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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.
do the 3 watch test but also add a tomtom runner 3 (ie a 4 watch test). Look at the overlaid GPS track afterwards and see if you notice anything unusual. (Must be fully open to the skies)
Yeah, I don’t think I brought with me a TomTom unit, though maybe one found it’s way into my bag of goods.
Typically I’ll see some movement in GPS tracks while sitting on a roof/etc for most units. I don’t tend to see much correlation on accuracy between how much fuzziness it does in a static location and how it does during tracking with movement.
Realistically though to do these tests in a more accurate manner I’d want to have the watch swinging on a rope-tow like system around a large field or something. Basically to keep it moving and force it to constantly update GPS. Regrettably, I lack such a field.
I wonder if you asked a nice farmer if they would set the watches on the end of an irrigation boom for a couple days… i.e. rotating occasionally around a massive field.
Sounds like you need to make friends with a farmer and put the watches on the outside of a waterwheel – that should do the trick. link to en.wikipedia.org
Since we’ve gone full agrarian with this thread, maybe it’d be possible to attach the watches to a few different sheep within the same herd.
That’d actually be more usable data too – since I suspect irrigation stuff doesn’t move 24×7, but only during certain times during the day.
Now…only to find a farmer….
I have infinite trust in the global reach of this blog, Ray. I bet half a dozen sheep herding (shepherding?) ultra-runners have already read our comments. :-D
You should use the already online and tech-savvy shepherd James Rebanks (twitter.com/herdyshepherd1)
I like the sheep idea more. Then you can test the optical heart rate too
National Aquarium > Monterrey.
I visited them both within 12 months of each other – my mom was living in Baltimore, then I moved to Sacramento. I hope you visited when you were living in DC, I didn’t find a post ;)
But not the National Aquarium in DC link to aqua.org
Hey Ray,
Are you going to be down in San Diego?
Yup! The first few days of May.
The wife did the Pacific Grove tri a few years ago. The swim was not-so-lovingly referred to as the “kelp crawl” due to the amount of seaweed they traversed, to the point of being able to grab handfuls and pull yourself along. The course also had the (Olympic, anyway) swimmers do a lap, come all the way out of the water and run around a post, then go back in for lap 2, which just seems cruel and unusual to me. But then, being a cyclist, the swimming and running parts could both qualify as cruel and unusual as far as I’m concerned. :)
Which Recode podcast?
Recode’s Too Embarrassed To Ask: link to recode.net
I believe it’ll be up later this week. Will definitely post about it.
When will you do the FR 935 battery test? I know it’s supposed to be the same internals as the Fenix 5 standard sapphire, but I’d be curious if it faired any differently – as you’ve said before antenna placement/obstruction can matter a lot (for tracking), and I would imagine that would also be true for how much power it eats up trying to get a good GPS signal too.
Thanks again for the tests and awesome pictures. Cheers!
According to the FIT file, my run outdoors today with a 935 saw a 7% drain in 80 mins. Extrapolating that gives about 19 hours which, even allowing for some rounding errors here, at least is in the ballpark of Ray’s tests.
Are you running Big Sur marathon next weekend?
Nah, but do plan to visit the area! It sounds like I’ll have to do with buying my strawberries vs getting them for free from the Strawberry Lady.
Try Compagno’s Market in Monterey. Delicious sandwich shop. Visited many times when I want was at language school there.
Curious as to whether you’ve tried using a plain old USB-C extension cable with the Karma grip? I’d like a cable extension, but not willing to fork over $100 for it.
No, it’s on my to-do list to order one via Amazon and see how well it work (a plain extension cable).
My guess is it’ll work just fine, but that you’d still have to sort out the whole ‘how do you mount it’ piece on the unit, plus the stability of said cable.
Hi Ray!
Can you do a battery strength test:
1. GPS + GLONASS, 1s, ANT + (foot strap + RD pod) + footpod + tempe + STRYD, bluetooth off.
2. GPS + GLONASS, 1s, ANT + (foot strap + RD pod) + footpod + tempe + STRYD, bluetooth on.
I wonder how they can handle such a load
Generally speaking adding in sensors (at least historically with ANT+ and past Garmin devices), has had near trivial load impacts (meaning, it doesn’t impact much no matter how many sensors).
It might be more interesting though with testing Stryd and Connect IQ app impacts to battery life though (which may be implied in your comment).
Interesting how long they last under full load except backlighting
Hey Ray,
First of all, what you have on the grill there looks delicious. Yes, please.
Secondly, those pictures of the scenery for your run. Just beautiful.
I’ll have to check out that unboxing video you mentioned. Sounds pretty cool.
Thanks for sharing,
Dave
I have to say I’m really surprised at the life you got out of the fenix 5X. Mine did not seem like it would have lasted anywhere near that long during a recent 24 hour race–I plugged it in after about 13 hours as it was down to 26%. I had GPS + GLONASS, BT disabled, 1sec recording, wrist HR and no external sensors. Firmware 2.90.
I’ve got two hundreds and another 24 hour scheduled for this year if you want someone to sherpa watches around for long periods of time. ;)
GLONASS is a big battery drain – 20% often quoted. Factor that in and your results look similar.
Hey Ray! As always pretty creative and interesting way of testing hardware. Any idea by how much a powermeter (or other comparable sensor) impacts battery life? It looks like my edge computer or fenix watch batteries are always drained much faster when I ride with a PM connected to it.
But nothing scientific in this. Just observations
I posted about my crashed Karma in the Karma in depth review. GoPro has said they’ll replace the broken arms and propellers but it’s all on back order. Waiting game continues for about a month now. On the other hand, I have two Karma Grips. One I bought before the drone relaunch and the other came with the drone. I went running with both of them and they go terribly off tilt. GoPro is replacing both stabilizers. Anyone else having this issue? Will the extension help with this? Beyond frustrated with GoPro but it’s a love/hate deal.
Could you please, please, please review the new Race Face power meter? Here’s what Pinkbike had to say about it:
“That’s right, Race Face is entering the power meter market. Their device works with any Cinch-interface cranks, and relies on strain gauges mounted inside the spindle. With a claimed battery life of 400 hours, charging it will be something of a rarity, but when that time comes there’s a USB port that’s hidden underneath a rubber cap. Accuracy is reported to be +/- 2%, and the total weight penalty is said to be 65 grams over a standard spindle. MSRP: Cinch Power Meter Spindle 134 AM (w/o cranks) – $599.99.”
They seem to lack in detail compared to your reviews (understatement alert).
I’m guessing it’s left side power only with the strain guages in the spindle because there wouldn’t be any stress (and hence strain) tranmitted through the spindle on the right side power stroke since there’s nothing on the left side to resist it. Am I thinking about that correctly?
Have fun in Cali
Yup, on my schedule for tomorrow afternoon.
They didn’t make it themselves, but an OEM job. But that’s OK, it’s an OEM I have some confidence in.
Awesome. I look forward to hearing about availability, and hopefully you get some time to get in a quick ride with another power meter to compare it to. Not sure if you’re just getting a quick look at Sea Otter, or if you’ll be doing a full-blown review.
Any sign of anything new from Garmin at Sea Otter? Was really expecting an Edge 1010 and starting to feel a bit late in the day now as we’re heading into day 3.
Nothing new at Sea Otter (nor planned to be announced).
Thanks Ray, guess I can stop pressing F5 now :-)
Wonder where that leaves the 1000, it’s 3 years old, and well overdue a refresh. Do you think Garmin are concentrating on the 5×0 and 8×0, or do you expect to see a 1000 successor at some point?
I’m looking to get a new device for a mountains trip in late June, and mostly use the Garmin ecosystem with sync to Strava, MyFitnessPal etc (have Index Scale, Vivoactive HR, 510 currently).
I’m not sure I see much value in replacing the 520/820 this year. Or for that matter, even replacing the 1000 prior to this season. Thus, I think if you found a good deal on them, I’d jump.