Heads up! Here’s your massive list of sports tech deals! This includes the Garmin Forerunner 965 for just $499, Garmin Epix for $429, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium for $735, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $299, (or Hero 13 bundle for $339!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list here!
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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 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.
Wing suit stuff….. am lost for words!
I had to watch the unedited one to convince myself it wasn’t faked. Those guys are flying so close to the trees!!!!
Me too. There are points it looks like fake CGI though.
Anything about Suunto Spartan Ultra??
Ray never comments on anything before official, even when its leaks are obvious. Suunto has said themselves June 7th is the embargo date, so id expect Ray will have someone on Tuesday morning
Swimming in the Seine?! Nasty. Just arrived in Paris yesterday for the first time and that looks like a mess to swim in. Not to mention dangerous!! Left Texas flooding to this…hopefully the rest of the week gets better.
Those guys are in Seine!
The kickr love continues.
N=1 is not a study.
Insisting the Kickrs are credible seriously hurts your credibility.
And yet plenty of people have no power issues. Also, it might be worth your while to actually read the study and where it did well and didn’t.
I do agree however that I wish they had tested more KICKR’s, obtained semi-randomly from around the world. Though, that’s also pretty difficult to achieve.
I am trying to calculate value of Plenty/Total number of users. Mind helping me with this?
It is their problem how to get more KICKRS. If they can’t then then they should not publish. Claiming it to be science makes me feel sorry for the states of affairs.
The equation can roughly be:
All trainers produced minus a handful of the same people on Slowtwitch who keep posting over and over again.
There are a few others not on ST that have had problems no doubt, but I just don’t think it’s a widespread problem. I’ve posted plenty of data from my units over the years, with nobody have issues with those either. I also don’t think many of those complaints have updated firmware with some changes that Wahoo implemented over a year ago.
Interesting how the accuracy diminishes significantly below 250 watts. What percentage of users are actually averaging above that? Sure, there are plenty that hit higher watts, but I’d wager to guess at least 90% of hours spent on a kickr are at wattages well below that.
Comparing both of my kickr’s to my SRM, I usually have about a 5 to 7% discrepancy. My average wattage is usually in the range of 200 to 225. The lower my wattage, the more variable the discrepancy seems to be.
My KICKR discrepancy is 28-29W in 150-450W range, is it really percentage error for all other users?
I’ve did two tests with two different PM’s, 5-1-5 protocol.
A.
I don’t know why they published after only testing one unit.
Only one KICKR tested means that this entire study should be treated as a singular data point for reference until it can be correlated with the same type tests performed on other KICKRs.
Considering the huge discrepancy at different cadences, I wonder if the author has proven inaccuracies with his “CALRIG” or the KICKR. One would assume that, unlike the CALRIG, the KICKR does not know what the cadence is, since there is actual gearing in-between.
My knowledge of details may be insufficient here. Given that the study does not explain why cadence is important for KICKR, nor does it clearly state which direction the bias is, combined with sample N=1, this does not get a passing grade as “study” from me.
Now, really, why does the cadence matter?
There actually is some validity in testing for cadence levels, though in most cases it won’t matter on a trainer. But in power meters it can be a huge thing.
Still, it’s something I often test through. The authors also tested at various wattage levels. So I certainly wouldn’t knock him for overachieving in at least looking at whether there were any discrepancies in cadence.
Agreed on cadence being relevant to power meters.
In line with that, looking at the provided chart it does seem that at higher wattage’s the accuracy veers off at different cadence points. It seems to me that what the author really has found is that his “CALRIG” has a lower calibrated range than assumed.
While there is nothing wrong for testing with different cadences (and a rigorous protocol may even require a spot-check), the old Engineer in me screams “you got it all wrong” to the conclusion the author makes.
Nevertheless, one observation can be made: The delta between two independently calibrated consumer-grade power-measuring devices is within 2% across a wide range of power.
From that perspective, the KICKR seems A-OK to me.
Ray,
direct link of podcast is pointing for episode 41, I believe there’s more than 2 weeks with this problem.
Ahh, thanks. Good catch. Totally forgot I had direct-linked in there. Will go back and fix the other ones (just fixed this one).
Were your home or business locations affected by the flooding?
Our apartment is good, up 5-6 floors, so would have been waterworld.
The Cake Studio and DCR Cave (as well as our apartment) all sit on the river. With the Cake Studio/DCR Cave, the DCR Cave is the most susceptible. We don’t know exactly where the water was in relation to the cave, but we think about 1-2ft more and it would have been in the cave. It got super humid in there over the last few days, so we’ve been running dehumidifiers. Luckily, the water level is now down about a foot.
Finally, we did have another storage cave we use on one of the islands. That is underwater however. We haven’t been allowed in yet, and we aren’t 100% sure what’s in there. It’s more of long-term storage for us, so we think we had a palette or two of boxes. And we believe we have a portable A/C unit. But we’re not 100% sure what else was there. The palettes are plastic sealed, but certainly not against flooding – so they’d likely be a loss. But, could have been much worse for us.
Hi Ray,
Given that you have included the studay about the accuracy of the Kickr in this post, I will ask you the following question. I am using the following setup based on reading up on your posts and listening to the podcast.
Setup – Wahoo kickr, 4iiii precision and trainer road together. Trainer road is controlling the kickr in erg mode during the workout. Trainer road displays the power from the Kickr while the target power is used to set the resistance on the kickr in erg mode. The 4iiii precision transmits the cadence to TrainerRoad. I also use an iphone to display the power from 4iiii precision to verify the power numbers from the powermeter against the Wahoo Kickr.
Training – Before starting the training session I do a spindown on the kickr using an iphone and see an offset close to 430-440. I also complete a zero setting on the 4iiii precision using the same iphone. Then I start the workout. After 10 – 15 minutes into the workout (generally after the warm up set) I re-do a spindown on the kickr (offset is generally close to 440). Please note that the power match feature on trainer road is not activated.
Power results – the power output from the precision stays 30-50 watts lower than the target power throughout the workout. On the other hand the power from the kickr tracks the target poser really well.
Questions:
1) Which power data is correct? I have contacted both Wahoo Fitness and 4iiii both say there’s nothing wrong with either of the two devices.
2) If both devices are indeed working correctly, which device is actually correct?
3) Is there any way to fix this huge difference in power output between the Kickr and the precision?
I have also tried to turn on the power match feature on TrainerRoad. However, you can imagine given this huge difference in the power output the resistance on the kickr fluctuates at a very high frequency when power match is turned on and ruins the workout with resistance going from one simulating 350W to 200W in matter of seconds at the same cadence close to 90 – 95 rpm.
Would really appreciate your insight.
Cheers.
With that far off, it’d be hard to know which is correct without a bit more context – at least onwhich one feels right. Obviously, someone is likely wrong unless you have a horribly out of balance left/right leg power output. Doing a roll-down 10-15mins in is where I typically see things settle for the KICKR (and most trainers) as well. So you’re doing that correctly.
There’s not really an easy way to fix a gap until you know which one is wrong. I’d try and see if you can find a friend with a bike with a power meter on it (preferably not a left-only one) and see if that might help clarify a bit more. Or, a friend with a PowerTap wheel you can stick on your bike.
I also assume you’ve done zero offsets on the 4iiii unit as well (prior to ride).
Powertap rear wheel? Can you please elaborate how that will help with the Kickr? Or are you suggesting testing the precision against the powertap rear hub out on the road?
Correct, out on the road (or a wheel-on trainer) to narrow down if the 4iiii unit is out of whack.
Yes, I do a zero offset on the precision prior to starting the workout.
I was initially getting offset numbers on the kickr in the upper 500’s. Wahoo fitness was kind enough to change the strain gauge and do a re-calibration and ship the kickr back to me. Now the offset appears in the lower 400’s which per Wahoo Fitness is the correct range. However, that has not impacted the difference in power numbers.
I have used a Garmin Vector before and my balance used to be closed to 48-52 with the left leg being weaker. So I can undertand upto a 5-10% difference with a left only powermeter. But a 25% variation (50 W variation at a target power of 200W) seems highly unlikely.