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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5 Easy Steps To The Site
1
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!
3
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.
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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
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.
I see you’re still working on the Traverse. Not really a running watch by its nature. Mostly just assuming that Suunto will put the full multisport firmware in there soon and call it an Ambit 4 or something. Fly safely (although you’re probably already home.
Maybe this one time it would’ve made sense to have the Epix, or something like komoot on your Phone!
Happy new year, may it bring you many new gadgets, and bring us many great reviews (and, of course, travel reports!)
Reassuring that you can also head out with a myraid of GPS devices and still get lost! Done that a fair few times LOL! BTW I am quite liking dwMap for a bit of navigation on the 230/235/630. Twice now I have setup a route on my iPad in the car and downloaded it to my watch and, by and large, followed the planned route!
You are a bold man. I once stayed a couple days at one of the hotels right there at the Newark airport. Just a look around from my somewhat high window and Google Earth told me I just didn’t even want to try to run. So I did a couple days in a row on the spinbike and just skipped a run at all. *sigh* Places like that suck.
–Donnie
Cool run Ray. Does that mean we can expect the vivosmart hr review soon? I’m not prepared to push the button until I get your comprehensive thoughts, but I’ve got Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket! Pleaser make it soon, and thanks for all the work.
You didnt show the Fenix 3HR you were wearing ;). When can we expect CES post to show up? Tomorrow?
Maybe the one with the light orange band towards the top of the post?
Nope, that’s a Suunto Traverse!
Well done. Love the pic with the Sobey’s bag (the plastic bag in the final pic). That gave me a brief pang of homesickness (and a hunger for Purity Jam-jams).
I don’t suppose there will be a post about cmas in Newfoundland to compliment the post on cmas in Seattle? Perhaps the Girl could write a guest post? Even just some pics of all the food! :)
I am (perhaps one of the really odd ones out) really glad to see that you are still testing the MS Band 2. Being a Windows Phone user, I am really hoping that this one works well enough in your testing as a simple running watch to make the trade-off between features and phone compatibility worth it. Awaiting as patiently as I can for your review!
Speaking as a guy who grew up in this area, you’re lucky to have made it back alive (and wearing all your watches).
Good to have a fast 5k time
Ray – Any idea how many miles you will fly this year now that you won’t be traveling so much for work?
I always wondered if you(not any of us) would ever try a NWK runaround. As someone mentioned before, you are very brave. I don’t think I’ve ever driven there without seeing at least 1 accident. I’ve lived in Jersey most of my life and been to some bad places, would never think about running around those roads.
you’re a brave man, Ray!
I grew up in Central Jersey…when i started reading this entry, i thought that you obviously have a navigation gene not possessed by many, because i couldn’t remember any kind of pedestrian thoroughfare across Route 1/9 to the park…my inferiority complex evaporated once i kept reading!
Had a similar incident while staying in West Seattle…figured i’d do a nice 13 mile loop counter-clockwise past Alki, so i just had to get down the hill to the shoreline….via the West Seattle Freeway, which evidently does not have any kind of shoulder. Nor does it have a convenient off-ramp near the bottom, so i ended up shimmying over the median and jumping a fence….my in-laws STILL give me crap about that!
On EasyRoute, is there any way to create a route and upload it to garmin connect?
I normally don’t travel with a laptop so looking for a way to create a route on my iPad and download it to my garmin edge 520 over the air. In other words, any way to create routes without carrying my laptop or trying to create in garmin connect (which has given me headaches on an iPad).
I’d love to know how to do this as well. Using Garmin Connect or Strava Routes on an iPad tends to crash Safari. EasyRoute sounds like the perfect app to solve that problem. But then, if traveling without a laptop, how do you get the GPX imported as a Course in Garmin Connect to then download to an Edge device (520 in my case)? It would be awesome if Garmin worked with DropBox, for instance, to enable imports from there, assuming EasyRoute could also save the GPX to DropBox on a mobile device…
Hi Guys,
I’m the author of EasyRoute. I looked into doing a direct Garmin Connect upload (since I am a Garmin runner too) but Garmin’s $5,000 licensing fee is a bit much for me.
Since it’s been a little while since I last looked into it, I’m trying a few things now, but I don’t see an easy way to get the route directly into GC.
The app has a direct upload to MapMyFitness chiefly because the MapMyFitness API made it really easy for me. It also exports to GPX and there are some other apps that can consume GPX directly. (Unfortunately, the Garmin Connect app does not)
I also tried adding a direct Strava upload, but Strava doesn’t support route creation via their API.
You should be able to export the GPX file to Dropbox, but as you pointed out, Garmin would have to enable some kind of import from there. I can’t even find a way to upload a GPX file as a route/course on their website.
-John
John,
Thanks for the info. Really glad to hear from the author and get your feedback. It makes sense that no one else has set up with Garmin Connect because of their fee. I use Pocket Earth on my phone so I could upload the GPX from EasyRoute and use it there. If I get lost, I can break out the phone if needed.
Mike
Hi John, thanks for the update. Ray has posted about Garmin’s API fees in the past which are quite prohibitive in some cases like this one. I purchased EasyRoute yesterday and played around with it — great app, good work! It’s still really useful without direct Garmin Connect integration. Please let us know if you figure something out in your tests.
Hi John,
After you replied, I bought a copy too and it is a great program. Easy to use and works. Thanks for the input and let us know if you are able to find a workaround to Garmin Connect.
Hi Mike,
Thanks!
Maybe Garmin is paying attention? I suppose I’m unlikely to sway them if Ray wasn’t able to…
link to dcrainmaker.com
Actually, even in this case the API fee wouldn’t really help. So that’s only for getting data OUT of Garmin Connect, not into it.
Hi Ray,
Good point. Glad I didn’t blow 5000 bucks to find that out! ;)
The comment about Garmin paying attention was more to your larger point their closed access not being good for anyone. If Garmin had a free, open and robust REST API like MapMyFitness, my users would be happier, their customers would be happier and we wouldn’t have even had this discussion in the first place.
FWIW, Schiphol has showers inside security near the casino (if you don’t have lounge access). Last time I was there I think it was 15 euro for an hour. They give you a shower, toilet, all the toiletries, towels, hair dryer etc. If you’re flying from the US to the Middle East (or other way around) it will be the best 15 euro you ever spend. Just make sure you have a fresh shirt, socks and underwear and you’ll fell like a million bucks.
Hey Ray! Nice de-brief! I have a little over five hours between my flight from LAX to Shanghai. Access to Delta Sky Club showers. Is that enough time to run for 30-45 minutes? I know that you have experience with these types of runaround ‘s. Thanks!
Plenty of time! My usual drawing line is 3 hours (for domestic to domestic, or domestic to international). If I land international to domestic, then I’ll base it on whenever I finish clearing customs and make a decision then.
3 hours gives me:
30 minutes to find a place to stash stuff, change, and get outside
1 hour to run
30 minutes to get inside, shower, change, etc…
1 hour to get to gate
So basically, tons of fluff time built in.
Ah I need to run during my 3 hour layover. Would you say this was all highways or was there some sidewalk?
Plenty of sidewalk, just not the parts entering near the airport itself. But that was short-lived.
My attempt/goal was to leave the airport and head northwest towards that lake that you see there. That has a running path around it. Obviously, I failed horribly in that.
Haha okay! I’m just trying to go straight from United baggage claim and avoid running on a highway right out the door
Haha, yeah, I bet if you asked someone at the airport they’d know how to get out of it without that brief stretch of highway. I skipped that step and just started running. :)