Heads up! The big Garmin annual spring sale has started, with $200 off the Fenix 8 (first sale to date!), $100 off the Edge 1050, Forerunner 965 at $499, the Forerunner 265, the new Instinct 3, and countless other Garmin products including inReach Mini 2. Plus the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium is on sale, and some Suunto & Wahoo product deals too. Full list & thoughts 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.
hi, where did you find the RSS feed address? My reader cannot find it. could you please post it on the article?
thanks in advance!
Is there an RSS feed?
So I have this added to Feedly: link to support.polar.com (which is for all updates), and Feedly consumes it just fine. Though interestingly, I don’t see the Journal in that feed
That said, my feed I found it in was this one: link to polar.com (which seems to cover it)
So, here I am thinking…..hmmmmm…… so, this RSS stuff is a real thing?
😀
My extensive research (aka one Google search and reading the AI Overview) suggests that we’ve missed the boat on this one – it’s decreasing in popularity – but there are still diehards who want to keep it going. For what purpose (that social media can’t provide) is beyond my 30 second attention span, I’m afraid
I’ve see those three letters together for years “rss” and have always thought,.. so that will let even more stuff bombard me with information I’m not sure I even need?……I’ll pass
I don’t think until this story I’ve ever heard a person in the wild say they use it, yet as soon as Ray said it I’m like, wait what? ..lol
Now I wonder if I have missed something
RSS is a great piece of technology. RSS lets you subscribe to all of the sites you enjoy and see all of the updates in one place. You typically get a portion of the full article, enough to see if you are interested or not, then a link directly to the site where the content originated. It is a great way to get news that you are specifically interested in without having to rely on “the algorithm” and all the downsides of that. In the days before the takeover of social media, RSS readers were very common (look up Google Reader, an old favorite).
Indeed. Almost every news/etc site on the planet still supports RSS feeds, it’s how I consume virtually everything in the news realm.
I saw it in my Strava feed, where I’m following Polar.
Hello Ray,
Off topic, when are the Tactix 8 videos coming out? I’m surprised to see you haven’t uploaded another great video yet, hope you’re doing well.
Regards,
Vale
I don’t have a Tactix 8, so…
I interact with a lot of US army and marines as well as European military. I have never seen a Tactix in real life — but various versions of fenix are pretty much ubiquitous.
I’m not sure who buys them, but I think the target market is actually a particular type of hunters in the mountain west and militia enthusiasts.
The Marq Commander — I think that is for mercenaries that are doing rather well.
Will you have a heart rate monitor review for the new Powerbeats Pro 2?
Or…are they so bad that they aren’t worth a review for techy runners and cyclists?
Working on it.
rss is like social media sure, except with an rss feed you can choose and control what you see, when you clear it off your read list, you can go back and find it again if you want… so like social media except 1000% better, aside from the fact that yes, it is for some reason going out of fashion so not every content creator supports it.
like Ray, i use Feedly to read my content. the free version is fine but if you pay a little you can create your own feeds from web pages so get around the limited support for rss
Always ticks me off when these VO2Max (or other athletic metrics) charts by age just end at 65, as if we’re all dead or inactive after that point.
Just glanced at the titles and the one on RED-S caught my eye. That is an out of date concept. It is now recognized that underfeeding is a problem not just for women but for men too which is why it has been renamed Low Energy Availability. Yes, I know lots of people still use the term red-s but it really needs to DIAF. It’s sexist.
But you didn’t read the article?
“In fact, it wasn’t until 2014 that the concept of RED-S was broadened by the IOC to include all genders. The redefinition looked beyond reproductive health and highlighted how energy deficiencies can affect many systems in our bodies. So, it’s important to remember when considering who may be affected by RED-S that it includes men. It includes everyone.”
How is the term relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) sexist?
Indeed, really weird claiming RED-S is a sexist term. Perhaps a troll?