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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.
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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.
Great place to live! Congratulations…we will miss you ;-)
Just spend a week hiking in the Netherlands (1st week of october).
As already expressed cannot understand the move …
Between UK, Belgium or Netherlands …
Keep the sun, seafood, cold winters … everything, nah
Mallorca, no longer in November due to DCR groupies, pouah 😂
Great news
Enjoy Mallorca. Nicd place, people and food!!!!
Bienvenido a España! ;-)
Congratulations. How will be testing in the summer?
Mallorca is a nice place to live and ride the whole year. Bienvenido a España!
Did a week’s hiking there earlier this year. It’s the perfect place for you. Enjoy!
Curious if the urban arrow could be upgraded / modded to handle the hills. Post the details of the model you have and let the audience brainstorm :D
upgrade the rider not the bike :)
Haha, it’s actualy not the rider that’s the problem. The problem is belt slippge beyond the torque. So basically, it eventually just starts slipping. I retuned the belt, but some problem.
:D
Buy this fleet for the family to commute: link to velomobileworld.com
Each member can choose and ride one and you will save the 6th for occasions when the girls demolish their own vehicle.
@ray I’ve got pals that ride their two kids over the Crown Range Road between Queenstown and Wānaka on the regular, all year round in their R&M Load 75 Rohloff/dual
battery/high speed version. Very strong recommend. It’s spendy, but well worth it (we had the Load 60). The suspension is a game changer for ride quality too.
R&M Load 75 with Shimano and single battery here. Riding it all year around on up to 18% inclines, in Trondheim. Fantastic bike!
+1 for the Riese Muller Load 75 with Rohloff. Leas transmission loss than the shitty Enviolo, no slippage, lots of gearing at top and bottom end of spectrum. Amazin ride off-road. The Bosch cargo line also has plenty of torque
Welcome to Spain!
It’s really great to have people like you coming to our country. I really appreciate the spanish and specially catalan language learning for your kids.
Congratulations! Absolutely love this for all of you!
Congratulations and sad to see you leave the Netherlands. On the other hand, it does mean that the next DCR Open House will be in a much more pleasant weather :-)
I assume it will also benefit The Girl, as there’s Challenge Mallorca, Ironman 70.3 Mallorca and T100 Ibiza to conquer!
I’m legitimately jealous!
Congratulations! I was wondering how you were able to get such a long holiday with “The Girl”.
Good choice never knew what made you move to Amsterdam ;-)
Should get a Riese&Muller Load 4 75 as a replacement. You can get Rohloff gears on that thing and they can go very low. Also available in a 45km/h version. Really love that bike.
Congrats on the move!
Hope the whole family settles in a good way. Always some challenge moving with kids. Good luck with that!
In hilly Norway, many are using the Riese & Muller bikes.I had a great trip with 2 kids in a steep ride this summer and it was great. Engine had no problem in any of the 10% I’m sure you will find a bike that suits your needs :)
Wow. Nice move. I’ve never there, but I’m getting a little bit of island fever thinking about it. I was working on The Big Island in Hawaii for a while and def felt it there, and that’s 3x the area of Mallorca. Of course most of the area on Hawaii is taken up by two huge mountains…and lava flows.
Welcome to Spain Ray, I wish you and your family the best in this new chapter.
Best whishes from northern Spain
Congratulations to you and your family! It sounds like an amazing relocation and I look forward to reading and watching all your new adventures as you continue to provide one of the best, if not the best, reviews on all things tech sporty wise.
I’m sure the Christmas tree run on the cargo bike will look completely different now as will the gauntlet for drones.
Wishing you and your family all the best,
Paul
I’m amazed that Mallorca won over relocating to sunny England! :)
Hope the move goes smoothly, and you all settle in well.
Congrats on the move. Did a couple of cycling training camps there many moons ago. Fantastic cycling and great culture. …away from the party side of the island.
Bit of weather whiplash though.
Congrats, and best of luck to the whole family.
It sounds like a fascinating move!
Of course, private things are to remain private, but I guess other people like me enjoy reading about your moves. It’s a dream for many of us.
So, please keep sharing.
All the best
Congrats Ray! I was planning my second Mallorca cycling trip, with Trek Travel, for late October/early November 2025. I might need to move it to late November, so that I can attend the first DCR Cave Winter party in Mallorca.
BTW, I have a suspicion that come early 2026 there will be year-round flights between PMI and EWR. I know that for next year, (June – Sept) they are planning on up the schedule to 4x a week.
The adventure continues! Sounds like a great place to live.
I found that moves resulted in decluttering. Some decluttering when packing. Most decluttering when unpacking and I thought, ‘why am I saving this?’.
Even if it is just living vicariously through your adventures it’s amazing to see you raise a family without borders and limits on what is possible. Congrats on doing it very right!
Wow, congratulations! I really love Mallorca for doing sports and I would love to live and work there too.I look forward to your future tests from there.
Congrats on the move!
And I wondered how you got your Urban Arrow to the Island. And why you didn’t answer that question, which you normally did the same unholy hours mid at night like I wrote them.
All the best!
Visited you in Paris, had a cake on your tables outside… did an open house in Amsterdam… so now I know where I need to plan my next trip to 😂
Congrats! Very excited for all of you!
What kind of visa did you get? Was it hard?
That is so cool.
Very happy for you and the entire family…. already looking forward to a DCR run in the (warm) sunshine!
We also need the DC Rainmaker selected top 10 Mallorca road bike & gravel rides, Swim locations, hikes, swim etc
I’m sure Strava’s new features will make it easy to share the list ;-)
All the best to you and your family Ray
Not for me (no seasons, no snow), but sounds perfect for you. No longer will a highway overpass be the highest peak in your area!
Mallorca does have seasons and snow, people forget how cold it can get there
A little history of the island. Other famous expats include Chopin and his house mate George Sand, the writer. They complained about a very cold rainy winter. Also Chopin had a horrible shipping experience getting his grand piano to the island. Hope the age has solved that problem.
Congrats, especially to the three Peanuts. Their choice of parents continues to pay dividends.
Great story about the uphills and downhills of a cargo bike’s life. As a northern Englander living in the Lakes, Mallorca is a go-to place for sun, cycling, scenery and the freshly pressed orange juice shed on the road to Sa Calobra. Hope you all have a great time – not remotely jealous at all :)
Have fun! At least the Peanuts can continue their sailimg adventure ;)
Thank you for respecting our language, Catalan. I wish everyone who comes to live on our island had this mentality because of our culture. hugely grateful
Awesome! We loved to visit Amsterdam but looking VERY forward to an open house in Mallorca. When I was in the Navy it was my favorite port visit and I’d love to get back there!!! Wishing you all the best on a simple cave move! I bet your open house guests will get lots of prizes of things you don’t want to move, lol. I almost pulled the trigger to come again this year, but we have been eyeing early retirement and he budget just didn’t cover it this year. But now I should be able to sell the 1st Mallorca open house ;-)
You keep making moves that make sense.
I travelled the world and settled on Switzerland for family life.
With South Tirol (italy) and Mallorca as the only possible next steps.
Enjoy
(The girls might need to learn German as well.. since that is the third language there)
Hmm, thought now and then about a return trip to Mallorca, this news moves it a lot higher up the list! Hope to do some of that gravel riding with you someday!
I for one am looking forward to using a DCR Open House as an excuse for making a trip to Mallorca (or is it the other way around because I wasn’t going to be able to convince my non-endurance athlete wife to do that for Amsterdam 🤔)
I’ll miss the cargo bike criterium reports though.
Congrats! Mallorca is a wonderful place. I’ve been going there the past ten years or so to ride and hike. There’s a fabulous cycling community there.
Awesome 👏
Can’t wait for the 2025 Open House 😃
Enjoy!
Wow, that’s big news. I’m kinda envious, I just moved to my neighbouring country 2 years ago and already planning to move back because, well, homesickness.
I can’t imagine how you could handle it, but still, best wishes, hope you’ll enjoy mallorca :)
Welcome and good luck with the moving and the one million of boxes full of cables and HRM straps 😅
Ray my best wishes for your family!!!
Espero disfruten de sobremanera su nuevo hogar.
SaluD.O.S.
:D
Congratulations with the move and a bit of a surprise. The Bullitt offers a package with EP801 and a chain setup. link to larryvsharry.com
Wow, what a life you’re living!
It’s been fascinating to follow you thru the years and changing locales.
Congrats to you and your family!
Simply brilliant I wish you all the very best with this amazing decision and life change
Great move, I am jealous !
Last year we hiked portions of the Sierra Tramuntana between Sant Elm and Port de Pollenca, relaxing a few days in Port de Soller. Would love to return…
All the best to the family!
Ray, I’ve been following you since your early days of reviews in the Vernon trail in DC. You’re LIVING the life- and the girl, & the kiddos as well. Best of luck on the new adventure.
Ray, I only met you once at the Dec 23 DCR cave, but this is awesome news for you and the family. I may make it again this year (if work travel allows), but I will be sure to sign up in the new cave and look forward to seeing what this new adventure brings!
Good for you Ray, I was wondering why you were there so much!
Been there at least 6 times (we always take an airbnb in the north east), awesome island for cycling, so you will probably ride past me some day!
Our Team TFC has a yearly cycling get together in Mallorca. Love to invite you both out for a ride.
Hope the Pain Cave move goes smoothly.
PS: I have a specific Edge 1040 question…I hope you can help. Let me know how/where to post 📫 🚴♂️🙃
As you are aware Majorca is cycling paradise. I have been going there for over 25 years and still love it and the people. Absolutely worth the long flight from the US.
I went to the, now defunct, Stephen Roche camp for many years. Fortunately the hotel took over guided rides and rentals and the experience gets better every year.
Hope you enjoy your new life there.
What a beautiful place to live! Congratulations
Congrats!!
Now i understand why you bothered to take the Urban Arrow with you :)
Seriously.. I have been holding off buying a drone.. and as soon as I do.. you move!!!! Hahah..
The good thing is that as a professional plogger now, I might need to go there and pick up trash
Always looking for gravel riding partners on the island! We’ll be in LLucmajor the end of November and Pollenca in December. The wife and I would love hiking pals too.
That makes sense… a lot of photos from Mallorca during weeks 😀 i was starting to think Who were taking the Kids to school in Ámsterdam 😀
Very good choice! You’ll love it here!
Where in Mallorca? I have a place in Puerto Pollenca and we are there 6 months of the year
Enjoy Majorca Ray! It was nice having you in Amsterdam, testing products on the same running routes I also use daily, and visiting the Cave for the open house has always been great fun. Best of luck, and see you around :)
Why did you choose Mallorca over Cyprus?
Congrats anyway.
Wow! Congratulations, looks amazing!
Bienvenido a España!!!
Wow, great place! A good decision, I think.
For your Urban Arrow: I can recommand to change the rear wheel to Roloff-hub wheel. Living in a city with many steep hills, I found it increasingly difficult to climb the roads, even with my powerful BOSCH Performance motor, especially as my children grew heavier. Although our UA was equipped with a powerful BOSCH Performance motor. But after changing the rear wheel to a Rohloff-Speedhub-Hub (which a friend of mine build for me) I experianced a massive powerboost. The DaVinci360-hub appears to be less efficient, leading to increased energy consumption.
The change is relatively straightforward, and you can find many helpful tutorials online. For example, you might check out link to cargobikeforum.de
Best of luck to you and your family in your new home, sounds very exciting!
Thanks for what you do!
Moe Marks
I’m not prepared to comment until I know if Des approves of this move.
Bienvenidos!!
Congratulations, sounds great!
Enjoy the sunny Majorca. Please make a vlog-tour of new cave when you settle in, thanks.
Congratulations to you and family on the next chapter! Keep up the great work, been a fan of the site for years…
Awesome! All the best with the remaining bits of the move! I hope as you settle in they will be chance for some travelogue/slice of life posts. I know the tech is the forefront of the site but the reports from quirky races and peek in everyday life further afield is such a fun reason to stop by your site.
Such a great place to ride. Went there for the 1st time a couple weeks ago.
Tremendo Ray! Deseándote siempre lo mejor y suerte en España!
Welcome to Spain!
South/western Mallorca? Is it the Andratx/Paguera side?
Yup!
appreciate your work
The adventure continues!
I love your work. You are the best ;)
How about a “TWO WEEKS IN MALLORCA” review of all the sites and rides for those of us WAY across the pond. Western USA. Or reference to the best local guides and tour operators.
Thanks
Congratulations Ray! Excited to follow along on this new chapter. I hope we get a DCR Cribs episode on Quarantine Corner soon!
Really happy for you Ray.
Congratulations on the move, and bienvenido a España (albeit I’m on the mainland near Madrid!)
Best wishes on your next adventure. Sounds fabulous.
Great move.
Now that you’re closer than ever before to my home, I will keep following your articles and who knows… in a near future we can meet (in Mallorca or if you come to Girona!)
Congrats!
Sounds like an excellent move! Hope being in nature does not make you miss out on urban cultures too much (a direct flight to New York looks tempting as a solution! Success with everything! Greetings from Amsterdam
Oh well, nice new home :)
We were there 3 weeks ago,
Playa de Muro/ Alcudia.
What were your top 5 choices for a new home?
A question that would interest me a lot:
How did the children take it? Happy because Mallorca has nicer weather than Holland? Sad because of friends? Did they get a say in the decision? ;)
PS: Is it true that the locals call the cyclists “la plaga colorida”? :P
all the best in your new home…..looks like a wonderful place to live
Congrats on the move, and good luck! Are we still going to get the Xmas Tree in the bike story every year? (albeit with different scenery)
I know it’s a place you’re familiar with, and given its ideal location for testing the latest equipment, it’s a natural choice. The added benefit of a transatlantic route and proximity to one of Europe’s busiest airports makes it even more appealing. Like many Mediterranean places, it can be stiflingly hot and very humid from June to September. As one of the top holiday spots for Britons – with EasyJet alone operating seven daily flights to Gatwick in the summer – English is widely spoken in tourist areas. During peak season, you’ll likely hear as much German and English as Spanish or Mallorquín. It’s best to learn Spanish first, as the Catalan-Spanish language dynamics aren’t nearly as pronounced here as in parts of Catalonia.
Congratulations! And now maybe you’ll find that long- missing v800…. lol (if you do and don’t want it, I’ll cover shipping for it to find a new home with me… but give it a quick gps comparison test if you do find it against the latest and greatest (might take a while to update it’s gps system after being dead for years), would be curious how it fares if you did!) Good luck with the move, what a massive undertaking!
That would imply I don’t simply take a bulldozer, push it into a shipping container, and kick that can down the road…
Lucky family. Welcome to Spain. If you come to Madrid, let me invite you to a beer.
Heh, there goes the indoors trainer credibility, “what does he know about indoors cycling!”
Watopia will miss you ;)
Welcome to the island! See you in the mountanis 🏃
Benvingut!
Hi !
I wish you the best for this new adventure !
All the best for you and your family my friend. Keep up the great work and new adventures. With my best wishes to you all from Jakarta. Best, Chris
Spent a month in Mallorca last year. Loved every second and every km of riding there. Hope to have a retirement spot there some day
Interested in why you picked Mallorca over the slightly less busy / overpopulated Girona / Costa Brava region.
Aiming to head that way ourselves.
Congrats! Epic move with the family!
I hope you and your family are doing well. The reports of Mallorca getting inundated by the DANA showed some really heavy flooding. We live in Valencia, (Spain), but were spared the worst effects of the storm. However, we’re close enough to see cyclists and walkers heading to the devastated areas to help in the cleanup.
Thanks! We got lucky as well on our side. We live on the top of a hill, so most of the rains/winds just meant a messy backyard to clean-up. Nothing too serious. And most of the island also spared as well.
Ahhh Ray! Being a bus driver in Amsterdam, I actually saw you commuting either with your kids on bakfiets, or you alone on the road (also I’m a road rider too :P).
Pity, but I totally understand your choice (I’d do it in a heartbeat myself, if I’d have such opportunity) :D
Happy & flawless relocation! Hope The Girl and the kids will love it!