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…
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.
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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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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.
4
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!
5
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.
The original Pizza Bike by Park Tools:
link to parktool.com
If you were having pizza more often, you would probably want one of these:
link to parktool.com
It would go nicely with your Park Tools bottle opener. Then you could have bike themed beer and pizza nights (or afternoons with the Spring Classics).
My wife and daughter got me a bike pizza cutter for Christmas – I think it rocks! Glad to see others feel the same.
Weird that the new Wahoo Speed sensor specs a front wheel mount, which would negate use with many trainers. Any chance you can test this on a rear wheel?
Maybe it has something to do with the signal strength ? They say “Up to 10 feet”, but maybe if you add a bike and a rider between the connection isn’t strong enough ?
What I’m wondering : Is there a max or min speed for accurate values ?
Interestingly if you read the instructions on wahoo’s site for installation, it says either wheel.
Slide the rubber shim-strap into the back (the hooked) side of the mount so that the three prongs of the strap fit snugly up against the top two hooks of the housing. The Wahoo RPM SPEED is now ready to fit to the hub of either wheel as per your preference.
John +1. It doesn’t make sense just to have the sensor to only work on the front hub. Surely it doesn’t know what hub it’s on and therefore is universal?
If I were to take a wild guess, they’re speccing it on the front hub so it’s closest to where most bike computers are mounted. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t work fine on the rear hub also.
Hey Ray – another Pizza comment from my side (as expected, the most important topic, huh?) :)
Try putting the cheese below all the stuff you put on top of the tomato sauce. I don’t know where I heard this but if you have a look on how the Italian experts do it, it’s always tomato sauce -> cheese -> whatever you want.
Give it a try! ;)
Oh, that’s The Girl’s pizza you see being ‘decorated’.
Mine is…done…differently. ;)
Usually:
tomato, put the pizza in the oven
wait until last 10-15 minutes then put mozzarella and other stuff to finish the cook.
Hope this help :-)
I tend to take the high-heat, thin crust route for mini-pizzas, so pizza cooking only takes 3-4 mins (especially on a stone).
Euh, Earth Hour is not about saving money…DC Rainmaker – you missed the point
Umm, it’s about saving energy. While the hour is symbol of that, if you turn off for an hour, only to leave on another hour – you’ve totally missed the benefits of doing so. Both in symbolism, and in actual energy. link to earthhour.org
(You’ve got a typo in the first sentence of your Earth Hour paragraph) ;)
Thanks!
I’m waiting for Stage dual sided to be released so the single sided cranks can be the budget option.
Any update of their release schedule?
Given they haven’t technically announced it, I suspect it’ll be some time before we’d see them available (since they seem to be struggling a bit getting carbon out the door and are likely focused on that).
I know this is a bike site, primarily, and that’s why I come here. But , you should think about reviewing some other random tech things you deal with. Your tripod mount comes to mind. Not that I am interested in the mount, but I imagine there are some tech things or other things that you deal with on a day to day basis that others may like some insight about. Your reviews seem fair an unbiased, thus, I think there is some value in your opinion on other things.
But don’t get away from the sport tech!
“you should think about reviewing some other random tech things you deal with.”
A summary of your thoughts on the handling of the Nikon 500 would be appreciated. If I were to return to the world of mirrors, the 500 would be on top of my list. Congrats on the purchase.
What happened to the giveaway that was conducted a month or two back ?
Here’s a link to all the giveaways. You’ll see the most recent post of each is the winner post.
link to dcrainmaker.com
(Spoiler Alert: You didn’t win. :()
Hi Ray, I know this is not DPreveiw.com, but I’m very curious as to why you’d switch from EOS to Nikon?
People tend to be very loyal to the brand they have, mainly because of the money they have invested in “glass”, but some also for almost religious reasons.
No doubt the 500DX is nice, but so is the new 7D…
For me, it’s frustration with Canon and the connected aspects (or lack thereof). So things like getting images to my mobile device quickly are becoming more and more important. And in that simple respect Canon totally misses the boat.
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly is the 4K video footage ability. While the 500 DX is semi-limited in the crop on the 4K aspect, that isn’t a show-stopper for me given the zoomed aspect of much of my shots anyway. Meanwhile, Canon…???
For me I use my DSLR as both photo and video camera, and while some only want a photo camera, I prefer a non-singular purpose thing.
I’ll likely be selling off the majority of my Canon lenses once the unit arrives. And it is a big shift. Obviously I wish Canon had done something to fill that gap – but just not seeing it anytime soon.
People are “loyal” to the glass they’ve accumulated. (Ask me how I know.)
…and there are several products by Canon addressing those same requirements being announced “now” that wouldn’t require changing systems. But to each its own.
For people interested in what’s available shortly and in the coming months, I’d suggest following Canon Rumors . com. Or at least browsing it before jumping the gun.
Oh, I definitely follow CR (in my feed), but even then the spec leaks haven’t even gotten close on the 5DM4 to be anywhere near release. And even then, we haven’t seen any mention of 4K coverage or sync to mobile/wifi natively.
Cake testing job, now there is one I could handle very easily.
Thanks for sharing.
Puke and all….uh oh
I have that exact same pizza cutter. At least until this past week when I was biting into my pizza and almost chipped a tooth on something hard. One of the grommets from the wheels had broken off and was in my pizza. I no longer thought it was so cool so it ended up in the trash.
yup – read the reviews.. falls apart.
looks cute though
Well, if you took your ‘bike’ into LBS for routine maint, along with some pizza for them the mechanics to “test ride” it then maybe you wouldn’t have that issue. ;-)
Actually, the Amazon reviews (41 for one model, 43 for another), look surprisingly good. Better than I thought they’d be.
I’d agree if you use it every week, and press really hard, it’s likely to break. But if used sparingly and more as a fun decorative piece, it’ll last a while.
Actually, this was only the 4th or 5th time we used it. And I’m only 145 lbs, so probably well below the weight limit, although it wasn’t marked on it. It is a fun idea, but you might want to check the wheels after each use, before pizza consumption.
You must have a higher W/KG than the rating specifies. ;)
So hungry now!
Ray I have my finger on the trigger to buy the elemnt. Cant wait for the review.
I’d strongly advise you to hang fire on the Elemnt. Made the mistake of not waiting for Ray’s review and I’m returning mine. Had WiFi connection problems from day one (software issue in both Android and iOS apps, poor support from Wahoo) and the route navigation aspects are poor – map fixed at North up, no turn-by-turn or course point warnings. Can easily be fixed in time and some of the features are good (LEDs especially) but I’ll stick to my more capable old edge 705 until this product is properly ready. Interested to read Ray’s thoughts.
Yup, it’s not a perfect unit yet. But they are iterating incredibly quickly, major update last week, another tomorrow, and so on.
I think that some of the ‘I hate my Garmin’ crowd want it to be great, merely as a reason to not have to have a Garmin. And for a portion of that crowd, they’ll be happy.
If you look at features, no, the ELEMNT doesn’t have as many as any current Garmin Edge device. That’s a straight fact. However, it does make up for it in having unique features that Garmin doesn’t have, or does poorly. For example, WiFi routes from Strava works well for Wahoo, whereas Garmin routing relies on GC.
Of course, one would validly argue that it’s just moving the egg somewhere else. So instead of a Garmin problem, it’s now a Strava problem. Either way – both require you to create the route elsewhere and not in a Garmin/Wahoo app.
There will be a pretty big list of pros and cons. I think for those that are willing to leave with some incomplete features temporarily, the ELEMNT may be the right option. For others that want something that’s reasonably rock-solid today, the Edge 520 is probably better (or other older Garmin Edge unit).
There will no doubt be some that have had some terrible experience with any product (Garmin, Wahoo, etc…) – so I don’t think I’d be able to change their mind either way. For them, it may be a case of ‘the grass must be greener’, even if the grass is just a different shade of green.
Very anxious for the Wahoo Elemnt review. I’ve been using a Garmin Edge 810 for a couple of years now, primarily for the live tracking functionality. (commuting home during rush hour makes the wife nervous) FAR too many disconnects, dropped connections, and complete failures to connect via bluetooth to be at all dependable. Seriously, I can eventually have my phone connected and sitting in my pocket, all of 2.5 ft from the Edge and it will still randomly disconnect for no reason.
At this point I’d LOVE to completely scrap Garmin and their garbage firmware, but need a reliable alternative first.
Ray, any chances of a ‘thoughts on the D500’ post when it arrives?
Yup, I think I’ll do something. Maybe not a full post, but just a super-extended section in a 5 Random Things post. Or perhaps I’ll do an updated “My Photography Gear” post.
The Earth hour is not a very smart initiative. Electric energy can not be stored in significant quantities so the production has to equal demand every hour. If everyone would turn-off and then turn-on their domestic loads at the same time it would a very stressfull event for the grid and could lead to blackout.
If you want to help the planet, reduce your electric energy consumption. All of us can do that on daily basis, and not when so-called environmentalists urge you to
Did you have a chance to test Wahoo Element RPM as Polar V800 speed sensor?
Not yet, but it’s on my list first thing in the morning to test. Doing a suite of tests with a bunch of BLE devices: V800, V650, V450, Ambit3, and a few apps.
Great! I assume that was M450, btw. :)
For what I remember there was no automatic start option in V800 when it detects a movement?
Hi Ray – I keep watching the weekly “random things” hoping for a review/first look at the Lezyne GPS units. Any chance? Thanks!
Ray, for what it’s worth, while I’m a Nikon fan they lag the Canon models for video and even the D500 looks unconvincing for video standalone. If you are looking to upgrade mainly for video (and I suspect your 7D is still as good as you will ever need for stills for your business), you might be better off looking at something like a Blackmagic Pocket (and with an adaptor you will still be able to use Canon lenses).
Just my £0.02
Or Panasonic GH4 with a Metabones Canon to MFT Speed Booster, which would give you stills and high quality 4K in one unit but allow you to keep Canon lenses
Yeah, I’m still waiting to see a bit on how video comes out there (500 DX) in early reviews. I’m likely late enough in the queue that I’ll probably have a few weeks. If not, I can always return on Amazon while I decide.
The connectivity piece is huge though, and seems far cleaner.
Another interesting cam I’ve been eyeing is the new Sony 6300. Things are looking pretty good from what I’ve seen in terms of footage (minus rolling shutter issues, but that rarely impacts the type of shooting I do).
2) Cake photos & cake testing
3) Makin’ some pasta (and pizza)!
Its a hard life huh! :-)
Love the pizza cutter, have the same in yellow myself and it adds a child like joy to pizzas!