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:
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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.
At least the room will remain clean for a couple weeks.
What pad is that under the bikes? Is it expensive?
This is a sweet setup.
Hey Paul-
It’s just two standard trainer mats. I got the second one at Performance, but it’s identical to the first one I got there 3 or so years ago. $29.
link to performancebike.com
Wow – thanks! I was expecting something much more expensive.
Very nice room you and The Girl have made. No excuses for not doing your workout. :-)
Do you not change your back tyre over when using it on the trainer ?
Hi Jenez-
No, I don’t bother. I spend so much time on the trainer (3-4 times a week) that it would be quite a hassle. A trainer tire is basically the same price as a regular tire – and even then is pretty cheap – about $30. So at worst I just watch the wear and if need be swap it out once a year or so.
The room looks awesome and I love the holder for the remote control! Definitely looks like you two will get a lot of use out of the room now!
I love it!
Only problem is that with The Girl’s bike closer to the wall, now you don’t have anywhere to pin your workouts up…and no picture to put thing on/behind, either!
Why oh why is there no jealous button on blogs?! This looks amazing. Really well done!
I adore CG!
Can you explain the TV setup – did you run power and HDMI or similar through the wall? Looks great!
Very impressive! I like how you put some of your safari pictures up on the walls. I need a room like that and a Comp-u-trainer.
Great room setup Ray. Like Dustin, I’m also interested on the TV setup.
This looks *nothing* like the room I saw :) Fabulous now!
RE: TV Setup
I did indeed run it through the wall. The back of that wall is actually just the garage, and I happen to have some shelving right there. So I used the shelving to put the Media Center Extender (HP one) on it. It connects via HDMI. However, I still had to solve the IR emitter issue. So I then ran an IR blater with the reciver just barely visible on the upper left corner of the screen, right behind the lip of the glass. You can just barely see a tiny little black bump on the left upper side of the TV – that’s the reciever. The transmitter simply attaches to the front of the Media Center Extender. I can add up to 8 devices with additional cables on the back.
I used the Samsung picture-frame mount kit…which, to be honest, is pretty scary. Wouldn’t recommend it for a house with kids who might touch the TV or toy around with it. For me, it’s fine – but it’s not like the tank-mounts that you can get.
Samsung Mount:
link to amazon.com
IR Blaster:
link to amazon.com
For the CompuTrainer to big TV connect, I’m planning on running cabling through the wall using Keystone snap-mount panels. I’ll add basically two USB ports, and a display port, along with probably a mono-jack for fun (because the dumb CT thing requires it depending on where I put the adapter). Total cost for all that stuff is about $20 and you can basically just build the wall mount panels as required. I did this for a few other flat screens in my house.
Nice room, I love the new technology, it helps a lot on training!!!
Fantastic! I would suggest some fresh air close by. I too use a Computrainer a lot and have a window right in front of me.
How do you use the feed button? I too would be interested in buying a second one.
Thanks and amazing site!
We recently did something similar. We have a room that’s supposed to a be a formal living room. But who does that anymore? For four yrs it was storage mess right off the front door. Now its the playroom/kids tivo/treadmill/spin bike room. And I love it.
Why use a media center extender? Would seem like you’d want to use a real media center so you can run the computrainer software directly on it. I’ve run Rowpro and the Computrainer software directly from my media center computer
Can’t wait for my Ceton tuner to come in so I can do 4 HD shows at a time.
Hey Eli-
Actually a few reasons. I have three other TV’s that connect to a single dedicated MCE box. Within that box I have a Ceton tuner, which as you know, allows me four channels at once. If I went to making the CT box a MCE box, then I couldn’t easily share premium (encrypted) recorded TV content across the house – as only extenders can do that. I used to have the ATI tuners (tested them far before they even came out) – but the CETON is a dream in comparison. Even used HDHR for a while.
While I could just reverse the scenerio – the TV that the MCE is attached to I use for occasional other things and like having a computer connected to it.
The second reason is that I’ve found that both MCE and CompuTrainer are very finicky when it comes to the OS side. While Win7 MCE is pretty much rock solid – if/when I do have to rebuild the box, I prefer to not have to break my CompuTrainer box. The CompuTrainer stuff is a huge PITA to get perfect when it comes to drivers, so once I’ve set it up – I leave it. I wipe the box (MCE) enough for work that combining them would undermine my CT experiance.
Ok…that’s it! Enjoy the Ceton!
Ray,
In a lot of pictures, first of your living room and now of this room, we see your bike always on the trainer. Do you leave it on there between workouts on different days? Do you ease the tension on the wheel or not? Any negative impact on the tires?
Hey, Way cool setup. I was curious, how do you and your partner compensate for different strength on the computrainer? I purchased two computrainers for my girlfriend and I to ride together but it’s not as much fun as we thought due to me being a good bit faster. Have you found a way that you can handicap one of the riders so you can finish the same course at reletively the same time?
Thanks
I have tried to use your Craigslist RSS strategy for computrainer & other bike components in general. Is there a way to get a nationwide Craigslist RSS feed, or do you always have to view only those listings under one city / area?
Thanks!
Since Craigslist is local-only (meaning, you have to pickup in person), it’s just city to city/area.
eBay of course is national.
Sweet. Is there anyway I could talk you into a schematic which shows the computrainer – PC – TV connections and any other electronics. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Eek. Well, the CompuTrainer connects to the PC as it normally does – which is via a USB cable (well, technically, it connects via a Serial to USB adapter, because the CT only does serial). Then, the PC connects to the TV via VGA. As you see above, I run the CT software primarily on the small PC, and then the large TV is for TV/movies/etc…
Can you explain how you came up with the “twofer CompuTrainer handlebar mount stand”, or tell how it’s constructed? I’m working on a very similar dual computrainer setup and would like to replicate what you did here.
Everything looks great!
That little piece is actually just from Racermate. However, in looking now, they don’t appear to offer it anymore. :-/ link to computrainer.com
That said, you may be able to improvise a bit here: link to dcrainmaker.com
Hey! I have been trying to figure out how to do the RSS on craigslist to look for computrainers like you mention in this post and I’m not having any luck. The business I work for is looking to acquire more trainers as we expand to more locations. Could you email me at smasheton@totalcyclist.com and let me know how to set this up? Thank you!
Here ya go, about half-way down is instructions for creating an RSS feed in Craigslist: link to craigslistsearch.org
Cool. Hey, what fan do you use? I have even slightly less room between bike and wall in a basement training cave. Is there another fan you’d recommend?
I’ve been searching your website (my first go to source new biking and running equipment) and I seem to recall an article about what equipment your dream training cave would include, that mentioned a particular fan – but I can’t find it. Was that even you? THX!!
I’m travelling at the moment, but I believe the brand is Paton (or something like that). It was just a random fan on sale at Target at the end of summer in the clearance section.
I don’t think I’ve put together any sort of dream cave posts. Sorry!
So…I have a nice Computrainer…does anyone even want them anymore once the company capsized and sank?
Ray, it has been so long since I just used my computrainer without a program I am trying to figure out how to run in slope mode all the time. Basically I just want to use my pioneer power meter and use computrainer as the trainer with say a 2-3% grade all the time.
Hmm, doesn’t the handlebar controller allow that?
Sorry, it’s been a heck of a long time since I’ve used the handlebar controller in any mode besides ERG (wattage).