Heads up – Massive Sports Tech Holiday Deals List is Live!!! The Garmin Fenix 8 is $250 off (even the Fenix 8 Pro is $100 off!), the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is on sale, the Garmin inReach Mini 2 is $249, the GoPro Hero 13 Black, DJI NEO, and a ton of other brands/deals, including Wahoo, Oura, Whoop, Polar, Samsung, Google, and more than 100 sports tech 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 2024 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.
Did a 20km easy run into a parkrun (3rd overall in 17;47) into an easy 7km home as a long run for the weekend!
Went for run (24km) through the blue mountains in Australia on Friday followed by a recovery Kite Foiling session (56km) on Sunday and then a skateboard with the gf along the beach boardwalk just in time for an epic sunset (time spent without her forgotten).
Kinda usual training weekend. Tempo ride on the trainer (suck weather is hanging on forever here), gym for strength and mobility and then a run on Sunday.
Hook half marathon 2nd overall.
gym rehab sessions on Saturday and Sunday
Did a wonderful Triathlon outside of Greensboro, NC.
the weekend was predominantly a recovery weekend, that involved a 10 mile and 6 mile run, and some time on the water in a racing kayak!
Coached a U6 girls soccer game (high stress!) and did two training rides. In one weekend!
An easy 90k ride on my usual route
Did some nice running in the spring sun today! Nice!
/Henrik
Some Swift and then a 100km ride on Sunday.
Saturday: Threw Javelin for the first time in 5 years and was surprisingly not a disaster. Then a quick spin to test the new tyres on my race bike in the evening.
Sunday: Some Zwifting including a WBR race up Fox Hill.
Friday Run,
Saturday Zwift,
Sunday Hangover!!!!
4 hour endurance to popeye village
90 minutes of Zwift. Spring is late.
And after a couple of hours ride on saturday I realised I had to tune my stack height on the new bike. Spent 5 hours attempting to put myself stand still.
Lesson definitively learnt
Did some hiking and running along Skyline Drive.
Kicking off the season with a shorten run in snow turned into freezing rain mid-April.. spring not here yet for us Canucks.
Two bicycle rides; morning and afternoon.
Easy run, in the COLD.
Did a 2 hour commute but stopped at the pub mid way (don’t tell anyone about the three pints!)
Decided to head back to the hills on the bike. My legs are out with since.
Did a long run on the beach.
Walk-ran-hobbled five miles, the furthest for several years.
Had plans and a route set for a 100k road ride in the snowy hills south west of Calgary for my birthday, but instead spent the weekend feverish and wrapped in a blanket due to a nasty cold. Recovered now, and would do the same ride this weekend if we didn’t have a heavy snowfall warning in effect….
Long ride on Saturday with some 70.3 sets with the coach followed by a brick run. Sunday long neg split run.
Saturday was a long ride along the beautiful blue Dannube in Austria and Sunday just getting the muscels moving again and all this in preparetion for the link to tuscanytrail.it in June.
FIngers crossed.
Daniel
went for an awesome 90K ride with 2.400 meters of gain in the Peloponnese
Took advantage of the few intermittent days of summer-like weather for a 70 mile bike ride
Swimming with kids indoors and generally running around after them
First decent weather of spring – cutting grass, cleaning patio etc – that counts as exercise doesn’t it?
We’ll do a day-long hike in the Smokey Mountains this weekend. Hope that’s athletic enough for your taste :)
I swam, ran and biked. Nice weekend
I did a running evening with sedentary college students. We teach them how to get to a healthier lifetstyle. They will do a 260km relay run between Quebec and Montreal in 36h.
This weekend will be a long trail run of 20k in the area I live
I biked 3 hours in the nice sunny weather of South Central PA, and then ran for 35 minutes. Then did some fun stuff with the kids. Then on Sunday in the cold windy South Central PA I ran for 1 hour 15 minutes on a tread mill at the local gym.
Running hills in the mountains
Went to an open house thing at our local bike shop. That’s pretty close I should think.
Did the “Brabantse Pijl” cyclosportive, 150km of fun flemish hills followed by some fries and a burger. It was a good weekend :)
101km outdoors season biking premiere Saturday morning. Solo ride. Beautiful but lonely. Too long, still sore three days later.
I had planned to go on a leisurely group ride but… had moved my Assioma pedals between bikes and forgotten to change cleats on the single pair of bike shoes . Showed up at group ride, realized my mistake, didn’t have time to go home and fix prior to group departure.
After missing all of last year due to back surgery, I did my second race (bike) this weekend, and the first where I didn’t get dropped. On the comeback road!
Did a trail run in perfect weather.
Did a small run and had some wine tasting
Hi,
I wnet biking with the Kids and my dear to le domaine de Saint-Cloud (beuatiful view on Paris)
Sportivement
Climbe a hill with my ham radio
Ran 8 miles in the freezing rain with this crazy midwest spring weather. Gore-Tex Shakedry really works!
Did little over 100k ride… for the first time in my life!
Ran 10 miles in prep for the Quebec Mega Trail 100k
Ran a 10k race in some really nice weather!
Running with the kids.
2x40k ride to a wine tasting event
hope the weather be nice and up this weekend (repentigny) is the debut of the season rides
Nice 15km bike ride with my 8 year old daughter
I carried my children around the house, that counts as an athletic adventure, right????
Freezing rain in the Montreal region. Spent to much time on the old Lemond Revolution, a smart trainer would be nice.
I did my first run with my son, Paul (6 months) in our new Thule running Buggy! Was awesome!!!
20km long run for me! thanks for the prize!
Competed in my triathlon clubs club championships. Weather was rubbish and swim was replaced with a run. Fun race, pretty happy with the result too. It also flagged the end of the triathlon season in Australia.
Today I also signed up for a 300km ride in October…
I rode intervals on my Tacx Neo, but they were intervals only because my 2 toddlers kept showing up to ask questions.
Suffered through two beautiful but painful freezing rain runs
Beaten up from a biz trip but had to catch a nice spring breeze in NY before raining all week…
Ran 15 miles in the park.
Had to run on the treadmill because of the spring snowstorm
Saturday before work, I volunteered at a group run activity for our free running group MRTT Moms Run This Town. 50+ runners including kids, was a great turnout for us. Sunday was a quick panicky trail run which consisted of running away from creaking and cracking sounds in a mass of pine trees blowing over with ferocious winds. It was crazy!
Marathon session on a transatlantic flight with a hope of getting some sleep.
Tour of Watopia – Stage 5! That radio tower wasn’t going to climb itself.
We had the first training session for Vätternrundan (300km). Group of 35 riders did a 125km bikeride in nice weather.
Good times on Zwift, looking forward to some Spring weather finally arriving here this coming weekend.
Easy low-speed three-hours bike cruise around the city.
Playing a basketball game – keeping our top position in the competition.
shoveled more freakin snow….damn you mother nature
I did a tempo zone bike workout at race pace in preparation for my upcoming 70.3 race in Vietnam.
Being in Italy I’ll probably drink a lot of coffee and do some easy rides
Moved 60 boxes, some of them with books, two beds and and so much other stuff I canät remember. And ofcourse an easy 75minute spinn to calm my self down
Winning a tough soccer game from a rather nasty opponent.
Walked the ten minutes to work and back for long shifts both days. Made up for it with a cycle on Monday.
Sprints and then a coffee shop ride on Saturday, sweet spot intervals on Sunday
Played squash for two hours, ran with the dog for 5km, then inline skated with my daughters for a further 4km.
Cheers
Nick
Raced the Bicester triathlon but ended up doing two long laps instead of one long one short on the bike.
A 3 hours catchup on the wattbike to all the best swimming coverage of the CW ganes
Ran the 12K “Trail Ermites d’Olesa” mountain trail. Good race but 8K going up until the summit let our legs tired and the 6K going downhill where you speed up you don’t feel the legs…
Does watching my son play 3 soccer games count as athletic-ish? I did walk from the car to the field. Also did some demolition work on a house.
Carried a 5 piece desk down and up flights of stairs (other than that it was recovery)
Six mile run – easy like Sunday morning.
Well, I walked the dog. Does that count?
Easy 20k on the MTB to watch a basketball game – even in recovery from a cold with this brilliant weather I couldn’t keep my feet still.
Weekend rest due to a complicated week working and interviews for a new job.
Went to Central park but not for running :-(((
I’m down with a long term injury, but I would love a power meter or smart trainer for when I get back.
I did exhaustive walks among the hills of guides about SAP Solution Manager … :-)
Ran a few miles on Friday. Watched people run a few miles on Saturday. Slept on Sunday. Tried to enjoy the beautiful spring/summer like weather.
Did my first and second bicycle rounds this weekend after a long period of sickness. Just got about 59 km in total but felt great to be back i the saddle.
I completed a zwift challenge on my indoor trainer this weekend, climbing 10,000 feet total by climbing the new Alp de zwift. It was a rainy weekend in Tn, so this was a great workout!
Pilates on Saturday and Sunday then a quick run on the treadmill to round things out!
A hilly 80k spin in lovely Spring weather.
Ice storm here, so all training has been indoors. A couple of solid Zwift rides and my first swim since breaking my elbow last March!
Ran the Brighton Marathon – sub 4 hours so very happy!
a long slow run through the parks of melbourne
This weekend we took the dog for a hike through the woods. It was sleety and gross, but still beautiful.
Ran the road and rode the bike.
I did first century ride outside in my road bike. Easy, nice endurance ride!
Epic bike ride into 20+ mph winds (sometimes properly Belgian crosswinds too), and then Sunday a change of pace with some sailboat racing.