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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.
Top stuff. What patience to sit on a stationary for 4+ hours knowing there’s a massive treadmill session coming next! Great pics too, thanks.
Unique and cool
Out of interest, is the v800 now considered “finished” or are there still things outstanding on the firmware list?
There’s still a list of items they’re working on (I’ve got some updated dates coming shortly there from the Polar folks on what’s left) – but they’ve done a good job in really getting quite a bit of the big ticket items knocked off the list.
Thanks Ray, at the moment I’m more hoping that they complete this firmware and then release new competitive hardware next year using what they have learned. Such a shame Garmin released the 920XT when they did as the v800 still looks lovely if you ignore the Garmin stuff. I keep feeling tempted to add one to the collection but can’t see a time where I’d wear it instead of the 920 :(
Really interested in these updates.
Thanks a lot!
Cristian.
I wish they will get the results are expecting from this viral campaign
its indeed inovative and very well implemented
good to see advanced marketing stuff in this market, which so far we were only seeing copy cut videos + products between the companys.
I’m impressed that you got up at dawn and hung with Tim for the whole 140.6! Great photos (love the perfect timing of the shoe tie).
Come on then… what time did he get :D
Allthough not official, I was curious about his event times too.
Ray, if you talk to Polar-people, can you please asked them if the forthcoming smartwatch-style notification for the V800 is really in the pipeline!
–> link to engadget.com
And I bitch about 45 minute workouts in the trainer… After reading this I think I’m not on the right to complain anymore.
Even with all the CES crowd and interviews and everything else to kill the boredom, 4.5 hours in a trainer then treadmill is just torturing.
Completing an ironman outdoors is a difficult challenge, but indoors?! Oh come on… Dude just stepped up the game a little.
Major, major, major props to Tim.
Kinda sorta related but saw on Runners World that Epson announced a GPS running watch with optical HR and stole Meb from Garmin?
Yup, it’s one that was announced this past summer. They came out with a bunch of them. It’s good stuff, a bit basic in the UI department, but the fundamental accuracy is there.
As for Meb, it was simply a money thing from what I hear (I’ve heard the rough amounts he was paid from both). More power to him. Garmin is known for not paying too deeply for their pro athletes (aside from the cycling team).
In your post about this you mentioned a Dec review. Obviously, things change. From what I’ve seen on my own they seem a bit lackluster and a tad overpriced. However, I was wondering about one feature. They are promoting a 30hr (20 with GPS + optical HR) battery life. Do you know the recording interval they use?
Does anyone know what shoes he’s wearing? The blue ones with the orange laces.
link to on-running.com
That casino floor in bike shoes looks very dangerous!
the treadmill is seriously impressive stuff.
No time penalty for illegally drafting that car?
Wierd.. the second half of my comment disappeared! Well done Tim, I’m not sure which is the greater achievement.. managing to grind out the trainer and treadmill distances, or managing not to fall asleep during it after 2 weeks of sleep deprivation! Congratulations on the ‘race’ and the new baby!
This was a good story, but the pictures made it great. Thank you!
One tiny niggle, “Ocean’s Evelveny…right onto the casino floor” Eleveny maybe?
Good catch, Patrick, all fixed now. As Ray’s editor, I’m usually the one pointing out mis-types, it’s nice to be on the other side of the fence for a change. Cheers.
I saw that too….oh well, it was early.
At my old job, we were doing some promotion, guys vs girls staff, and wanted to see how many miles we could run in one store day between all the staff working. The girls won by like 3 miles, first of all, but we kept it close, and I ran 13 miles on a treadmill in a display window. Nothing like running relatively hard, with people being able to ask you questions, and stare at you to kinda make you wish you weren’t doing it. Tim is a better man for being able to do the treadmill and bike like that. I hope they had a good fan set up for him, because the slightest change in breeze, and I would lose my mind.
if you are editing you might also want to fix the “at an outdoor pool it was eerily quite” quite -> quiet
Yikes, I missed that one! Thanks so much, all fixed.
Iron man with granite balls!
Trainer then treadmill is my 20 minutes of warm up and warm down at the gym, the thought of that for 7.5 hours makes me want to cry!
Since you’re editing, Randy, “This year, CES expanded ITS physical presence”. :)
Arrgh. Thanks, all fixed. It was a late night at the keyboard last night. :-)
Another quick edit…Desert has 1 ‘s’ and Don is spelled done on the FB link. Awesome post!
Fixed and fixed. Thanks much!
Did he take a break to pee or just go while he was on the bike?
Well, there is clearly a towel under the bike in some of the photos. Just kidding. They did have to take a few liberties due to the unique nature of this event, at least until it catches on as real support and they get real rules and referees and all fancy like that. So he did rush off the bike a time or two for a quick biology break, but I have to say he was very insistent on keeping the time off to an absolute minimum.
Great report! This was a fun read. :-)
While we’re pointing out things that could be fixed in the article, though, it looks like this one didn’t get tagged with CES2015 so it doesn’t show up on the CES2015 page. Otherwise, I really enjoyed reading this one and the pictures were fabulous!
Great catch! Updated, thanks!
I’ve done 4+ hr sessions on the Computrainer, but I didn’t have to give interviews! Great job, Tim.
Great article. I love the pictures of him taking his bike up the escalator. How does he make it look so easy? I’d be sweating up a storm!
Amazing coverage….you put in some LONG hours and intense observations. Great photos!!!!
nice photo essay, thanks….but technically isn’t it a DQ for not wearing helmet while on the bike/trainer?
Yeah, technically. But rules were made to be broken. And when inventing new sports, one must take great risks.
I swam at CES last year in a similar pool. No way he needed a full wetsuit, but I guess it was legal?
Those look like oakleys but I can’t quite pinpoint the model of sunglasses. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
…..so what was his time? :)
It was 9:42, but it was somewhat scripted once he left the swim. This was primarily done to ensure media knew where he was, and as was the case – they could do a live network TV shoot of him going bike to run.
So he altered his pace a fair bit (mostly slowing down) to keep within the established times given out to media.
very impressive, even if scripted. I certainly couldn’t manage a 9:42.
Great stuff! I love the creativity!
Incredible event and effort. Great coverage by DC Rainmaker as well.
A nice video from Polar to accompany this post.
link to youtu.be