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.
Ran the Corvallis Half Marathon in 40F and pouring rain…hypothermic and shocky at the finish, but hit my goal time! :)
Friday run, Saturday – Stage 5 Tour of Watopia
I ran an easy 5K and then installed SRAM eTap on my road bike. Super fun weekend!
I tried to learn to waveboard.
Friday night 6 miler through the Carolina pollen zone. Awful weather on Sunday prevented my weekender.
Rock climbing at Frenchmans Coulee with about half of Washington as that was the only place it wasn’t raining.
This weekend I shoveled, and shoveled, and shoveled. Otherwise I was tapering for the 50k I have on the 21st, but I think it will be extra challenging with the trail buried under a few feet of snow.
I was out for a walk with some coworkers & tweaked my knee. Spent the rest of the weekend with it elevated & iced. Fun times! So much for getting a run in this weekend.
Did my first FTP test and ran 12 miles!
Does carrying my toddler around count as vaguely atheticish?
So, at the ages of 53 and 50 my wife and I did our first 5K race this past Saturday. I beat my goal time by 2 minutes (did not beat the stretch goal though — so alas, no diabetic coma pizza party).
At the beginning of the year I embarked on a goal to get to ideal weight and fitness in 2018. So far this year — i have dropped 51 pounds and improved my VO2 Max to the good category for my age.
Using great fitness tools from Garmin, MyFitness Pal and lots of encouragement from friends and sites like this one help keep me on task!
Thanks for all the great posts and reviews.
I’m recovering, so had a recovery weekend working in the yard.
We hosted a spring cyclocross race in 33 degree rain, wind and sleet. We definitely got our steps in for the weekend and then raced fat bikes in the final muddy race.
Pretty wild time!
Kids have upgraded to real mountain bikes, so hit the trails in the North Fruita Desert pretty hard. They had enough fun they want to go back next weekend…
On Thursday, I was able to score a demo Wahoo Kickr Snap for a little bit. I’d demoed Zwift for a little bit on my Kinetic Road Machine, and it was… OK. Not awesome, but fine.
The Snap made it so much better.
Then, on Saturday, a friend goaded me into riding with him — this was the first time I’d ridden with another person on Zwift. Instead of my typical 30-60 minutes of riding, I ended up riding with him for almost 2 hours. Got to go into the jungle (I’m only a level 5, so unless I’m riding with someone else, I don’t get to go to the cool places).
It was… Fun. Sort of. As much as these things can be.
First orienteering competition of the season :)
A 100km ride in the SF Peninsula – right after getting off the plan from Paris.
Now that you left Paris – would love to get a souvenir :)
Did several repeats on my basement stairs as I tried to fix my basement leak from the endless rain I had in my area.
I did a great ride with a Dynamic Rides CC in Solihull. It was a ~120 km long one.
A couple average rides recovering from the last and preparing for the next bikepacking adventure. Hung out at BWR without racing.
This weekend I did a great 60 miles ride and a hilly 8 mile trail run in beautiful california!
“recovery” weekend for me. Easy trainer miles watching Amstel Gold!
Easy swim and bike ride. Taking it easy, because this week will bring loads of awesome weather. Many many rides this week!!
The half-marathon I was going to do got cancelled prematurely due to potential lightning that never happened, so I ran 8 miles by myself in the drizzle when I should have been doing 13.1. Oh well.
Backcountry skiing in Jotunheimen, Norway in sunny, calm weather. Doesn’t get much better:)
Road 75 miles in the rain?!!!!needed wiper blades.
Tour of Watopia stage 5 in Zwift
Shoveling out our driveway of 5 inches of wet, heavy snow. Spring in Wisconsin.
Chopped some wood
I must have done about 1000 stairs this weekend!!!
This is what being a single dad with two, young, rambunctious boys in a three storey home can do!
:)
Nice idyllic 15k run in the woods early eve, still getting some of the springtime sun :-)
I got soaked by an unexpected sudden downpour about 45 minutes into my run on Sunday. I ran home, put on a rain jacket and dry socks and shoes, then went out for another hour and a half run.
Well, since my wife, son, and I were all pretty sick, our best athletic adventure was just a short walk on the trails to get out of the house and try to revive ourselves! Thanks Ray!
Bouldering and bouldering. Obviously coupled with some beers afterwards :)
5.5mi fartlek run early Saturday morning before a cold front rolled in.
Went cycling on our local loop
I had intended to go for a quick run on Saturday then do the local indoor tri on Sunday. Mother nature had other plans and dropped a foot and a half of snow between Friday night and Saturday evening.
Race was cancelled and I spent the weekend shoveling.
Spent the weekend zwifting: Three Sisters and Alpe du Zwift on back-to-back days. Time for some recovery!
Did a nice slow run on Sunday evening. Weather was fabulous, all zen.
What a pleasant spring treat this would be! Gotta keep running as I hope to do a fall marathon.
5K run on Sat and just an hour leisure ride on zwift.
First charity ride of the year. A cruisey 60km
I ran in trekking league in my country, 32km in grueling conditions
couching recovery
Rode my bike to the top of Alberhill…
A 5K…”handicapped” based on age, height, and weight.
Got in some closing weekend skiing here in Colorado :)
The only athleticish I did where the exercises my fysio gave me unfortunately.
Ran on treadmill cause we had lots of snow
A nice Saturday spent on the bike. 170km
I imagined very atheltically how athletic I would be if I haven’t had so much work to do :(
I ran a 5k along the river near my house
Zwitf tour of Watopia Stage.
5 mile run! Felt great!
I had an awesome 1000 yd swim, 30 mile bike, and 4 mile run workout! (Ok, the run part sucked)
Ran a 31K this weekend!
I got in my first decent outdoor ride of the year, on 80% dry roads. So nice to be off the trainer and breathe fresh air. And now, Monday morning, we have 20cm of snow currently coming down! So that was good timing…
Did a 110 km on the bike to a nice lake and had some awesome bbq :)
Road race in the morning, Tour of Watopia in the evening
I did a solo 165kms triathlon bike ride to test my shiny new disc wheel! ;)
I’m currently near the beginning of my European bicycle tour, which has started in Greece (in Athens on 3 April). On Saturday, I covered 122km from near a small Greek church called Moni Zoodochou Pigis, in a canyon about 20km south of Agrinio, to a small village called Pedopoli Zirou, about 60km south of Ioannina. Then on Sunday, I did another 85km to the village of Zitsa, where I am currently enjoying the hospitality of a fantastic Warmshowers host.
Not bad considering I’m way out of practice with bicycle touring (last time I did this was 12 years ago) and I still need to walk my rather heavily loaded down bike up the longer and steeper slopes, but I’m still building up. Next will to be going across northern Greece and then north into Bulgaria, then Romania, and perhaps Serbia, before re-entering the Schengen Zone.
Did my first FTP test of the year before beginning a cycling-focused training block this week.
Did a long-ish run of 11 miles, and then proceeded to consume copious amounts of pizza and beer.
I did a 40km interval session, road cycling.
Group ride to a BBQ joint in LockHart, TX
Smashed an inch of ice off my car compliments of our spring ice storm here in Toronto…
I walked the beach on a short romantic vacation. My wife didn’t want me to bring my mistress, i.e., the bike, along. Alas.
32.5km Long Run. Finally a nice spring day in Calgary.
Saturday I completed Tour of Watopia Stage 5, which destroyed my legs just in time for my 27km long run on Sunday. There was also some swimming involved at some point.
My first weekend back training after 10 weeks off with a chest infection! A parkrun and an easy spin out on the TT bike to test some new wheels!
I ran a 10K on Saturday. Then Monday, I watched Des Linden win the Boston Marathon!
Through the past week I did over a 110km of mountain biking with more than 2400m of ascending.
Watched April Snow while sweating it out on Zwift
Racked up a recovery swim and an hour on the trainer to stretch out the legs.
I shoveled nearly 20 inches of heavy wet snow. What’s the TSS for that?
Took part in the first leg of a local mtb xc race
Triathlon Medio Lido di Volano: a 70.3 in north-east Italy!
I went for a run on both Friday and Saturday making a total of 20+Km, it needed to be squeezed in between Track&Field training and competition of the little ones. Oh well… 14yo and high jump of 1.80m not really a little one anymore, I do wonder if a Garmin FR930 would measure this hight ;) There is a volunteer for testing that!!
Thanks for this giveaway.
I did some two solid hours on the trainer, got home, weighed myself and found out I have lost 0 weight in the last month.
I rode to top of my first 1000 meter above sea level mountain for this season.
Sat – Trail Run Intervals
Sun – LSR 10M
Please one time!
Just finish my prep for a 70.3 next week with a 50k RP and a 4k brick RP.
All feels good!
Cheers
Figured out a way to get to San Diego from my house using only the bike and public transportation. Rode down to the train station in the next town, took the train to Oceanside, and then rode to San Diego. Did it all over again the next day!
Tried a new 1 hour gym class workout!
I went riding into the back country of my local area. There are tons of bears and cool wildlife back there. I was lucky enough to see a bald eagle. It was hot as blazes, but worth it to go spend a day in nature.
Progression long run on the trails !
First long(ish) ride of the spring season since we had acceptable weather. Would have been ever so much better if my Garmin was not having battery issues.
Saturday: ran 14 times 1K. Then ate sushi (more than 14 pieces)
Sunday: ran 15 times 1K. Then drank champagne (fewer than 15 glasses)
1hr30min sweetspot trainer ride followed by snowboarding Saturday, and an 8 mile treadmill run on Sunday
Long SUP session in sunny Florida!
Ran 8 miles in some howling winds.
Last Saturday did a fun 6k inside a soccer stadium
Short 45min run and then a 90min bike – all inside due to an ice storm
I ran a 12 miles and the last 3 were painful.
I was unfortunately left to recover from a back injust this past weekend. Getting old sucks.
Did a nice 60 minutes on Trainer Road.
Really windy here so just indoor TrainerRoad rides for me
Getting ready for the summer season on my trainer!
14 mile easy Sunday run in the driving rain.
Last prep run for the marathon of 22 April in Enschede…not a flawless last run (;
But we’ll make it.