Suunto Rolls Out New Popular Routes & Starting Points App Features

Suunto has begun a Summer update release cycle, starting this week Suunto App updates – rolling out to iOS and Android smartphones near you. While today’s updates might seem like merely a minor app update, I’d argue Suunto has really | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Garmin Shows Off Smart Trainer Integration on Fenix 6 & Forerunner 945

Sometimes, I just stumble on things. Which, was exactly the case last a number of weeks ago when I went to start a Zwift race, using the Fenix 6 as a background recording device for some trainer/power meter testing. As | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review–August 17th, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

Hands-on: CORE’s New Skin/Body Temp Sensor with Garmin/Wahoo integration

It’s rare for there to be meaningful heat in the Netherlands, often only a handful of times each summer. However, as luck would have it – one of those times is right now. And, for the last couple weeks I’ve | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Wahoo KICKR V5 (2020) Smart Trainer In-Depth Review

Wahoo has just announced their latest generation KICKR, now in its 5th iteration. This new unit adds compressing feet to reduce vibrations on hard floors as well as slightly increase motion. It also eliminates the need for calibration by adding | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Hands-on: Zwift Rolls Out In-Race Steering with Elite Sterzo Smart

It took a year. No, not just for steering to finally make it from semi-announced Elite/Zwift products, but for me to be convinced there’s value there. And last night, a mere two turns into a race I had my ‘Holy | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Zwift Considering $45/Month Plans and Huge List of New Features in Latest Survey

Zwift has sent out a survey to numerous members (including myself) that indicates they’re pondering multiple membership tiers, steering + braking, hosted audio-video workouts, premium racing leagues, and many more features. While the survey is of course meant to gather | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Hands-on: FORM Goggles Openwater Swim Mode Released for Apple/Garmin Watches

As previously announced back in May, FORM has released their new openwater swim mode that connects their heads up display swim goggles to certain Garmin or Apple Watches, enabling you to see details of your swim in real-time while openwater | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Elite Direto XR Smart Trainer In-Depth Review

The Elite Direto XR continues the lineage of the Direto trainer brand, by significantly ramps up the capabilities of the trainer. For example, it’ll now replicate grades of 24%. But in doing so, this more powerful Direto kills off the | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Specialize Quietly Launches New Tarmac SL7 Using Augmented Reality

I initially was going to ride about some new and increased functionality changes with the Specialized Ride app and Wahoo’s bike computers, building upon what they launched earlier this year. But then I got distracted trying to take a photo | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

How To Upload Your Garmin Workout During the Outage

For the last 18 or so hours, Garmin.com has been unavailable. And, if we know anything about endurance sports – if that if a workout isn’t uploaded to Strava, it definitely didn’t happen. So, I’m here to help you get | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Tuesday Tidbits: Starbucks Card on Garmin Edge/Watches, COROS Mojito, Zwift Hardware Survey

It’s Tuesday, and there’s been a handful of things I’ve been meaning to post some quick tidbits about. Items that slipped out over the last few days (or weeks) but didn’t really deserve a full post of their own. But | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

5 Random Things I Did This Weekend

We’re cresting the mid-point of the typical summer months here (I know, technically summer goes into September, but everyone mentally counts summer as June/July/August). Plus, by September I’m sure it’ll be raining again. Which, in retrospect it did yesterday too.In | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review: July 19th, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

Behind the Scenes on Zwift’s Tour de France TV Broadcast, Plus Zwift’s New RaceView

Over the years I’ve often dug into the behind the scenes technical aspects of the biggest cyclist races in the world. From rider live tracking to the facilities that TV broadcasters use to get that race coverage to you. And | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Tacx Flux 2 Smart Trainer (2020 Edition) In-Depth Review

Wait, didn’t this trainer come out two years ago? And the answer to that is…sorta, but not exactly. See, while the Flux 2 was announced in July 2018, it didn’t actually start shipping till late December 2018, and wasn’t really | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

5 Random Things I Did This Weekend

Summer marches on! Sometimes that includes indoor activities, and sometimes that’s including the great outdoors. But more importantly, sometimes that includes pizza. Here’s what I was up to this past weekend. 1) Zwift L'Étape du Tour Stage 2 Well….right. As | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review–July 12th, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

GoPro Adds Webcam Feature to Hero 8 Black: How to guide

Today GoPro has launched a beta feature for the Hero 8 Black that allows you to use it as a tethered USB webcam for apps like Zoom, Teams, Twitch, and basically any other app that can use a USB webcam | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Garmin Fenix 6/6S Pro Solar Review: What’s new & different

Today Garmin has extended the solar option on the Fenix 6 series to include the Fenix 6S Pro and Fenix 6 Pro units, completing the family that started last year with the Fenix 6X Pro Solar. Now all three Pro | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Garmin Instinct Solar Review: What’s New & Different

Today Garmin announced the Instinct Solar lineup. At first glance this might just look like an existing Instinct with a solar panel slapped atop it. But in reality, this Instinct is totally different on the inside. Also, it’s the first | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

5 Random Things I did This Weekend

As we usher in July (already?), here’s what I was up to this past weekend. Overall, for the most part here in the greater Amsterdam region, unless you were planning on partaking in some event, things are mostly back to | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review–July 6th, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

Stages Bike (SB20) In-Depth Review

The Stages Bike becomes what I’d argue is the ‘final’ competitor to land in the indoor smart bike space for probably some time. Last summer we saw Wahoo, Tacx, and Stages all launch their first smart bike offerings at Eurobike, | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Polar’s Unite Fitness Watch: Hands-on Details and First Run

Almost exactly a year after announcing the Polar Ignite GPS watch, the company is back with another wearable – the similarly named Unite, which takes all the Polar Ignite features, slashes the internal GPS and drops the price by $50. | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Garmin Acquires Firstbeat Analytics: A Quick Analysis of the Winners and Losers

It was about that time of year for Garmin’s fitness or outdoor business to acquire someone else. It seems to be roughly a yearly tradition, for example last year was Tacx. The year prior, the remains of a bankrupt solar | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

DCR Video: Riding Zwift on the Actual Champs-Élysées

You know what happens when you’ve got terabytes of old and unused video footage sitting on your recently expanded server? You make a video for DCR Supporters, that’s what you do. And three months ago – I did just that. | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Virtual Tour de France & L’Étape du Tour on Zwift: Everything You Need to Know

Today ASO and Zwift have announced a Virtual Tour de France, which will start taking place this weekend with 23 Men’s UCI WorldTour teams, and 16 Women’s UCI WorldTour teams racing. The truncated event won’t quite mirror that of the | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review–June 28th, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

Quick Tidbit: Garmin Adds Dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart HR Broadcasting to Fenix 6

Slipped into yesterday’s most recent Garmin Fenix 6 series public beta is a new feature that slightly revamps heart rate re-broadcasting. This is where you can broadcast the heart rate from your optical HR sensor on the back of your | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

A First Night with Apple’s New Sleep Tracking Feature

While I had other reviews to finish writing this week, I got distracted spending half my afternoon getting an older phone reset and loaded up with the first iOS14 developer beta, to then allow my Apple Watch Series 5 to | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Apple watchOS 7 New Features Outlined: Finally includes sleep tracking

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


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

5 Random Things I Did This Weekend

It’s officially summer! And while it’d be easy to say that’s now including how weather here in the Netherlands, the reality is that it’s basically been hot since late March. No kidding, it’s been amazing for outdoor-like activity. However, this | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review–June 21st, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

Hammerhead Refreshes Karoo User Interface ahead of Karoo 2

Hammerhead has begun rolling out a refreshed user interface to existing Karoo users, ahead of the Karoo 2 unveiling. Hammerhead has previously announced their intention to announce the Karoo 2, but hasn’t actually made the announcement yet. Or, something like | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Garmin Edge 130 Plus In-Depth Review

When the Edge 130 came out a bit over two years ago, I think there was general confusion on where it fit in the Garmin line-up. While I don’t think that confusion wasn’t understood by Garmin initially, consumers presumed it | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Garmin Edge 1030 Plus In-Depth Review

Like with most Garmin products that tack on a ‘Plus’ designator, the changes from the Edge 1030 to the Edge 1030 Plus aren’t earth-shattering. In fact, the Edge 1030 received overwhelmingly more changes last summer when it got a massive | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

How to Load Zwift or TrainerRoad on a Peloton Bike: A Geeks Guide

This post started almost 100% for my own reference as a simple notepad file. But enough people asked about my random Instagram stories using it for Zwift and TrainerRoad, that I figured I’d write it up into something semi-cohesive. While | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review–June 14th, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

Strava Rolls Out New Local Legends Feature: Here’s how it works in action

Strava has rolled out a new feature today to a subset of the population that lets all Strava users earn a new type of crown equal to that of the KOM/QOM, simply for doing a given segment more times than | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Garmin Shows Off New On-Device Sleep Tracking Widgets

On the list of things that I didn’t think would be all that exciting, I’d put forth ‘Widget that shows my sleep from last night’. Turns out, I was wrong. This past weekend I had put a couple of random | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Lezyne’s Komoot & Relive Integration Update: How it all works

Last month Komoot rolled out a new integration with Komoot and Relive, as part of what they see as their primary substantial firmware update for the 2020 season. It applies to a slate of GPS units (including the higher end | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Timex R300 $129 GPS Smartwatch In-Depth Review

If you had asked me late last year for a list of surprisingly capable devices I expected to find on my wrist in Spring 2020, I certainly wouldn’t have said a $129 GPS watch from Timex. But here we are, | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

GoPro Rolls Out Labs Feature: Adds Pile of New Features to Hero 8

In a move that comes entirely out of left field, GoPro announced a new GoPro Labs feature (hosted on GitHub no less) that lets you tweak the heck out of your Hero 8 Black camera. With it comes the ability | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Whoop 3.0 Band & Platform In-Depth Review

There’s arguably no product I’ve *ever* reviewed in over a decade doing this that has me as conflicted as the Whoop strap. It’s both fascinating and perplexing at the same time. It’s got enormous potential, and after four months of | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

5 Random Things I Did This Weekend

Yes, this series is back! It’s been a while, but as the weather warms up, and people start getting a bit more freedom back in their lives, it seemed like a good time to bring back the weeklyish ‘5 Random | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago

Week in Review–May 24th, 2020

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 | 4 years ago

Trying Out Zwift’s New Boost Mode Feature in Beta

No, your Zwift bike doesn’t now have a new bottom bracket standard option. But for a select number of people as part of the Club Jarvis test group, there are now events with a new Boost capability that allows you | Continue reading


@dcrainmaker.com | 4 years ago