Heads up! Here’s your massive list of sports tech deals! This includes the Garmin Forerunner 965 for just $499, Garmin Epix for $449, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium for $735, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $299, and plenty more! Go check out the full list 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.
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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.
That’s a great shot of the outdoor pool. There seem to be loads of people just standing around in a couple of the lanes.
I imagine there are only certain places where flying a drone over a somewhere like that would be allowed.
Congrats on the baby Ray.
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No baby mention? Not even a little oh we had a baby at the end?
May I inquire again about the Rotor 2Inpower? Noticed any (potential) issues so far?
As with other commenters, I’m waiting for the new baby review to hit. Figure you’ve been working on it for months. It was released a week ago, what’s up?
Soon! Just playing catchup a bit. In the meantime, The Girl has posted a few pics here: link to instagram.com
Running on Zwift would definitely make running on the dreadmill slightly more tolerable.
The “Zwift Effect” while on a treadmill would be painful.
Hey Ray, congrats on the new addition. Hopefully, you, the girl, the baby, and Lucy are doing well. I also hope the transition to being parents for you and the girl, and a watch dog / protector for Lucy goes smoothly.
Congratulations on your new baby. All the very best to your family. P.S. My birthday as well.
Running on Zwift would be awesome. There are already some VR running apps and a bluetooth tracker like BitGym, but would be awesome to just tap into the Ant+ footpod and use that data.
“Stryd just rolled out Connect IQ integration for recording data” – Did you mean this or did you mean to write Garmin? I did not see any announcements about Stryd rolling out ConnectIQ data recording.
They sent out an e-mail to current Stryd users asking for beta testers a week or so ago. I can’t quite seem to find a public link to it, but here’s proof via Twitter folks (including Moi) are testing it: link to twitter.com
I believe the go-live public date is July 17th.
Thanks for the reply, I do remember they Beta request now that you reminded me. Looking forward to the public release.
link to apps.garmin.com
That link is actually for the ‘older’ data page, but not the true Stryd app in question.
Zwift running i like that. A while ago there was an announcement from wahoo about an an interface to control ifit treadmills I have an old trad mill that supports the port or chrip based controls. Should be fairly easy to integrate
Here I was hoping the IBM stuff meant they were doing deep neural network training to use the data from various sensors to predict future performance but seems like they aren’t there yet. Its just a better UI to show all the data collected faster then before:
link to www-01.ibm.com
Does seem like someone would use all the data at a place like strava or training peaks to train a neural network with heart rate, power, and other data points to better calculate performance of the athlete then the basic math models WKO, golden cheetah and the like do.
Ray, on the Spartan ultra, is the antenna in the band in that area that doesn’t flex where it meets the watch? This would be a similar placement to the Ambit series although on a much smaller scale, perhaps this would keep accuracy in check?
On the Spartan series my understanding is the antenna is more in-line with the bezel, as the sat bump goes away on the Ultra. This would put it in potentially the same camp as the Vertical/Traverse.
The ‘challenge’ here is we don’t know what accuracy looks like. If it follows the Ambit 1/2/3 accuracy levels (with bump), we’ll be good. But if it follows Traverse/Vertical…then…
Yikes. And that’s why I was hoping based on the pics out there that where the band meets the watch they’d have crammed it in that area. I’m going to stick with the ole reliable, the 230, until a solid review is out and resist the urge of a pre order. Unfortunately my 735 is going back as I’ve been getting RHR data that is clearly not accurate at times. Thanks for the quick reply, congratulations on your new addition, and as a father of 3 young ones, that whole sleep thing is completely over rated. Soon you’ll be able to train for races on not only less sleep but less QUALITY sleep :).
Adam Hansen has done a few more than 15…. just the last 15 were, mind blowingly, *consecutive*!
For tech deals, there’s also Amazon Prime day tomorrow. I got a 910 on the cheap last year, not sure what will be on sale tomorrow.
Ray,
Congrats to you and Bobbie! Super cute baby.
I saw this in the Fenix3 beta notes: “Brought in support for the dog tracker widget.” Does this mean you could attach your watch to your dog somehow?
The direct mp3 for the podcast is on 41, the other one is on 47.
Great to see the Maker team’s been boosted with a new athlete-in-training – many congratulations to you both.
“And for the Fenix3, I think that’s simply a case of Garmin trying to undercut Suunto’s pre-orders starting later this week of the Spartan lineup. Garmin (along with Polar, TomTom and Suunto) are all old hands at undercutting each others major product launches. I don’t expect a new Fenix series anytime soon.”
I estimate you saved yourself over 100 responses to Fenix 4 speculation with this comment. :)
Indeed…
I know Ray is trying to avoid Fenix 4 speculation, but based on this:
link to developer.garmin.com
I can’t see a Fenix 4 not announced at CES or earlier.
At least a Fenix 3+ that supports the latest connect iq.
The flagship watch doesn’t support the latest version of the flagship software platform.
I don’t buy (either believe or $$$$) it sorry.
The thing is though, they’re basically stop-gapping that by adding in a secondary update for existing devices to give them the major features of Biker update.
Going by home many complaints there are about out of memory problems even if the api features that are needed are available the watch may still not run newer connect IQ things.
This is useful to tell what is new in 2.1 vs 1.3
link to pastebin.com
Too bad the Fenix 3 sale is not available at Clevertraining EU :(
AAAAAARGH! After months of agonizing over which watch to buy, 3 weeks ago I treated myself with a Fenix 3. I love it, but I would love it even more if it was a couple hundred dollars cheaper. I guess I still saved 10% from clever training.
Congrats Ray and blessings to your fam.
Amazon USA down the price of F3 too.
Where are your link?
Here you go for the Amazon US Link: link to amzn.to
Thanks for the support!
great!