Heads up!!! Here’s your massive Cyber Monday sports tech deals list! This includes the Garmin Forerunner 965 for just $499, Garmin Epix for $429, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for just $619, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $299, (or Hero 13 bundle for $339!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list of 100+ deals here!
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
You'll support the site, and get ad-free DCR! Plus, you'll be more awesome. Click above for all the details. Oh, and you can sign-up for the newsletter here!
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.Want to compare the features of each product, down to the nitty-gritty? No problem, the product comparison data is constantly updated with new products and new features added to old products!
Wanna create comparison chart graphs just like I do for GPS, heart rate, power meters and more? No problem, here's the platform I use - you can too!
Think my written reviews are deep? You should check out my videos. I take things to a whole new level of interactive depth!
Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
-
Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
Get all your awesome DC Rainmaker gear here!
FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
- Do you have a privacy policy posted?
- Why haven’t you yet released a review for XYZ product you mentioned months ago?
- Will you test our product before release?
- Are you willing to review or test beta products?
- Which trainer should I buy?
- Which GPS watch should I buy?
- I’m headed to Paris – what do you recommend for training or sightseeing?
- I’m headed to Washington DC – what do you recommend for training?
- I’m from out of the country and will be visiting the US, what’s the best triathlon shop in city XYZ?
- What kind of camera do you use?
-
5 Easy Steps To The Site
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
Good for chip. Leverage is not always your friend.
Fantastic news for a great company making great products. Full speed ahead Wahoo!
So the banks and investors try to run the company, and they fail as expected, so the founder comes back
Good to see their balance sheet is nice and healthy after stealing thousands of dollars from their employees
#phantomshares
I do still wonder whether Wahoo has a future as a standalone business and if so what that looks like. In particular the following points struck me:
1. I don’t think you can sustain a business selling trainers anymore. Ultimately trainers are now sufficiently accurate and well built that there isn’t a need to upgrade – heck my 2015 Kickr still works well and is more than good enough for my zwifting (especially as I use power from my on-bike power meter to get real world read across) so I don’t see some drive for people to upgrade trainers. (I don’t really know many people with smart bikes but given the pricing point I’d imagine the upgrade cycles will be even longer than for a trainer – although maybe there are more things that can break).
2. Various accessories might be a helpful supplementary income but things like the desk are pricey, the fan seems realistically to be expensive/overengineered when you can get a smart plug and a cheap, but more powerful, industrial fan to do something similar, and things like the climb are a gimick that you might sell to some die hards but aren’t going to be your bread and butter.
3. That then leads towards your bread and butter future sales being bike computers and watches. Given that Garmin is a pretty overwhelming behemoth in that space, it seems like a really difficult area for someone like Wahoo to compete. Admittedly I come at this as a triathlete where there are benefits to staying within a single ecosystem, but there has to be a question as to how much of Garmin’s pie can you eat (and how much will it cost you to do so) because you are always going to be outgunned by Garmin and, whilst Wahoo has the brand position in the trainer space, it’s reputation on GPS devices is pretty mixed and so its a tough sell to persuade people to switch (by way of example, someone from our tri club was looking for a bike computer, they got about 30 recommendations for 530/830/540/840 type options and 1 person mentioned Wahoo – which was dismissed because the person has a garmin running watch).
It does make you wonder, if you are looking at buying in particular a new trainer or smart bike, where you might want support it 5-10 years time whether Wahoo is a good option. I’m not saying its a bad business – its just also not really clear where they go from here.
While I think the watch was a bust for Wahoo, based on my observations at my local cycling club (70+ showed up last week), probably 30-40% of riders use an ELEMNT of some sort, mostly the BOLT, with the rest using Garmin. That’s real inroads against a behemoth. For the record I’ve never seen a Hammerhead in real life.
I just think you’re not looking then if you have “never” seen a hammerhead in real life. I appreciate your experience and comment, that portion of the comment just feels a little disingenuous.
I have 4 fans set up in my cave. Three use “smart” switches, but I have still not found anything that will replace my HR controlled headwind. I think it’s the best thing I use. So if there are HR controlled smart switches out there I would certainly entertain that route, but if my headwind dies, I’m buying another
What is a Hammerhead? I use mostly Wahoo, most of my acquaintances have switched from Garmin to Wahoo computers, but I’ve never come across the product?
I’ve never seen a Hammerhead in my club, maybe there is some but I’ve never seen them, and I’m a geek and always looking at what people are using, would love to see one and hear from a fellow club member about them, I’m sure that day will come as they look great
I’ve used Wahoo’s products (Tickr, bike sensors, Element Bolt) and have always appreciated their design philosophy when comes to digital product design and UI -VS- other brands. And I’m happy that they’re sorting themselves out financially.
However, I hope Wahoo takes a moment to honestly reflect on their product strategy and other aspects of their product design and execution in recent years. They’ve made some genuine product and brand missteps that had nothing to do with the spikes in pandemic-related trainer demand. Perhaps that was driven by demands placed on them by previous investors.
Whatever the cause, it started to feel like they may have lost their way a bit. Now feels like the perfect time to refocus and reorient to an ethos that attracted so many of us in the first place.
Well the analysts seemed to like the fundamentals outside of the debt load:
link to cyclingnews.com
At the time of that recent credit-rating downgrade, the overarching trend among investment advisors’ analysis was that, while Wahoo would require restructuring, the brand position and its product lineup was strong enough for the company to survive. American advisor Moody’s stated “Wahoo benefits from its strong market position in the cycling and smart fitness products market, supported by its good brand recognition, product innovation, and high product quality.”
@dan, sorry you thought the comment was disingenuous. It wasn’t, it was an honest comment. As a follower of DCR, I’m pretty geeky about bike tech, tend to look at what other riders in my club have. If I had spotted a Hammerhead, you’d be guaranteed I would have had the rider show it to me. Maybe I just missed it, but if I did it means that there aren’t many riding with them.
I must confess, I have never understood why I would want my fan anything other than on full blast. I used to used a Dyson fan (that got moved around my house) and when on the turbo it was either off or on full blast. If I am warm enough to need the fan on, I’m only going to get warmer and I’d rather get ahead of that by having the fan going full whack than do some sort of half way house with the fan on a little bit. Now arguably this means that I might have a minute or two transition period where I am not quite at the right temperature, if I turn the fan on too early or hang on too long.
To be honest I just seen having an HR/Power controlled fan to be a solution looking for a problem (like the climb, its ultimately a bit of a gimick for me) – if I’m hot, I’m hot, the fact that I am on a rest interval and my HR has dropped for a couple of minutes doesn’t mean I want my fan to turn down (in fact I would argue that it turning down in that scenario would be a design flaw that would undermine my recovery in that interval and impact the work out as a whole).
I use a Garmin watch and Wahoo bike computer, and I don’t feel particularly tied to either. They’re both good enough for what I need. It’s healthy and natural for the market leader to have competition; look at just about any other industry and you’ll see the same thing. The question is who the competition is, but it seems that Wahoo has the ease-of-use factor while Garmin allows more tweaking and customizing. My friend has a Hammerhead and I’ve yet to go on a ride with him without it spectacularly failing in one way or another.
I have a Karoo 2 for about 6 weeks now. Simply put it is stress relief from Garmin. It like going from dial-up to broadband in terms of ease of use. Nav and map features are simple and most importantly WORK! I don’t want to spend hours figuring out compatibility issues. Not sure about Wahoo honestly but can highly recommend Hammerhead. Based in Brooklyn, NY.
“I just think you’re not looking then if you have “never” seen a hammerhead in real life. I appreciate your experience and comment, that portion of the comment just feels a little disingenuous.’
I’ve never seen one either. Not even in shops. Folk usually ride with Garmins or Wahoos. Claiming folk are being disingenuous by claiming they’ve never seen a fairly niche product is um…disingenuous.
Happy to hear this as I just bought a ROAM V2 after my ELEMNT finally crapped out after 7 years of service! Good luck Wahoo and I’m looking forward to future products and them getting their mojo back.
Typo “as they pleased with the judge.”
– Should probably be “pleaded”?
Outside of that, some of this is shocking news that I’d not seen before, but it seems that the ship might be righted now and hopefully pointed in a positive direction.
Great to hear, Wahoo have always been innovators, the market is a much better place with them in it.
Just heard about you yesterday. Just read your Wahoo article. And Garmin’s gonna be my new GPS! Thanking you.
This is how private equity works. The PE firm makes the target of their acquisition pay for its own acquisition by taking on debt. I hadn’t been aware that Wahoo had been through this, but it makes more sense now.
The most shocking part of this story for me is that Wahoo Docks exist.
I’d love to see Wahoo Fitness send out a survey to their registered customers and get feedback on where they should focus their development dollars next. They could surely sort through that feedback and make better choices of how to spend their money than handing it to lawyers.
It is actually now a building products company:
link to wahoobuildingproducts.com
They have had a few product surveys in their community forums – the ones I can remember focus more on the training software. I was surprised that wasn’t addressed in the article as SYSTM is pretty good and continues to improve its content and is a great value versus some of its competitors.
Through a random set of circumstances, I was aware of Wahoo docks, but TIL that the two companies are actually related
Ultimately, a healthy Wahoo is good news for the overall industry and more importantly, consumers. There needs to be ongoing competition to continue to drive a) lower prices and b) innovation.
I don’t own any Wahoo products myself, but they’re definitely a company I’d consider for my next trainer whenever my current one bites the dust (hopefully not for a long time).
I’ve been buying Wahoo products for over ten years. I hope they find a way to turn things around as the last thing I want is any Garmin tech in my house or bike.
I’m shocked the steering handlebar mount thingy didn’t completely pull them out of debt.
Whatever they do…………Free the RGT one!!
I don’t understand the US business ‘sense’ for what they did. Please tell us the person(s) responsible for that extremely poor business decision is no longer with the company. Wahoo just need to keep doing what they’ve continually done across all their product lines. Take on the strongest players, out-innovate and out-quality them on comparable products at comparable price points. You’ve won us all over so far doing it, so keep going! Don’t try to out-lawyer Zwift/Garmin/etc. Just out-perform them in the same channels. You’re doing it already so well.
HRM: noname->Garmin soft->Garmin hard->Tickr Blue->Tickr v2 (Wahoo convert)
Headunit: Edge 500->800->810->Elemnt v1 (Wahoo convert)
Trainer: KKRM2->Tacx Vortex->Flux->Neo->KICKRv5 (Wahoo convert)
Fans: 4-5 unbranded/noname->Honeywell x2->Headwind (Wahoo convert)
Been on Zwift since the start. Last 2 years gradually riding RGT alongside, no replacing some racing with it too.
I guess all I have left are my Strava subscription to get swapped to Systm. Whoop to get replaced by Rival and 4iiii/Stages to get replaced by Rally. So I’m not quite there yet Wahoo, but keep up the work and the pattern will continue.
Just to share my view on the PE transaction part. In this case the details were not disclosed but in principle the debt combined with equity typically forms proceeds that go to sellers of the stake in the company when PE invests.
So Chip and his cofounder most probably have pocketed some $250-300m on their sale of majority stake in 2021 (maybe a bit less if there was cash in to the company but certainly no less than $225m debt).
So they personally had more than enough cash to buy back the $200m debt, most probably at significant discount from the banks, and still have some money left.
All in all this was a traumatic experience for the company but founders actually “sold the cake and got to keep the cake for a fraction of price”
Yeah, the debt was publicly traded. I don’t have a price chart, but my understanding was the debt was down to 40 cents on the dollar at the end.
That‘s what I thought. Chip is the winner here. Congrats. But employees and customers had to pay the bill.
Well to fully redeem the debt you need to negotiate with the large holders of bonds, the public market for such a small issue of $225m is very illiquid, so 40c/$ would apply to purchases of small lots only.
In this case my read is that the debt holders actually used security/pledges on the bonds to take over full ownership of the company or ownership of certain key assets and as such negotiated the transaction.
Anyway, as owner of Kickr Core, I am more than happy that the founder is back and I keep my fingers crossed for their core business to sustain. However, they should look hard at their product range and markets where they want to compete.
I wished that Speedplay would buy that back from Wahoo and bring back all the great pedals they made that Wahoo binned!
After owning two Tikr heart rate sensors which both failed just after the warranty was up, plus Wahoo’s acquisition of Speedplay after which they ceased parts support of my favorite Frog pedals, I will never again buy a Wahoo product.
I had 3 Tikr heart rate sensors and all failed at some stage within 1-2 years. They either failed by completely stopping (died) or would stop on a ride and come to life after the ride. I also found the sensors too short and would get regular dropouts during the ride. I then bought a Polar H10 heart rate sensor. It has be very reliable and the sensor area on the strop is much longer. I have had the strap now for 8 months and no dropouts. It seems bomb proof.
Great Article, Great Products and I am happy to see the company is on the mend. Maybe they can ge track to innovation and better prices now.
I live up here in BC, every year the smoke gets worse and cycling masks stay the same (largely crap) Wahoo, please make a cycling mask that’s actually comfortable and fits the profile of a face ergonomically. 🙌
I love wahoo devices are designed with the head of a cyclist, not like a garmin by a clerk who has not ridden a bike. However, the wahoo also has horns. I convinced myself by buying ROAMv1 and discovering like others that the device freezes after driving 250-300km. What the wahoo service wrote back to me that it is a counter for 200km or 15h. Why don’t they put that on their product page? I have been misled. I hope ROAM v2 is free of this wahoo-hidden flaw. However, further notifications in navigation are only up to 200km why? Despite this, I still like riding with Wahoo and I can’t imagine going back to Garmin. My colleagues who switched to ROAM v2 tell me why I didn’t do it before :). Wahoo correct yourself and don’t lie to us.
Just as a heads up for those following along in the comments, I’ve updated the post to add in details about the three other investors.
Interesting that one of those partners is RZC, the investing platform of the Walton brothers…
Great news!
Since suggestions for product seem to abound, how about bringing back Frogs and a Frog PM would seem a no brainer for the Speedplay group. Systm seems sound and RGT without overdoing the knighthood stuff is super interesting and evolving well in the heretofore constrained environment. Real money may be in that space. See Zwift.
WOW – not very often that the original guy managed to take control of his company back from the banks – good on him. I found this a very interesting article in terms of Waho’s future direction, especially considering the existing lawsuit and the most likely outcome being an OOC settlement. Possible future collaborations between Zwift and Wahoo? Unlikely IMO given that they are competitors but I’ll be keeping an eye on this over the next 12 months.
Fingers crossed for budget friendly high specc’d indoor trainers!
Jury is still out on Wahoo I think. It seems great that the original owner is now back in charge but my feeling is that he got them in this mess to begin with. I look at it as a wild overreach to aquire all those companies. I mean Speedplay pedals? I know a tiny portion of the cycling world loves them but invest more into them for Frogs? Same as competing with Zwift. I think it would have been better to supply Zwift with the trainers. Anyway, glad they are out of debt. By the way, I own an original Bolt, a brand new Roam V2 and two Wahoo heart rate monitors. I want them to succeed.
Way to go Wahoo – don’t let the money ghouls destroy your business. Some really innovative products over the years and hopefully plenty more to come.
Well I had no idea Wahoo was originally created from money from floating docks, but it makes perfect sense to me — floating docks and their close relative wheeled rolling docks are an incredibly useful thing that’s not that technically complicated on the surface but certainly a while back there seemed not to be that many people doing them.
Other than that, exhibit roughly number 37 million on why leveraged buyouts are a terrible idea. Good to see the company back at least partly under original management and totally debt free.
My understanding is these docks are very high end luxury things, not just your barebones “I need somewhere to put my little motor boat”.
Yay! Please put my lousy GARMIN out of its misery and develop a bicycle head unit with outstanding battery life that actually functions as intended.
Seems like PE is a deal with the devil. Just for them to get money and potentially cause a business to go bankrupt? I think I saw a headline recently that Warren Buffet basically said most PE firms are scams. I am going to have to do some more research to understand this….
I hope they go bankrupt. They ripped me off on a v5 that I bought direct from them.