out. Marked calendar as PTO.
You have to enter to be lucky.
Getting ready for Tuesday!
Coffee brewing already……
Alarms set, bring it on! Great idea, thank you:-)
I am looking forward to participate! ;)
Thanks for all the guidance!
My brother-in-law’s pulsometer got broken last month and he’s looking for a new one… If I’m lucky enough, he gets the gear and I get the story to tell! :-D
Greetings from Spain!
I’m definitely on this 24hr bus!!!
No sleep, plenty gain….
Let´s go!
Cool! Looking forward to it!
Also testing.
Wow, sounds great!
test :)
Test
Test
Getting close to giveaway….
fingers crossed! Eyes down, look in!
check check….is this thing on?
Testing
It’s of, but it will be on soon!
8 hrs until game time.
My plan is to sleep through the first 3. Hope to remember a couple times during the day. Then get pissed off when I missed entering for the thing I really wanted. then, enter for something I already have.
So exited!
Bring it on!
Testing…
1 2 3 …
Excited… ?
getting ready… :)
Can’t wait
Can’t wait!!!
Sooo close now ….
Come on……
I guess we will all be useless tomorrow at work.
Just checking my post-making capabilities prior to the big day!
Can’t wait!
Looking forward to seeing what the goods look like this year!
A bit early but I’m psyched. Though I won’t make all of em them due to work.
Can’t wait
Almost there!
The time is near!
Come on… I am ready…
Had to see if this works.
Testing for the big day!!
Everybody GOPRO!!
I love GoPro
GoPro = fondo movie
Thank you DC
GoPro? :-D Cool!
I want it!
GoPro would be nice :p
DcRainMaker on fire)
I would love this. Please!
Woo hoo
I like it
I like it too
Vamos que nos vamos…
What’s the 10am-12noon raffle???
Yes please
I hope I will get lucky and win some goodies.
I want garmin
I think it’s my turn now!
Garmin gets me going!
Cant wait