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 2024 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
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
Wahoo Adds New Gradient Coloring with Wahoo Summit Feature
Wahoo has introduced what I presume to be the first step in a larger set of changes around climbing information, to compete with Garmin’s ClimbPro and Hammerhead’s Climber features. This first change adds gradient coloring for pre-planned routes (and re-routes) … Read More Here
Suunto Announces SuuntoPlus Guides: An App Platform for 3rd Party Apps
It’s been just shy of a decade from when Suunto announced their first app platform, called the Suunto AppZone. At the time, it was the very first open to any developer watch-based app platform. Sure, Pebble had announced theirs slightly … Read More Here
Suunto Rolls Out TrainingPeaks Structured Workout Integration: How-To Guide
Finally, it’s here: The ability to sync a structured workout from TrainingPeaks to Suunto watches, specifically, the Suunto 5 series and Suunto 9 series watches. This is accomplished using the new SuuntoPlus Guides functionality (more on that here), which … Read More Here
Tech Tidbits: New Stages Dash Models Soon, Garmin HRM-PRO Bluetooth Expansion, Zwift Clearancing Hardware
As we sail into the weekend, there’s some tech tidbits that are worth mentioning – covering the gamut of companies, as the sports tech world starts to heat up going into spring. Stages New GPS Bike Computers: Stages began teasing … Read More Here
Hammerhead Updated CLIMBER Functionality No Longer Requires Route
There’s nothing more consistent than the biweekly drop of new features coming from Hammerhead to their Karoo series bike computers. And this update brings a huge one: The ability to automatically get climb information as you ride, without needing to … Read More Here
Tacx NEO Motion Plates In-Depth Review
You know what I like about this product? It’s two pieces of plastic that wiggle, and install in about 15-20 seconds. There’s no electronics, no secondary applications or uses, no complex installation manual. It’s as simple as it gets, yet … Read More Here
Best Bike Computer for Climbing: Garmin vs Hammerhead vs Wahoo
Long gone are the days of bike computers showing you just a single elevation profile for your entire route, or even just the near-term elevation profile. These days, the bike computers will automatically break down and even categorize the climbs … Read More Here
Strava Reverses Course: Turns back on Apple Health Sync Functionality
Strava has reversed course on their recent disablement of Apple Health sync for 3rd party workouts (e.g. data from Zwift, TrainerRoad, Garmin, etc.), after abruptly disabling the feature last week without notice. That move impacted many Apple iPhone users that … Read More Here
Strava Abruptly Ends 3rd Party Data Sync to Apple Health
[Update – March 15th, Strava has reversed course and re-enabled Apple Health sync. Full details here.] It’s been a few years since Strava has managed to irk the Internet, but over the last few days, they’ve unleashed a torrent of … Read More Here
First Look at Garmin’s ECG Functionality, and Clinical Trials Details
Garmin has tipped their hand, demonstrating that one of their most recent watches actually has ECG hardware built inside, along with the foundations to utilize it. Read More Here
Just Getting A New Garmin Fenix 7 or Epix? Update it First.
If you’ve been around this site long enough, you know that one of my life-goals is to reduce the quantity of certain types of messages that end up in my inbox. Not merely the notices that I’m apparently heir to … Read More Here