I’m DC RAINMAKER…
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Check out my weekly podcast - with GPLAMA, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
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: Zwift
5 Random Things I did This Weekend
As we usher in July (already?), here’s what I was up to this past weekend. Overall, for the most part here in the greater Amsterdam region, unless you were planning on partaking in some event, things are mostly back to … Read More Here
Virtual Tour de France & L’Étape du Tour on Zwift: Everything You Need to Know
Today ASO and Zwift have announced a Virtual Tour de France, which will start taking place this weekend with 23 Men’s UCI WorldTour teams, and 16 Women’s UCI WorldTour teams racing. The truncated event won’t quite mirror that of the … Read More Here
How to Load Zwift or TrainerRoad on a Peloton Bike: A Geek’s Guide
This post started almost 100% for my own reference as a simple notepad file. But enough people asked about my random Instagram stories using it for Zwift and TrainerRoad, that I figured I’d write it up into something semi-cohesive. While … Read More Here
Trying Out Zwift’s New Boost Mode Feature in Beta
No, your Zwift bike doesn’t now have a new hub standard option. But for a select number of people as part of the Club Jarvis test group, there are now events with a new Boost capability that allows you to … Read More Here
Tour de Suisse Goes Digital: A Look at The Biggest Esports Cycling Race To Date
Over the past few days, and over the coming days, Rouvy is hosting the Digital Swiss 5. That confusingly named event is basically the digital version of the Tour de Suisse (Tour of Switzerland), one of the major pro cycling … Read More Here
Zwift Rolls Out Third World Choice
Here’s a quickie of an update for you on this Saturday morning, which is especially notable if you plan to ride this morning (or evening in Australia) that you’ll want to budget extra time to get Zwift updated. Though, the … 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
Zwift Lays Off Employees in Move to Focus on Developing New Hardware
This past Friday, Zwift laid-off a number of employees in a move the company described as being made to allow them to “develop new hardware”. The positions being eliminated, according to various industry sources that were informed by Zwift on … Read More Here
Elite Sterzo Steering/Riser Block Accessory In-Depth Review
Last year at Eurobike we saw Elite announce two then-unnamed steering accessories. One of them contained electronics in it to connect to apps, while the other was purely mechanical in nature. Externally they looked identical. Both allow the front end … Read More Here
Garmin Adds Bluetooth Heart Rate & Running Data Broadcasting for FR245/FR945
Garmin has quietly begun offering the ability for users to start re-broadcasting their heart rate over Bluetooth Smart with certain wearables, via an open beta program. While virtually all Garmin wearables made in the last…ever…support re-broadcasting of heart rate over … Read More Here
NPE Runn Treadmill Smart Sensor: Everything you need to know
A few weeks ago when Zwift announced their new running track within Watopia, a bunch of you were curious about the NPE Runn device I showed briefly within that post. But then yesterday Zwift sent an e-mail out to about … Read More Here
Zwift’s Running Track Is Open: Here’s what a structured track workout is like
Yes, I just ran in Zwift. For real. On purpose. And somehow, someway…it didn’t suck this time. Earlier this week in an apparent New Year’s Eve ‘let’s do this’ moment, Zwift rolled out its last course edition of this year: … Read More Here
Zwift Begins First Day of New Crit City Race Course: My first go of it
To my surprise, that was more fun than I expected. Also, it hurt my lungs more than I had planned for this Saturday afternoon. But more importantly – I could actually see doing it again. Which is not something I … Read More Here
Zwift Confirms New Hardware Division: Posts Job Positions To Build Indoor Smart Bikes
Ahh yes, the rite of passage for any tech company is posting job positions that give away your future plans. Be it Apple posting autonomous car engineering positions or Uber trying to build flying things, eventually companies have to show … Read More Here
British Cycling Strips Zwift Championship Winner for Cheating
I’ll be honest, when I outlined all the ways one could cheat in Zwift back in January, this method frankly wasn’t on my radar. But today British Cycling has stripped Cam Jeffers of his 2019 British Cycling eRacing Championship title, … Read More Here
Zwift Demonstrates Mountain Biking & Steering at Eurobike
As the flurry of announcements at Eurobike get under way, Zwift themselves has two items on the docket. The first is availability of the new Yorkshire course later today, a shorter looped replica of the real world UCI World Championship … Read More Here
No, Zwift Racing Wasn’t Hacked. Yet. Sorta. Let Me Explain.
Cheating at Zwift is nothing new, but more and more this year the focus is on how to hack Zwift racing with tools and technology. For the first time we saw a presentation at Def Con about exactly that. Read More Here
Zwift Re-Updates Terms of Service After Recent Changes & Concerns
About a month ago Zwift quietly updated their Terms of Service. Then, a day or two later they (properly) sent out an e-mail to customers saying things had changed, and to check them out. For some reason, at the time, … Read More Here
Zwift’s New Giro d’Italia Course Released: First Ride
Earlier this week Zwift announced that their new course would be a short time trial route mirroring the 2019 Giro d’Italia Stage 1, which starts today with the pros riding the real thing in Bologna. But it wasn’t until now … Read More Here
The Challenges Ahead for Zwift and ESports
It was almost exactly two months ago that Zwift announced they received a whopping $120 million USD in new funding, whereby a large chunk of that would be spent on digital racing – known as esports. Since then, the company … Read More Here
Zwift Finally Rolls Out World Choice…Sorta.
Finally, one of the most wanted features is now live in Zwift as of this morning. If you’ve got yourself a Mac or PC and Zwift, you can now select which world (map) you’re going to ride that day. As … Read More Here
Friday Roundup: Interbike cancelled for 2019, and Zwift encroaches on Strava with new update
And just like that – it’s Friday! If you’re reading this prior to 11AM US Eastern Time/5PM Central European time – then don’t miss out on my YouTube Livestream today (Friday) with GPLama and DesFit – here to answer all … Read More Here
Hands-on: Zwift’s New York City Course is Now Available
After bits of teasing since earlier this summer, the Zwift New York City course is finally here. And, it’s nothing like what you expected. Well, unless you expected flying cars, levitating translucent roadways, and buses dangling from glowing blue railway … Read More Here
VirtuPro’s Indoor Smart Bike: The Bike Zwift is investing in–First Look
Earlier this week a well kitted out van drove from Copenhagen to Amsterdam. Upon arriving it unloaded an indoor smart bike that in a few years might be the leading option in indoor smart bikes if you use Zwift. Or, … Read More Here
Zwift rolls out Innsbruck course to everyone: All the details
Earlier this morning Zwift lit up their newest course, the UCI Innsbruck World Championships, in Innsbruck, Austria. This course has been known since earlier this summer, with more details spilled at Eurobike last month – including the exact routes that … Read More Here
