Suunto 9 Peak In-Depth Review

I’ve been earing the Suunto 9 Peak for about two months now, getting a feel for how both workouts handle as well as day to day wear. In many ways, the Suunto 9’s biggest changes are physical in nature – | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Favero Assioma DUO-Shi Power Meter In-Depth Review (Shimano SPD-SL variant)

Favero has launched their newest Assioma variant today, the DUO-Shi, which simply takes the existing Favero Assioma pedals, but now with Shimano SPD-SL compatibility. Sorta. See, while that’s the end-point, the DUO-Shi product is actually just the pedal spindles (for | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Heads Up: 48-Hour Wahoo 20% off KICKR, CORE, BIKE, Speedplay & More Sale (US ONLY)

Just a super quick Monday heads up that Competitive Cyclist is running a 2-day sale on a boatload of Wahoo gear, for 20% off almost everything. We’ve semi-occasionally seen these 20% off sales on Wahoo products the day after the | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

JetBlack VOLT Smart Trainer In-Depth Review

I like being pleasantly surprised by smaller companies that nail a product. And the JetBlack VOLT is one of those such products, from one of those such companies. Sure, in the past JetBlack didn’t always have the most competitive or | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

A Few Random Things I Did This Weekend

We’re almost back at full ‘5 Random Things’ capacity here, though, this time topping out at 4 Random Things instead. Here’s the gadget and non-gadget filled goodness from the last few days. 1) Openwater Swim Testing Friday afternoon I headed | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

How to Screen Record On the Wahoo BOLT V2

Here’s a quick (and totally awesome) tip for Wahoo BOLT V2 users. You can now screen record what you’re Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT V2 is doing, which is useful for approximately two of us: Me and GPLAMA. Actually, three if we | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

A Few Random Things I Did This Weekend

Things are heating up! No, not the weather, but finally a bit more normalcy around these parts. And if you know anything about me and July, it tends to be one of the busiest months of the year, though usually | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Let’s Talk About The Energym RE:GEN Smart Indoor Bike

Floating across my virtual desk this morning is a crowd funded campaign for an indoor smart bike, the Energym RE:GEN indoor bike. Among its claim to fames is that you can charge your toothbrush with it. Also, it has a | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Shimano Connect Lab Launched: Hands-On Look At New Training Platform

Today Shimano launched their ‘Shimano Connect Lab’ training and analytics platform. This new platform is designed to replace that of the Pioneer Cyclo-Sphere online platform that they disconnected recently. However, it’s also designed to be a training platform for non-Pioneer | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Lachlan Morton’s Tour de France Alt Tour: How the Tracking Device & Site Works

(Lachlan Morton and his full self-supported setup, credit: Grubers) By now you’ve undoubtedly heard of Team EF Education First’s Lachlan Morton’s so-called ‘Alt Tour’. In short, he’s solo riding not just the entire Tour de France route, but also all | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Heads Up: Wahoo ELEMNT Devices To Require Wahoo Accounts From July 1st

Starting July 1st, Wahoo bike computer and watch users will need a Wahoo account in order to continue using their devices with Wahoo’s app, which is used for configuration/customization of the device (including sync to platforms like Strava). The account | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Got a Pioneer Bike Computer? Three Tools & Workarounds Get You Working Again

This is a quick post, more of a PSA than anything. As you may remember, a couple weeks ago Shimano burned the Pioneer house down (with gasoline and extra hay bales), leaving Pioneer users in one of two states: Temporarily | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

GoPro Announces New ‘Open GoPro’ API for 3rd Party Apps/Devices

GoPro has just announced a new open API for 3rd party companies/apps to use, called Open GoPro, allowing them to integrate with their cameras, starting with the GoPro Hero 9. The API (Application Programming Interface) allows a slew of functions | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Sports Tech Huge Amazon Prime Day Roundup & Tracker!

In the unlikely event the internet or Amazon hasn’t already informed you, today and tomorrow (Monday/Tuesday) is Amazon Prime Day. That means that most (all?) Amazon country properties are doing pretty substantial deals across the board on all sorts products, | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Hammerhead Karoo’s New CLIMBER Feature: Here’s how it works

In a substantial firmware update, Hammerhead had rolled out a new CLIMBR function within their Karoo series (for both Karoo 1 & Karoo 2). This feature aims to inform you of the details of your current climb, with as gradient | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Garmin Training Status Now Includes Zwift, TrainerRoad, The Sufferfest and Tacx App Workouts

Garmin quietly rolled out an update yesterday that means you’ll now get training load updated on your Garmin devices for workouts done in Zwift, TrainerRoad, The Sufferfest, and the Tacx App, all without using a Garmin device to record them. | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Zwift Hardware Tidbits: Breaking Steering, Apple TV 2021 Updates, New Non-Supported Trainers List

This post is a collection of randomly interesting Zwift hardware things. Sure, Zwift is often updating software related stuff. But more quietly they’re also making changes behind the scenes on hardware – some of which good, and some of which, | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Favero Confirms Shimano Power Meter Pedals On The Way

This is a quick post. Namely, because, only a single image has been posted. But Favero shared on their Instagram account that come next month (July, for those calendar-challenged), they’ve got something in store for Shimano road users (that’d generally | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Week in Review–June 13th, 2021

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 | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Shimano Kills Off Pioneer’s Bike Computers In The Ugliest Way Possible

When Shimano acquired Pioneer’s assets a bit over a year ago, I found it hard to see how this would end well. But Shimano…congratulations, you’ve outdone yourself! Even I couldn’t have predicted the flaming dumpster fire that this is shaping | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

5 Sport Tech Products I Want To See AirTag Integration In

It’s been about 5 weeks since AirTags started shipping, and like many techies, I bought a pack of them. I stealthily snuck them in our cargo bikes, and then onto our key rings. All literally side by side with Tile. | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Jaybird Vista 2 Earbuds In-Depth Review For Sports

Today Jaybird announced their new Vista 2 earbuds, which add a host of new features, including many aimed at the endurance sports crowd.  From increased waterproofing and even military-spec resistance levels, to Surround Sense noise pass-through, better wind cancellation, rapid | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Here’s All The New Apple watchOS 8 Upcoming Features

As part of Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), held each June – again this year held purely online, the company has outlined numerous aspects of their platforms (iOS, iPad OS, watchOS, etc..) However, for this post I’m going to | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

A Few Random Things I Did This Weekend

With things slowly getting back to some portion of normal here in the Netherlands, it’s probably time to bring back the ‘5 Random Things I Did This Weekend’, perhaps even with some element of consistency too. But, given things aren’t | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Week in Review–June 6th, 2021

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 | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE In-Depth Review

I know, I can hear the screams already ‘But…but…but…Forerunner 955!’. So no, this is not a (or the) Forerunner 955 – at least in name. But in spirit, it mostly is. So much so that Garmin themselves even long debated | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Garmin Forerunner 55 In-Depth Review

Alongside today’s announcement of the new Forerunner 945 LTE, Garmin has also refreshed its least expensive running watch – the Forerunner 55. This watch is aimed at folks that don’t need all the fancier features of a higher-end Forerunner 245, | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

An Explainer: Garmin’s New Wearables LTE Strategy

 Garmin’s new Forerunner 945 LTE isn’t your typical LTE watch. It doesn’t allow you to make or receive calls over LTE. You can’t stream music over LTE. In fact, you can’t even make or receive text messages over LTE. | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Huge List of Spring 2021 Sports Tech Deals (US)

It's that time of the year again, where we see a slate of sports tech deals out there. This typically happens each May, just ahead of Memorial Day in the US, and then carries through to Fathers Day. However, most | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

How To Use Structured Workouts On The Wahoo RIVAL

While the big news from yesterday was Wahoo’s new BOLT V2 bike computer, they also announced structured workout support on the Wahoo RIVAL GPS watch, enabling you to sync in workouts from TrainingPeaks, as of today. Though, it sounds like | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT V2/2021 with Color Screen & Maps: A Review In Progress

It’s been four years since the original Wahoo BOLT was announced, which was arguably Wahoo’s most important bike computer in terms of shifting consumers towards their offerings. Designed to be small and easy to use, it garnered many fans. However, | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Suunto 9 Peak: Everything you ever wanted to know

In many ways, the Suunto 9 Peak is unlike anything Suunto has ever introduced before. Yet in other ways, it’s everything like everything Suunto has before it. Some differences are glaringly obvious, like the the sleek new watch design – | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Zwift on New Apple TV 4K (2021 Edition): What’s different?

Many regular readers know that I’m a big user of Apple TV for Zwift. For the most part, unless I’m actively testing something that requires a PC or Mac specifically, I’m using Apple TV as my Zwift machine. I have | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Zwift Releases Makuri Islands: New World to Eventually Rival Watopia

Zwift has released a new land, called the Makuri Islands, and the first section in that is the Yumezi map, which includes 27.6km/17.1mi of roads on it. However, unlike UCI or real-life-based event maps such as Yorkshire or Richmond, this | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Samsung and Fitbit Announce Next Watches To Be Wear OS

Google just turned up the heat on their own wearables platform, by announcing that both Samsung and Fitbit will shift to Google Wear OS going forward. In the case of Samsung, they confirmed they’ll launch their next Galaxy Watch on | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

COROS’s Nifty New Keychain Watch Charger: Way more detail than you needed

As longtime readers know, I’ve probably got a bit of a watch charging ‘thing’. One might call it an unhealthy obsession with creative ways to charge a watch, another might call it a fetish. However, what is clear is I’ve | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

COROS Rolls Out EvoLab – Revamped Training Load Metrics: A Detailed Explainer

Today, COROS has begun rollout of their EvoLab, which is a slate of metrics that are largely focused on training load, their impact, and recovery. In addition, for running specifically they’ve also got a number of predictive metrics including marathon | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Weekend Tech Tidbits: Karoo 2 Color Cases, 4iiii Crank Buyback, and GoPro Session Labs Update

Here’s a quick round-up of a few items that spilled over from the last week (or so) that I’ve consolidated together for your inner geek to consume.Hammerhead’s New Karoo 2 Colorful Cases:Starting off with ‘well, that took longer than I | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

KOM Cycling RPV2 Full Motion Rocker Platform: In-Depth Review

Double-cheeseburger. That’s what the new KOM Cycling RPV2 rocker plate is, or at least, looks like. This double-decker rocker plate essentially takes their existing popular RPV1 rocker plate (which tilts side to side), and adds a new forward/back sliding sensation | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

How To Use a Cycling Power Meter With a Vivoactive or Venu Watch

Officially, power meters are not supported on Garmin’s Venu & Vivoactive watch series. That’s because (in Garmin’s eyes) the target market for those watches is a more mainstream consumer that doesn’t have $1,100 cycling power meters on the bikes in | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Quick Hands-On: Wahoo Adds Music Controls to Rival Watch, Plans for TrainingPeaks Workout Support

Over the last week Wahoo has quietly rolled out a firmware update that adds music controls to their Wahoo Rival multisport GPS watch, enabling it to changes songs on your iOS device. For those on Android, Wahoo says music control | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Peloton Tread Screen Falls Off Mid-Workout, Peloton Says to Fix It Yourself (Photos and Story)

While most of yesterday’s Peloton treadmill news was focused on the higher-end Tread+ and safety risks to kids, there was actually a secondary story at work – the recall of the cheaper Tread units (without the + after their mode | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Peloton’s Bad Day Explained: Recall of Tread & Security Leak Discovered

Hump day is not going well for Peloton this week. After a successful annual ‘Homecoming’ event last weekend where they made a slew of product announcements, the company announced today they’re recalling Tread & Tread+ treadmills, due to safety issues | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

TrueKinetix TrueBike In-Depth Review

There’s a strong chance you’ve never heard of the TrueBike by TrueKinetix, despite being a full functioning, shipping, and retail-available smart indoor bike that works with any ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart compatible app out there, like Zwift, TrainerRoad, and plenty | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Peloton’s New Spring 2021 Features: Fully detailed and tested

Over the weekend Peloton announced a slew of new features across their platform. Some of these features are minor upgrades, some moderate refreshes, and a few pretty significant signs towards future directions that could aim to disrupt further the rest | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Aero Sensor Companies Start Own Common Aero Device Profile: Got Tired of Waiting for Standard

Cycling aerodynamic sensor companies Notio & Velocomp have decided they were tired of waiting for the long-discussed ANT+ Aero Sensor device profile, and have simply released their own instead. As a bit of a background refresher here, both Notio & | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Friday Sports Tech Livestream Q&A Recorded Session Available!

Earlier I dusted off my YouTube livestreaming brainpower, and did a Friday evening sports tech livestream covering a slew of topics in the sports tech space. From aero sensors to power meters, watches to bike computers, action cameras to drones, | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago

Zwift Tech Tidbits: Trainer Certifications and Steering Hardware Slowdowns, Retailer Program, ZwiftHub and More

Zwift has been busy as of late, with a slew of various announcements…and in some cases non-announcements. I’m going to roll all of of these together like an elaborate Instagram-worthy sushi roll, packed with things that probably don’t go together. | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 3 years ago