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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.
Nice. Can’t wait to read the review on the 235 and 630! Plus I’m a little jealous that you are seeing the northern lights!
Looks like a bike run would have also net a KOM. Would be interesting to see how many HR drops there are at those temps.
My 5 year old wants to know if you have seen Santa’s reindeer….
He’s actually too far north for that. Santa lives on Korvatunturi which is to the southeast.
I would be very careful around a finnish santa… link to youtube.com
Normally I’m pretty envious of your travels, Ray. This time, not even a bit. That looks so COLD. However, I guess that it’s good conditions to check optical heart rate monitors. Kippis!
That A360 screen looks super bright and clear. is the optical sensor any good?
Good to see you still finding reasons to travel to surprisingly interesting parts of the middle of nowhere while self employed.
Good luck with seeing the northern lights, haven’t seen anything but grey clouds for weeks down in Helsinki:(
So as you mentioned in your TT Spark review yesterday optical HR sensors tend to struggle in cold conditions during the first few min. of the run.
Wondering if you did see the same pattern with the FR235?
Talk about getting away from it all!
Looking forward for a post regarding the trip to Karigasniemi :) , accomodation, transport and of course the north lights
Try to get some cross country skiing in if you can, it’s the best exercise for using your whole body and improving “kondisjon”
No picture of your map log?! ahhhhh
I’m always thrilled looking at the odd places you visit (run/cycle). As a travel enthusiast I love looking at maps.
My bad, it just lagged to load.
It is amazing to see the laces you go. Keep up the odd runs! :)
Here’s a link to my Strava profile – lots of mappage there! link to strava.com
How about a prize for the first person to beat your KoM?
Thats a fun idea, sth like Strava Geocaching!
You are only 235 km from Hammerfest. I have no idea what is there, but I like the name. I wonder if Sufferfest is nearby… I agree with an earlier post – I’m usually thinking about how I can get to some of the cool places you go. This one is too cool – literally – for me…
Nice to see you get out of town for a bit an enjoy the peace and quiet of a snowy night
Makes me cold just looking at the ice and snow. I know its coming and I love running on snow – but just not quite ready yet.
Not mentioned was the Ambit4 you’re secretly testing while in Finland…
Amirite?!
Suunto Traverse looks exactly like Fenix 3. Some originality please!
That’s a great example of the fundamental problem with optical heart sensors (for me). I’m going to want to wear long sleeves and gloves, yet still view HR. No exposed skin at the wrists.
Send snow to the midwest please.
I spent 3 winter months in Sweden (Kiruna) for work about 15 years ago. The grey din of perpetual twilight in your pictures brings back fond memories. I have a similar picture of a Norwegian border crossing sign from a road trip to Narvik.
Hei Ray, that’s only a few hours (by car) from Tromsø, where I live now since three years.
Good luck with watching polar lights, here it’s a bit cloudy for that (and no solar activity to speak of).
Greetings and good luck, Frank
Ray,
This is why your site is so great. You can make the middle of nowhere . . . somewhere interesting.
Love it!
Thanks
ST
P.S. Any XC skiing?
That. Looks. AWESOME
Brrrr those photos look coooold! Can you share any first impressions on the FR 235? Is the optical heart rate monitor (Elevate) about the same as the Vivosmart HR. Early reports there suggest it may be one the best optical HRMs for both activities and 24/7 monitoring, although looking forward to your experiences. Also, I was wondering if you used it for broadcasting on Ant+. Does it stop all other functions (i.e. activity recording) like the Vivosmart HR?
Liking the snow. Almost envious. But then again, I did drive to work in a convertible with the top down this morning. In late November. In metro Boston!
If that trail would have been across the border between Oslo and Stockholm, would it have been that easy to cross? (insert disclaimer about Norway not being an EU member here). If you did that between Seattle and Vancouver, US border patrol would probably shoot you, or the RCMP would take you to get Timmys…
Norway is part of the Schengen area, so there’s no border control or need of travel documents if you are coming from EU (like Sweden).
Welcome to Finland! This time of the year there is’t much daylight in the northern Finland:) try again in summer time then we have sunligth around the clock.
Do those new running dynamics also come to the 920XT?
Not at this point. But just an hour ago Garmin released a beta firmware for the Fenix3 adding it, so I’ve gotta believe we’ll soon see it on the FR920XT/Epix units (usually it takes a few weeks to a month for all of those features to ‘even out’ between product teams).
Suomi mainittu! Torilla tavataan! ;)
Narikkatorilla? Taitaa olla liian kaukana susirajalta, eikä varmaan polarilaiset tai suunnon väki jätä turhaa joutoaikaa.
I’m a big fan of a border crossing also, not sure why but fascinated me since being a kid.
Can’t wait for the 235 and A360 reviews.
Hi Ray, how come there is so few reviews on Suunto Traverse out there and even you seem to mention it only very occasionally? I’m a garmin guy but I thought that for the Suunto lovers the Traverse was a new hit just like the fenix 3 or 920xt were/are.
I’ve been wondering the same. It seems to have got very little attention in general. When I first read the original announcement I had trouble figuring out what the deal was (who the target audiance is, functionality, etc).
It’s mostly because the launch was so confusing, so many outlets honestly lost interest – and then consumers never heard about it. I talk through it a bit in my ANT+ talk that I posted a week or so ago.
I’m not yet entirely sure who the audience is. I like the unit, but it’s really hard to justify having less features for the same amount of money. The only physical differences (additions) are that it doesn’t have the bump at the bottom anymore, and does have vibration alerts. Beyond that, it’s all super-slimmed down feature-wise.
I’m putting together a post next week to try and explain it a bit more.
Thanks Ray, I would assume that the Kailash Collection (e.g. the 1000-bucks GPS Kailash 7R) is something you don’t normally review as it is not targeted for wide public, right? But if you ever come into contact with that watch, could you take and post some real pictures?
Thanks again – really appreciate the work you do – I myself have bought two watches based on your reviews :-)
I’ve expressed my interest in getting some hands-on time with a unit to Suunto, as I figure it’d probably be something that’d work in terms of a quick post serving more as ‘an explainer’ if that makes sense. Since I think there’s a fair bit of confusion on it too.
Ray, welcome to visit us at Vertical and have a short lecture to our teams if you travel via Helsinki! And i cannot add vertical.vc in comment filed!!!
Looks like fun!
I’m guessing this means an in depth review of the FR235 is just arround the corner? :D
Yup, next week.
Awesome post! Out of curiosity, did you see any GPS acquisition time or accuracy issues being above the Arctic Circle?
I saw some oddities with the Traverse on day 1, but that’s it.
Can’t wait for the FR235 review, looks like it’s got everything I really want in a running watch. I’ve got a long 7 day hike next year coming up(Kokoda trail in PNG), just wondering how you’d think this watch would go at hiking, along with all my current running, which is mainly cross country(though not literally cross country). My main attraction to it is the optical HR, I’d prefer that than a strap. Would be great to hear your thoughts on using it for Kokoda, cheers!
Are you going to test some openwater swimming features across the river? :)
I limit my ‘freezing my balls off in ice water’ time to once per year. This was not an approved venue for that time.
If you do want to try an exotic true cross-country open water swimming competition (without freezin your balls off) there’s always “Swim the Arctic Circle” (link to swimac.eu) in Torne river between Sweden and Finland. I haven’t swam it (yet) but I’ve heard it’s quite a fun event. It’s also cross-time zone!
Looks fun! And I was complaining about the running weather here in Indiana!
Can’t wait for your Polar A360 review!! Saving up the Birthday and Christmas money in case you give it your seal of approval!!!!
Keep on running!!!
Hello Ray, could you please give me some info about the new HRM-Run, it is compatible with the garmin 920XT ? What is the new feature that will unlock on the 920xt ? Thanks
The new HRM-RUN is compatible with the FR920XT, but at this time Garmin hasn’t yet said whether or not they’ll add the Gen2 Running Dynamics to the FR920XT. They have however this weekend pushed out a beta update for the Fenix3 enabling that functionality. Typically the FR920XT/Fenix3/Epix stay in lockstep.
Ray,
Did you by chance (or invitation) get to stop by the Polar HQ? Seems like a good opportunity to see how things went 1+ yr later for all the products launched or attempted to launch/struggled (Flow,V800, V650, M450, M400, A300, A360) since then?
Steve
No stop by Polar HQ, though did actually overfly them (and then drove right past Suunto HQ). But we didn’t tell anyone we were going ahead of time.
Thanks,
I do like that display on the A360.
Take care
Used a pair of the Yaktrax Run for the first time the other day and they are pretty awesome.