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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.
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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!
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.
ahh, there she blows, the dreaded stopped working message, since the very first software version :-/ why can’t they test/fix these bugs!
Perhaps worth pointing out that the TTS does not work with Mac OS – you will need to dual boot/run Windows either via Parallels or Bootcamp. This will add to the purchasing cost as you need to buy Windows.
Although i do see that Tacx are due to bring out an iPad App which will help us Mac folk out at least a little bit. More details on when that is likely to exist would be really helpful too (having just gone through the rigmarole of installing Windows on to a partioned drive on my Mac…). Ta!
They’re saying Q1 CY2013 (Jan-March). We’ll see…
Have you posted the full review for the Genius trainer yet? I find your reviews extremly insightful and deciding between a Genuis and Bushido (with the updgradable software package).
Thanks,
Matt
Not yet. Planning next week right now. I held off due to waiting for 4.5 to be released, which was last night. link to forum.tacx.com
What about the wireless head unit that I read about on the bikeradar review a couple months ago that it switches it’s self off after 30 mins if you have not used it and that it isn’t sweat proof, yet is designed to sit in front of you!! Where there any improvements made by Tacx since then?
I’ve had that head unit and haven’t had the sweat issues yet. Though, I could see if you dunked it in water, not so much.
On the wireless head unit, you can just hold the button down and it’ll wake up again.
Hey, just wondering if you or anyone here had any initial thoughts/results on Genius esp vs Bushido. I’m going to be buying a Bushido or Genius, and with $175 separating them I’m trying to settle the better tech vs. wireless and standalone issue.
Two questions before I pull the trigger and buy either the Bushido or the Genius.
Can the Bushido run head to head live races with other cyclists?
My second question or concern is what seems to be a lack of customer service support,
While looking on the Tacx website, I did not find a link to customer support. Can ypou comment on the quality of Customer Service.
Thx
I’m itchin to get a VR trainer to enhance my 2013 indoor training, and have been deferring purchase awaiting your Genius review since you posted it in the Queue in December. I really feel the Computrainer software sucks big wind, and mentally think I’d want the Genius. But your reviews are so wonderfully specific & insightful that I’m anxious to read your analysis before pullin a trigger for one or the other.
With money burning a hole in my pocket, and the days of January ticking by, I thought I’d drop a nite to see if your review of the Genius — now past-due from your original goal ;-) — is on its way Real Soon Now(tm).
??
I have and used the taxc bushido trainer for 2 years. I use it with the tacx training software. I thought I would use the trainer to ride famous courses or videos or even create my own courses. I ended up not doing any of that. I simply ride the trainer in “catalyst” mode which means I simply measure my power and duration. I record and see hear rate, cadence and an estimate for speed (which I think is too high). I can increase the resistance by pressing the up button on my PC to make the slope (resistance higher). This comes in handy for simulated hill workouts. Overall I like it very much and can save my data and upload to trainingpeaks automatically. I also save my workout (called training score) as an hrm file and analyze it in golden cheetah (ver 3 beta) or ver 2. to see how good (or bad) my avg watts were on my intervals.
One piece of information I will post to help others. I have the Tacx Bushido (similar to Genius) and have had a very frustrating item occur over the past two years that I just got solved with the help of many folks including tacx support (which is quite good).
I faced a very common issue where my PC (using the tacx trainer software 4.5 – aka tts 4.5) would loose connectivity with the “brake” and hence you would loose all ability to record data for the rest of your workout. In summary I had to follow these tips
link to forum.tacx.com
and ensure all power saving features were turned off on the laptop (esp. video and usb port) and I had to replace the ANT stick I received from tacx with one from garmin as you need ANT2. Or one from Suunto Movestick Mini would work fine. If I did not swap out the ANT stick w/ the garmin one after 1 hour and 50 minutes I would always loose my data. The PC data would freeze on the current heart rate and watts.
Here is info I got from TACX support confirming that I had ANT1 and not ANT2 stick from tacx “There i an number on it
T1991 = ANT1
T2018 = ANT2”
James Stroud
any update on when the review will be out?
Hi All-
The review has been posted here: link to dcrainmaker.com
Enjoy!