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.
-
Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
-
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.
It would be nice to be able to show only one big data field in the middle, that would be nice!
Custom track lengths 200m – 400m sounds interesting to me. It gives an extra point to Suunto for my next watch.
Track mode isn’t that useful.
I train oon a track at my athletics club and we do high intensity intervals. Distance is easy on a track and I know what times I have to run the intervals in. All I need is a stopwatch.
I had track mode on my previous watch, a forerunner 965. Tried it once, never used it again. I don’t think anyone in my club uses track mode.
Maybe only interesting for people who are obsessed how their trail looks on strava.
But hé, produces need new features to sell, users want new things and reviewers need new features to fill their blogs. So, everybody is happy.
As always, Leo, just because you don’t find something useful, doesn’t mean most others don’t. Not sure why you get so upset about sports tech moving forward, yet keep reading various sites about sports tech. Those two seem at odds.
Track mode is useful not just for the person on the track, but actually for the coach, since they can now know whether or not the athlete actually did the pacing correctly. Previously, that was mostly impossible since the distance would be too inconsistent. Likewise, for athletes looking back at their own performances, the distance/pacing was also too inconsistent.
Again, there’s reasons why everyone else is pretty darn happy with it, even if you never use it.
People have different opinions.
My trainers never look at pace. They only look at time for an interval.
And I know quite a lot of people value feature quantity over quality. More is.. well more
I’n not that keen on getting 500, 600, 700+ euro sportwatches just because loads of (useless) functions are added
And honestly, I am not keen to read your negative comments on a website that celebrates sports watches and their versatility.
It‘s the same as someone running into a vegetarian restaurant with a bunch of steaks and shouting at the guests that they are all a bunch of sad losers.
If you thing, 500+ euro watches are useless, just don‘t bother visiting a site catering to these watches and stay in „your“ circle where trainers seem convinced that proper pacing is not important. Funny that anyone with a professional background in running will tell you just the opposite …
I train on a track where athletes just below dutch elete train. Coaches shout times for interval’s. Not pace.
It’s not like you do a 15k endurance run on a track.
I agree wholeheartedly and I really also like my veggies and the DCR site …!
The Big Lebowski would have a great quote for you here: “you’re not wrong, Leo, you’re just…”
I do multiple workout a week on the track and also don’t find track modes useful for the same reasons you say, but I also get why others would find it useful.
I have been playing with the new live track app. A couple interesting things here. 1. it was developed by a 3rd party so it does look like some are interested in developing for the Suunto app store and this could be interesting if more were interested in the SDK and 2. it is really nice to have a map on your phone that is attached to where you are in your watch. I know others already do this, but Suunto is working on catching up and doing it with style.
I’m happy to see all of those advancements coming to my Suunto Race S! What I find odd is that the watch installed it tonight even I have automatic updates disabled 🙁
I had switched it off when Suunto broke the HR/Sleeptracking with an update…
I wish for a track bike mode for bike computers or watches, accurate distance there is as yet not really possible.
The open race track in Zürich is 333.3 m and not 329/340/310/…
I know that’s not the biggest of markets but would make some people _very_ happy 😊