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I’m DC RAINMAKER…
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
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Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
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In Depth Product Reviews
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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!
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!
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.
Wonder if they’ll be adding this functionality for velodromes?
or swimming pools (pool length)
For pools it would be extremely cool as those are known (usually from a pool’s website) and stay constant. I’m sick of coming to a pool and asking “Is this a 20-meter or 25-meter pool?”
Extracting it from OpenStreetMap is probably a feasible mechanism.
Although swim distance does very since some pools move the dividers/change directions. One of the pools I swim at alternates seasonally between 100m and 25y. Occasionally they swim the long direction but set the divider at 25m.
If you arrive at a track outside of that radius, and your watch is connected to your phone, and your phone has cellular, it’ll download on-demand
How will watch detect this? That you arrived at a track?
Is there any way to see the l list of tracks? Or to get the watch to navigate to the nearest one?
Great to see they have added Aus. Confirming this works at my local track in Collingwood, Melbourne. Tried getting it to work at Olympic Park, however, this is a custom track – hoping they add it soon. Thanks Ray for tip on how to submit feedback.
I am one of those unfortunate Apple Watch owners that live in a small country (Norway).. We don’t even have Apple Fitness+ available here!
I really hope Norwegians will be able to get this feature too, but I have my doubts! Do you have any idea if Norway is in Apple’s plans in the near future?
Does it work like the Garmin implementation in that it still works going “backwards” to the normal anti clockwise direction which you may well do in say warm ups?
What about if you change lanes for any significant time? Say you start in lane 1 doing an easy warm up when the track is quiet then figure need to get out of the way of runners actually doing their workout so move out to an outer lane? With Garmins you have tell it the lane in advance.
Not sure about going backwards, but yes you can change lanes mid run on the watch.
Here is a pic of a run where I started in lane 4 (I chose lane 4 when prompted) but I switched to lane 1 on my first lap. As you can see It adjusted and did so automatically
I just tried the Automatic Track Detection for the first time. Running in Lane 1, my watch consistently recorded the lap length as 379 metres, even though I know this is a standard 400 metre track. Is there a way to confirm that Apple’s database is correct?
Hi, thanks for the information.
But I failed to see where I can report a missing track. Could you be more specific about where to do it? You mentioned the Apple fitness app but I can’t seem to see where to report it exactly.
Found it. You must complete a run to report the missing track.
Just to make this even more explicit since I’m daft and had some trouble finding it —
Open the track run from the activity history in Fitness on the phone
Scroll to the map at the bottom and Show More
In the full screen map view, tap the comment bubble with a ! in it
Now you can choose whether it was a false negative (no track detected) or a false positive (received track alert on a non-track), though it would seem it should know this from the workout metadata
Hi, with latest Beta Garmin is adding this
link to forums.garmin.com
Adds database of 400m running tracks all over the world.
Just noticed this week that Belgium tracks also pop up!!-
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, but Norway got bike directions in maps and running tracks (at least in the Oslo area) this week.