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.
FIRST!
I’ll be tuning in!
I’ll come for the girl, she is so fun in that newsletter of yours,
+1000! It`s been so fun reading the newsletter. In fact, The Girl kind of got me back to newsletter reading days (I admit; I look forward to the next one every other week). A smart and witty snippet for those who haven`t had a chance to brighten up their days yet:
“…On Halloween Ray left a treat for the runners. See what I did there?…”
Just brilliant paragraphs and pictures, humans!
I have a question for you. Are you good at predicting how many views or comments a post will get? Are you ever surprised at how many (or few) a post gets? You have been doing this for so long figured you have a decent feel for the amount of interest a post will get.
In general, pretty good at predicting what works or doesn’t work. But sometimes I’m surprised. For example:
Garmin Instinct: Didn’t expect anywhere near the level of interest it’s gotten. I expected about 1/10th the interest.
Polar Vantage: I expected strong site interest, but low YouTube interest. In reality, the YT side of things has blown away my expectations.
In general, topics like action cameras and drones do really well for me on YouTube, but so-so here on the site (action cams a bit better than drones). That’s reasonable though, people look to a video format to talk about video things.
The topics you’d expect that would do well, do indeed do well here. Strava, Zwift, Garmin being the top three, and then Polar, Suunto, Apple being the next tier. The actual contents of the post don’t seem to matter much (whether I say I love it or hate it, the comments/traffic/etc seem to be the same).
Sometimes of course I just do posts on a given topic simply because I find it interesting, or perhaps because I want to draw attention to a smaller company doing something that I think could be bigger. Or a specific technology/protocol/etc that needs some light to grow into something we’ll all love.
And finally, sometimes I do posts more as placeholders for future links back. So I’ve got an Interbike 2018 ‘How’d it go’ type of post I want to finish. Sure, that was 45 days ago, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s more about the new venue and what I thought about it. I think those in the industry will find that interesting, which drives whether or not companies ponder going to Interbike. But it also gives me a post I can link to 1-3 years from now to point to a turning point in things.
Thank you for not using FB.
Curious if you’ve considered (or how hard it would be), to package up all the audio from the event and push it out as a podcast. You know, for those of us too lazy to tune in and too cheap to afford lots of data. Can download when I like and listen anywhere!
Yeah, do a video on how to download that as mp3 or how to listen this live Q&A in the background. Then upload it to YouTube with some links in description and … wait one or two years and you will be surprised on what impact one video can have.
I know Australian guy who might want to help you. :)
Well played.
Hi Ray – I’m from Down Under.
Quick Q: Omata One
I know you unboxed one….. is there a review coming out?
thoughts on this piece of kit – for this amount of $$, your views are critical.
(no need to put it in the pod-cast, I’ll be asleep)
love your work. Damien
Yeah, I guess the more I played with it, the more I kinda struggled to figure it out in terms of the usage of it. Maybe I’ll dig it back up again and give it another whirl.
Ray,
I have a couple of questions for you. I hope you will address them in your Video today.
1) With such a busy schedule happening in November, full of buyers guides, in depth reviews, and sales to keep your readers informed about, how do you make time for your own Christmas shopping? What will you get The Girl for Christmas this year??
2) Why haven’t you finished all of your pizza oven chores?
3) If you can bring my coat when you come back to the office that would be great. It got cold out this afternoon!
Thanks, love your blog :)
LOL :)
Minor correction, the Ooni doesn’t just do one thing. You can also do awesome things with a skillet in them because they are crazy hot :)
Couple of Q’s
– Despite it being a new device, do you see the Polar Vantage potentially having any discounts for Holiday this year?
– Would you ever do a review on the Milestone Pod (I know it’s got several mentions), or the Vi Trainer App/Headphones?
Thats the time i´m on my commute from work… sad…:-(
Fear not – you can now watch it above!
What about the Samsung smartwatches? Can’t find any reviews on your site. Featurewise they don’t differ that much from their Apple counterparts to explain this.
Question/Comment about the site more than anything. The comments is so full of insight and interesting comments but after a while can almost get out of control in size, e.g Scosche 24’s problems led to 650+ comments, some more useful than others. I wonder if there’s a way to make some of that info contained more accessible than reading 650 comments moving forward?
One easy (ish) improvement would be badges, so on a Scosche post a tech expert from Scosche commenting on product updates / fixes o serious problems etc might be able to post with a verified badge, and potentially even the reader has the option to filter to yours(DCR) and verified comments. Of course this needs to be used responsibly by vendors, but some of the feedback from the vendors is valuable but can be quite hard to find.
Hi Giles that sounds like a super idea. In the meantime you could always ctrl+f on the article page and search for mike@polarusa for polar doh, or Garmin-Joey……..
No idea who comes here from Suunto or anybody else.
Yup, a couple thoughts.
I’ve tried to get companies to use their names in there, like:
Garmin Joey, or Joey (Garmin)
And sometimes I’ll tweak them after the fact to reflect it if now clear.
That said, I have definitely been looking/thinking for a while about doing verified accounts/badges or something for manufs so people can easily pick out their responses. For example, my responses are all in light grey – but it’d be ideal if those responses were in another color as well. Maybe grey makes sense.
But I agree, an easier way to find responses amidst all the comments might be useful.
Not that you want more work to do, but any thought to revamping comment sections entirely to add more flexibility/interactivity/etc? Imagining allowing people to upvote/downvote, sort based on date/helpfulness/etc, filter on comment strings where you reply. Honestly, basically like a reddit comment system. Your articles are top notch and the conversations below are sometimes as helpful as some of the content. Enhancing that discussion could be a game changer as far as engagement goes. (And right now, the comment section is functional, but definitely not super intuitive or easy to navigate)
Yup, I agree, an up/down vote system would be ideal in some way.
I don’t want to ‘outsource’ comments to a 3rd party platform (for one, it costs more, but two, there are numerous bad stories about hosting comments elsewhere).
But finding some way to bubble up the best stuff would be ideal for sure.
Something like Thrive Comments that integrates into WP and appears to have relatively good reviews all around seems like it may be okay? It appears to just be skinning/integrating over WP’s built in comment system, so even if you deleted it later, it would keep everything (it might even pull in all previous comments too). $39 for a license seems relatively cheap. I also shouldn’t pretend to know anything about WP comment sections though – I really don’t have personal experience with such. I just love your site and sometimes wish I could upvote awesome comments (or downvote trolls into oblivion).
Thought you might like this – makes great pizza. ;-)
I can’t even imagine the list I’d get stuck with if I requested that!
Hi.
Was wondering if you will be reviewing the new Oakley cycling helmets?
Generally not standalone helmets, unless there’s some sort of tech aspect to them (i.e. connectivity, etc…).