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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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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In Depth Product Reviews
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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.
Shift …. seriously.. who slows down to look at their watch??
I can see it would be an improvement for cycling with the fenix 3, but it would ruin the accelerometer magic for step counting, swimming, run cadence/WDR…
I think it’s clear that they released the Gopro drone stuff after the Q3 profit report and the fact the their stocks have fallen through the floor ;) A panic release video if ever I saw one, meanwhile DJI are streets ahead of them….
Ray, curious if you opinion has changed as to the best smart trainer out there with some of the new TACX and Cycleops stuff out lately or if you still prefer the Kickr. Also do you if Cycleops includes the virtual training software when you buy a trainer or if you still need to buy the subscription.
GoPro footage: Based on some of the shots where it it moving between trees and such, I would say it is the same size (500 mm) as a DJI phantom. Maybe a bit bigger, but I would not say any smaller since there is a trade off in lifting capacity and battery life as you go smaller.
In relation to your firmware updates section. Perhaps you should put in a new section just for Garmin. You could call it ‘Broken Firmware Updates’ or ‘Firmware updates to avoid’. Updated the girlfriends forerunner 225 last week to 2.5. Completely killed the unit and I notice now they’ve pulled the update. This happened similarly to my Fenix 2 many months ago. When will Garmin learn that hardware is nothing without software that works. It’s called QA. It’s shouldn’t be hard. They won’t survive unless they learn it.
However is head of testing/QA at Garmin should have been fired long ago. Or maybe they have been, as it seems Garmin has outsourced testing to users…
Thanks for picking up my shift data analysis! It’s pretty amazing that amount of data we can gather and crunch these days.
Just wish Garmin would figure out how to integrate it into Connect. Any line on that Ray?
Maybe Brian from Di2Stats can sell them his site? :)
Yeah I’ve always been surprised we haven’t seen Garmin do anything with it. Perhaps once SRAM starts getting out into the market and we get more folks gathering shifting data we’ll see Garmin approach it on GC. Till then, Di2Stats rocks!
Wow, I remember I noticed that bar next to your cupcakery on my visit to Paris!
Next time I have to pay a visit.
Hrm… that SHIFT kickstarter kind of makes me think of the mounts that are used for skydiving altimeters… not sure I would like it but my wife doesn’t like wearing her watch in the normal position that most do and might appreciate the different position/angle that this watch band offers.
What do you have to think/say about the Polar team? I started out very happy with my M400. and it definitely does its job when I’m either running or cycling. But it is beyond annoying the lack of follow through it seems there has been on the development side. Scrolling through the pages of polar update history they have struggled to hit targets and it has just made me become frustrated. It is always addressed last minute that it won’t actually happen before they add on super long periods for their next “release estimate” It’s like they just make up the dates at the beginning.
I am seriously disappointed by Polar, they have not managed to implement Strava in several months and i have to rely on flow2strava.
What about hiring that guy? He could probably do the job in a few days
Next device going back to Garmin, enough is enough.
Did anyone manage to get the ANT+ FE-C update on Bkool Classic to work? I’ve updated the Bkool app on Mac, but don’t see the ANT+ FE-C option anywhere. No option to update firmware either.
First beat athlete gets discontinued link to firstbeat.com
Polar are the next Nokia
– Too slow
– Too obsessed with hardware
Hey, I see a possible moneymaking opportunity with guided tours in your haunted locations! Pretty interesting stuff!
I’m done with Polar, this is unacceptable. Between a terrible web service, a barely functioning Android app, poor software progression and repeated hardware failures (my M400 has been warrantied twice for the same issue since I bought in February), I can’t find a compelling reason to stay with them. Hi Garmin.
Noooooo :( I really love Universal Sports