I’m DC RAINMAKER…
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5 Easy Steps To The Site
1In 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.
2Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent gadget recommendations guide (Winter 2019-2020 edition) and trainers here (Winter 2019-2020 edition) – covering 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!
3Have 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.
4My Photography Gear: The Cameras and Equipment 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! It’s a nice break from the day to day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
5The 2019 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 2019 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 2018 Gear Guide too.
Tag Archives: Strava
Strava Rolls Out New Local Legends Feature: Here’s how it works in action
Strava has rolled out a new feature today to a subset of the population that lets all Strava users earn a new type of crown equal to that of the KOM/QOM, simply for doing a given segment more times than … Read More Here
Strava Cuts Off Leaderboard for Free Users, Reduces 3rd Party Apps for All, and More
After roughly five months of appeasing users with new feature after new feature after new feature, the other shoe has finally dropped. Today, Strava sold its segmented soul. At least, if you believe Strava Segments are the soul of what makes … Read More Here
Garmin Launches Strava & Komoot Route Sync: Works on devices a decade old
Here’s how to link up your Garmin account to Komoot and Strava for automatic route/tours sync to your Garmin device – even crazy old ones! Read More Here
Strava Cuts Off Ironman Virtual Club: An Explainer To Sports Tech Drama
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to write a big post about two major players in the endurance sports world having a catfight. Rather, in an ideal quarantined world we’d just put both players in a Zoom call, stream … Read More Here
Sports Tech Tidbits: Fitbit Charge 4, Strava adds Weather, Zwift Clubs, Suunto’s TrainingPeaks Metrics, COROS New Features and more!
Fear not, no April Fools joke posts from me. I’ve had a specific idea for one for a few years now, but frankly it’s not really an April Fools joke if I can pull it off (and build it). Funny … Read More Here
Strava Rolls Out Significant New Routes Feature
While this might not exactly be the best time to roll out a new feature focused on exploring the outside world around us running or cycling, it’s still a super cool new bit of functionality that will keep you distracted … Read More Here
Strava Eliminates Multiple Summit Tiers, Simplifies Back to Single Option
Over the last few weeks Strava has quietly removed the ability to choose an individual Summit Pack, instead offering only a full Summit membership to those that want to pay for premium Strava features. You may remember back in the … Read More Here
Strava Brings Back Chronological Ordering, Adds Athlete Favoriting
As part of Strava’s apparent ‘Make Strava Great Again’ 2020 campaign, the company has rolled out yet another new feature to their 50 million athletes: The ability to put your feed back how it should be: Chronological order. You might … Read More Here
Strava Launches Native Apple Watch Workout Sync: Here’s how it works
Strava just launched more cohesive integration with the Apple Watch, allowing one to effectively sync directly from the Apple Watch to Strava, so you don’t have to use 3rd party apps to see your Apple Watch workouts on Strava. Given … Read More Here
Fascinating Stats from Strava’s 2019 Year End Report
Here’s a deep dive into how Strava athletes cycled, ran, and swim throughout 2019. From watches to hangovers, bikes to shoes – it’s all here. Read More Here
Strava App Sensor Pairing Is Now Dead: My Last Workout Taking Out The Trash
As of today, the Strava app will no longer allow you to pair to sensors like heart rate straps or cycling cadence sensors. Instead, Strava is now actively recommending you download other apps instead of using Strava’s own app. Well, … Read More Here
Strava cuts off Relive: Here’s what actually happened
Here I thought yesterday was going to be a peaceful random July Thursday morning. Nothing but Italian chirping birds at the Giro Rosa, and catching the Tour de France later in the afternoon on TV. Turns out, Strava had different … Read More Here
Strava rolls out new finger-dragging route creation feature
I’m sure there’s many creative ways I could have titled this post, but I’m going with what I believe to be the most accurate representation of this new feature, despite my desire to channel my inner 5-year old boy self. … Read More Here
My Strava Unique Uploaded Device Tally
Back a few weeks ago while at CES 2019 I met up with the crew at Strava to catch-up on a variety of topics. While Strava doesn’t do booths or even off-floor suites, they do get a lot of miles … Read More Here
Strava’s 2018 Fascinating Year In Review Stats
Well folks, it’s November 29th, so it’s time to have a detailed look at all of our socially exciting athletic data from the entirety of calendar year 2018 to see what patterns we might be able to discern. No better … Read More Here
Tech Tidbits: Polar Vantage Updates, Strava sorta removes ads, PowerTap P2 pedals
There’s been a handful of non-headliner tech tidbits this week in the world of sports tech that are worthwhile mentioning and chatting about. Of course, given this is Friday, the post length is required to be short. Apparently people have … Read More Here
Xert rolls out Segment Hunter Connect IQ App, doesn’t require Strava Premium/Summit
This week Xert, a training analysis/log platform rolled out their latest Connect IQ app – Segment Hunter. While the company’s main thing in life is their adaptive training platform (which I’ve reviewed here), they’ve actually put together a growing collection … Read More Here
Strava renames Premium to ‘Summit’, Changes Pricing Model
Here’s everything you need to know about Strava’s new pricing tiers, including what it means for existing subscribers. Read More Here
Strava Upload Insights: Ironman World Championships 2017
(Hey folks, DCR here. It’s incredibly rare that you see guest posts here, but today I’ve got a special one, from Shane Miller of GPLama fame. As you probably know, he’s deep into all things sports tech as well, and … Read More Here
Strava in Augmented Reality: Here’s how it works
As Interbike kicks off you’ll see a slew of both mainstream as well as smaller companies try and get your attention with new products. Some of these will be products that you genuinely find useful and plan to buy, and … Read More Here
Strava will now fix your Garmin or phone when you break it riding…or not.
On the list of things I didn’t see coming this Friday afternoon was Strava announcing that if you manage to kill your bike computer or phone while riding your bicycle, Strava will now pay get that device fixed or replaced. … Read More Here
First Look: Polar’s new M460 GPS Bike Computer
Today is shaping up to be a rather busy day for announcements! Polar joined the Wednesday new products club with its new M460 bike GPS. This bike computer builds on the M450 unit they announced almost two years ago. Both … Read More Here
Garmin releases Strava Live Segments for Running, Muscle Oxygen on devices, Photo Watch Faces
Phew, all sorts of Garmin news over the last few days on numerous fronts, and this post seems the easiest way to bundle up three totally different things into one tidy little package. Let’s get on with the show! Strava … Read More Here
TrainingPeaks adds Strava Segment Integration
Yes, you read that title right: TrainingPeaks, arguably a competitor platform to Strava, is now supporting Strava’s most import feature: Segments. Though, not entirely in the way you might expect. Yesterday evening TrainingPeaks rolled out the ability for you to … Read More Here
Tech Tidbits: Basis closes up shop, Strava announces live tracking platform
Here’s my thoughts on two noteworthy news pieces that just hit the interwebs. Basis firms recall, shuts down services You may remember earlier this summer when device maker Basis announced that users should cease using their Basis Peak devices due … Read More Here
