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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!
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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.
Down the mall video. link to youtu.be
Lots of fun.
MTB Downhil was shot in Prague, Czech Republic
Hi Ray,
On the topic of that kickstarter swim idea (which I also couldn’t use in my pool because I also swim in a FULL pool), has anyone tried using a small radio transmitter at one end of the pool instead of the accelerometer based swim tracking?
I could imagine a small radio transmitter transmitting a pulse several times a second down along the lane should be picked up by the watch being worn by the swimmer. Ideally the watch would know that when it is detecting the radio pulses it is above water and therefore taking a stroke, when the signal is getting stronger you are swimming towards the transmitter, signal getting weaker means swimming away. Might this not work much better than an accelerometer which is quite prone to error due to any unexpected movement, i.e. swimming around a breaststroker.
Seems strong to me that this has never been tried, the technology should even be in most watches already. Maybe there’s a flaw in my thinking.
possible using doplar shift measurement, but the wrist isn’t always moving forward so hard to calculate. Maybe someday when computer power becomes cheaper a sonar based system could work where the watch could tend your distance from both walls
Also a new version of the Garmin Connect app for iOS with ConnectIQ features.
Android version was updated too.
Yeah, I did catch those. I’ve stopped including phone apps in the update, just because it was becoming a bit unwieldy – and honestly these days if you have the app, you can easily see the update details.
That said, I almost actually included it, simply because it was quite notable on the number of features added.
I believe there’s a mixup: Garmin’s firmware update was for the vivoSMART not ACTIVE.
Oops, good catch. I answer Vivoactive questions 24 hours a day lately, simple mistype. Thanks!
Ray — It is possible to import files to Polar Flow from a Garmin? I’ve tried every Google search I can think of, but can’t find info on this. Ditto for clicking every link on Polar Flow. Seems like once I export the tcx file from Connect I should be able to upload it to Flow, but maybe not?
Thanks.
There’s no official method yet. I suspect once Polar enables the import option here shortly, you’ll be able to work up something there.
If you have an Android phone or tablet then an app called “SyncMyTracks” works really well.
Ahh, that’s right! I knew there was vaguely some 3rd party way – I just couldn’t remember if it was something someone had shown me on the side or legit. Thanks for sharing!
You also have RunGap on iOS as an option for file transfer to various sites (Polar Flow was added this week).
Thank you all. I will check out RunGap while I wait to see what Polar’s import option looks like — and decide whether to pull the trigger on an M400.
Thanks again!
RunGap, although an excellent app, doesn’t give you the possibility of uploading to Polar Flow or Polarpersontrainer.
I use “SyncMyTracks” in an android virtual machine on my mac as I don’t have an android phone
Thanks. I checked out RunGap and saw that problem. I will try to figure out the virtual android option until Polar gets their import on.
Maybe a combined bullet proof inflatable bike kit to prevent road rash — geez, talk about over protecting your kids…..
To be 100 % correct, This Weekend is no World Cup in Beaver creak but the World Championships ;) and as far as i know, no one uses it because it does nit fit under the Suite (it was already planned to be included in Gröden but postponned untilgbar next season).
Motorcycle racers have had airbag leathers for at least four or five years and they’re available to the public as well. AFAIK there’s never been a false trigger there either, which is a good thing since on a motorcycle a false trigger could easily be fatal. I think that’s mostly down to improvements in accelerometer technology. Back when they were trying to mount airbags on the bikes themselves, false triggering (among other major flaws) was one of the insurmountable issues that kept the airbags out of production.
Note: nothing is “bullet proof”. “Bullet-resistant” is the most accurate claim.
The mall bike video was cool, but man I would hate to be that person who has to clean up the tire marks :-p
The Hydropacer is inane.
This sounds interesting for next week.
link to roadtovr.com