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
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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.
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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.
Author Archives: Ray Maker
Week in Review–May 16th, 2022
The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting – generally endurance sports related. I’ve often wondered … Read More Here
Garmin Adds 25+ New Features to Fenix 7/Epix/Instinct 2, Shifts to Quarterly Features Updates
Ok, there’s a lot in this post. So hang on, it’s packed with details. First up, is that Garmin started rolling out this week an update for Fenix 7 & Epix series watches, including some 28-50 different new features … Read More Here
Peloton Announces Rower Hardware, New Upcoming Features Outlined
Peloton kicked off their annual ‘Homecoming’ weekend event today, starting with a keynote of upcoming plans from their new CEO as well as existing Peloton instructors. This 21-minute-long keynote highlighted a slew of milestones over the past year, but also … Read More Here
Zwift Cancels Smart Bike Hardware Plans, Announces Significant Layoffs
Just two weeks ago Wahoo announced a round of layoffs to mitigate the dropping (or rather, normalizing) of indoor cycling hardware sales, and prior to that Peloton did the same. Now Zwift is following suit with a round of layoffs … Read More Here
Google Pixel Watch Announced: Everything You Need To Know
After more years than anybody can try counting, Google has finally formally announced their first ‘own’ watch, the Pixel Watch. Despite birthing the entire Android Wear (turned Wear OS) smartwatch platform, they never actually made their own watch. Instead, they’ve … Read More Here
DJI Mini 3 Pro In-Depth Review (Including Sports Tracking)
DJI has just announced their newest sub-250g drone, the DJI Mini 3 Pro –and this time, it’s a massive step up in functionality and hardware over the previous iterations. It adds 4K/60FPS shooting modes, up to 46 minutes of battery … Read More Here
The Giro’s Synchronized Trainer Cycle Dancing Performance: Analysis & Review
I just finished reading Iain Treloar’s excellent recap of the spectacle that was the 2022 Giro Teams Presentation. He ultimately gave the 1-hour and 50-minute extravaganza a meager rating of 4.5/10. I am no expert on such events, nor how … Read More Here
Fitbit Charge 5 vs Garmin Vivosmart 5: A Ridiculously Detailed Comparison
Here’s every last detail between the Fitbit Charge 5 and the Garmin Vivosport 5, from health features to sports details, and everything in between. Read More Here
Wahoo Announces Acquisition of RGT Cycling, Consolidated Wahoo X Subscription
Wahoo Fitness has announced today the acquisition of the RGT Cycling app (formerly Road Grand Tours), as well as announcing their new Wahoo X Subscription Service, which combines the membership for both apps under one umbrella. In short, subscribers of … Read More Here
Hammerhead and Suunto Partner: Heatmaps on Hammerhead, Workout Sync to Suunto
Hammerhead and Suunto have just announced what they describe as potentially the first step towards a deeper partnership and collaboration. This first step puts heatmaps onto the Hammerhead Karoo series, while concurrently sending completed Karoo rides to Suunto’s platform (as … Read More Here
Garmin Vivosmart 5 In-Depth Review
It’s been nearly four years since Garmin last released a Vivosmart model – the Vivosmart 4. But the counter resets again today with the new Vivosmart 5, which brings incremental hardware changes to the model – including a button, a … Read More Here
Garmin Fenix 7 vs COROS Vertix 2: New York City GPS Accuracy Test!
Over the last 6-8 months we’ve seen watch companies, including Garmin and COROS, add multi-band/dual-frequency GPS chipsets to their watches, which have long-promised to be the holy-grail of GPS accuracy. As I’ve shown in my in-depth reviews though, that … Read More Here
Week in Review–April 18th, 2022
The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting – generally endurance sports related. I’ve often wondered … Read More Here
5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
Despite being a busy holiday weekend around these parts, we packed in quite a bit of sports tech and sportiness, with thankfully sunny weather to help keep sanity in check. Plus, tons of products in the hopper for upcoming releases … Read More Here
Polar Pacer Pro GPS Running Watch In-Depth Review
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was the Polar Pacer watch. This was an era before GPS, before optical HR, and before countless other metrics that we didn’t even know would exist someday. Back … Read More Here
5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
This was probably about as close to a semi-normal weekend as we’ve had in a few years now. Plus, it was actually sunny – a change from a week of rain, snow, wind, and all of those somehow mixed together … Read More Here
Week in Review–April 10th, 2022
The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting – generally endurance sports related. I’ve often wondered … Read More Here
The New Stages Dash M200 & L200: Hands-On Details
Stages have just announced two new bike computers, the new Stages Dash M200 and L200. These 3rd generation units are hardware upgrades to their predecessors, the M50 and the L50. In Stages Dash lingo, M simply stands for a medium-sized … Read More Here
Power Meter Pedal Buyer’s Guide: Garmin Rally vs Wahoo POWRLINK vs Favero Assioma vs SRM X-Power
It’s been about five years since I’ve last done a power meter pedal comparison post. Mainly, because not much had changed in five years. The Favero Assioma will be five years old this summer (crazy, huh?), and while the … Read More Here
Whoop Exporting to Apple Health: Here’s how it actually works
Back a couple months ago, Whoop started importing from Apple Health. While the data they pulled was somewhat limited, the goal was mainly to assist in activity recognition and categorization. The idea being that if you used a Garmin Edge … Read More Here
Oura Outlines Missing V3 Features Plan (And It’s Not Good)
When the Oura V3 launched last fall, it was met with both excitement and frustration. First, was the excitement of a new product with a slate of new features, then there was the concurrent frustration of a new pricing model … Read More Here
Week in Review–April 3rd, 2022
The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting – generally endurance sports related. I’ve often wondered … Read More Here
Sports Tech: The Best April 1st Tidbits
As always, April 1st tends to be one of the most challenging days to be on the internet. A constant rollercoaster of trying to figure out what are legit headlines versus not, and these days, the line is sometimes pretty … Read More Here
GoPro Volta Battery & Remote Grip Review
Today GoPro announced the new GoPro Volta Battery+Remote Grip, which is basically a selfie-stick that includes both of those features together, combined with a small pile of other integrated features. In addition, they also announced the new GoPro Hero 10 … Read More Here
Zwift Rolls Out Wahoo Direct Connect Ethernet Adapter Support
Today is apparently the day of ‘Finally!’ in the sports tech world. First, there was Suunto with ‘finally’ adding structured workout support. Then there was Wahoo with ‘finally’ adding some sort of climbing feature, and now we’ve got Zwift with … Read More Here