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 → | Continue reading
This is the first time I’ve written one of these quarterly posts where I can actually put “Wearables” in the title, rather than specifically ‘Fenix’ or ‘Forerunner’ or ‘Epix’. That’s because Garmin is actually close enough now that all … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Earlier this week Garmin announced the beginnings of a revamp of the Garmin Connect Mobile app - something that many people have been eager for…for many many years. As part of this revamp, they’ve also opened it up to … Read More Here → | Continue reading
It’s that time again - for another New York City GPS accuracy test. Just like the annual Christmas Tree by cargo bike tradition, so is the NYC GPS accuracy test posts. Albeit, this time I’ve got an interesting double-date test. … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Polar has just announced a super interesting new product. Or rather, Sennheiser has just announced a new product and Polar is key part of it. This is the first non-Polar product to fully integrate into the Polar ecosystem, including full … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Garmin has just announced the Lily 2 smartwatch, which continues to be aimed at being a minimalist fitness and health smartwatch that contains most of the behind-the-scenes wellness tracking features of the rest Garmin’s watches, but without as many … Read More Here → | Continue reading
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 → | Continue reading
Garmin’s newest heart rate strap is one designed specifically for women, which essentially takes the features of Garmin’s high-end HRM-PRO Plus, but molds it into a strap that snaps onto your existing sports bra. The design aims to increase … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Welcome to 2024, and the year’s first legit DC Rainmaker Sports Tech Rabbit Hole. Every year Strava publishes their year in review stats, both in individual athlete form (more recently), but many years of total global and regional user-compiled stats. … Read More Here → | Continue reading
While digging around through press releases for a different post, I stumbled upon an announcement for a new Chipotle and Strava promotion running the month of January. While this press release had a lot of hand-waving feel-good New Year's resolution … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Peloton has launched automation for power zone workouts, allowing the Peloton Bike+ (that’s the fancier of the two models) to automatically adjust resistance according to the power zones specified by the instructor. Previously, the Bike+ would only change resistance levels … Read … | Continue reading
After crossing through the decade barrier last year, we’ve moved onto the 11th year of getting the Christmas Tree by bike. With Christmas itself nearly over, it was high time for me to finish this post. Obviously, this happened a … Read More Here → | Continue reading
As we slide into the quiet period around the holidays and end of year, companies are doing their best to finish off projects. And one such project that Xert has launched into beta is their Forecast AI tool. Essentially, the … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Last week while visiting Wahoo Fitness, I sat down with the founder and current co-CEO of the company, Chip Hawkins, for a wide-ranging interview discussing everything from past Wahoo initiatives (and failures), to the status of current products, as … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Two weekends ago we held the 8th annual DC Rainmaker Cave Open House, where a couple hundred people descended upon the DCR Cave for an evening of sports tech geekery. As usual, they could explore the entire DCR Cave/Studio, and … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Apple has confirmed they’ll be halting sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, following a ruling this past October by the International Trade Commission that ruled in favor of a patent dispute with Masimo, a … Read More Here → | Continue reading
It’s been more than 6 months since Apple and TrainingPeaks announced plans for integration back at WWDC, and it’s finally here. In some ways, it’s kinda funny. From an end-user perspective, this actually isn’t some mind-bending new fancy feature. … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Here’s a quick round of notable new sports tech things in the last 24 hours or so. New Strava CEO Appointed: After a 10-month search, Strava has announced the name of their new/upcoming CEO - Michael Martin. He will replace … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Training & coaching platform Today’s Plan has announced they’ll be closing early next year. The Australian-based company has long been the chief competitor to TrainingPeaks, especially for coaches and high-performance teams. Numerous Tour de France teams have used the platform … … | Continue reading
With all the sales of various sports tech products for the holiday period, there’s the inevitable question of whether or not new releases are around the corner. After all, companies offloading older inventory to make way for newer inventory is … Read More Here → | Continue reading
With the just released Tacx NEO 3M from Garmin this week, Wahoo’s KICKR MOVE smart trainer finally has a legit competitor in the built-in motion-enabled trainer space. Sure, you could (and still can) plop any trainer atop a rocker … Read More Here → | Continue reading
It’s December - and you know what that means: It’s time for the annual (and sprawling) - Sportswatch Year in Review video! This marks half a decade in a row of this annual video, where Des of DesFit, and … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Last weekend was the annual DCR Open House, which was the most packed it’s ever been. However, after the beer, tech, and dust settled, Matt Legrand spent the following morning doing a full tour of the DCR Cave. And … Read More Here → | Continue reading
After a four year wait, the next generation Tacx NEO series trainer is here - the Tacx NEO 3M. As one will quickly assess, the ‘M’ in 3M stands for ‘motion’, as this trainer isn’t sitting still. Instead, Garmin/Tacx … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Garmin has begun rolling out wrist temperature tracking to watches with the newer Garmin ELEVATE V5 optical heart rate sensor in them, which includes the Garmin Epix Pro, Fenix 7 Pro, Tactix 7 AMOLED, and Venu 3 series. Those … Read More Here → | Continue reading
This is not a complex feature, nor hard to use. Starting today, the “social network for athletes” includes the most social of features: Texting. Or rather, direct messaging. This new feature lets you (optionally) accept direct messages from nobody, … Read More Here → | Continue reading
So, it’s been two years since I last updated this list, and it’s clear many of you would like a refresh. As I always note though, I’m not a person of change. At least when it comes to gear. My … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Hey there, this is Bobbie (The Girl), otherwise known as Ray's other half. This year, 2023, I decided I had been away from competition for long enough, and wanted to get back into racing. Having been out of the triathlon … Read More Here → | Continue reading
At this point, it’s probably really only a matter of time before we see the Wahoo KICKR CORE with an orange paint job and called Zwift Hub 2. But, before we get there, let’s first explain what Wahoo (and Zwift) … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Yesterday, after (many) years of people asking, Zwift has finally added an annual payment option. In doing so, they became the final company to add in annual pricing for their product, joining the rest of the industry. Of course, the … Read More Here → | Continue reading
As I’ve said for many years, COROS as a company is most deadly when it’s competing on price. And back three iterations ago, their first breakout product that really introduced the company to the world was the original COROS … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Things are quieting down in the sports tech world as companies tend to take a breather after the busy fall season for most of them. Still, there’s always a few items that pop-in around this timeframe, and this post is … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Strava has just announced and launched the first stage of their video flyover function. This feature creates a 3D map video fly-over of your activity, showing an orange line and a moving blue dot along side line. It’s roughly … Read More Here → | Continue reading
It's that time of year again - when everything goes on sale, or at least, the things companies need you to buy. While historically the best deals have been saved for Black Friday weekend, that's slowly slipped further and further … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Look, I’ll spoil it upfront (headline included): The Suunto Race is easily the best watch Suunto has ever made. It’s not even close. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. For those details, you’ve got nearly 10,000 more words … Read More Here → | Continue reading
The Polar Vantage V3 is arguably the most important product for the company in at least a decade, if not ever. It’s no secret that Polar has had a rough last few years, as it struggles to find its … Read More Here → | Continue reading
It’s been a month since Google announced the Pixel Watch 2, and with it, it’s spent the last month on my wrist - compared to a variety of other watches at various purposes and price points. During this timeframe, … Read More Here → | Continue reading
It’s been a few years since I last talked about Race Ranger, the triathlon-focused tech company that puts sensors on bikes to help athletes and refs more precisely determine and avoid the draft zone (which isn’t legal in most long-course … Read More Here → | Continue reading
There are few sports tech companies that have really been as laser-focused on their niche as much as FORM has (makers of their heads-up display swim coach/goggle), doubters be damned. About the only other comparison in the sports tech landscape … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Wahoo has issued what it sees as the first step in updating various aspects of the user interface on the ELEMNT bike computer series, dubbed ‘Ready to Ride'. This first update essentially adds a home dashboard, which includes some quick-action … Read More Here → | Continue reading
The Technogym MyRun treadmill has been around for over 5 years now, yet despite its age, it continues to be a popular option people are considering for usage with Zwift and other indoor running platforms. As such, the MyRun has … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Garmin has just pushed out the first public beta iteration for their 4th quarter update, which will likely hit production in 4-6 weeks (assuming typical timelines hold true). This update appears to be including a blend of both recently introduced … Read More Here → | Continue reading
(Above: You can simply tap to view my quick ride-through of the new roads, via Canopies and Coastlines, the turn-off from existing pavement to new pavement is at 2m40s) Zwift has just started rolling out their Watopia coastal expansion, … Read More Here → | Continue reading
The Fitbit Charge 6 is an incremental update to the existing Charge 5, focusing on a blend of physical usability enhancements (bringing back the side button), while also increasing day-to-day usability (letting you access all the sport/exercise modes on device, … Read More Here → | Continue reading
This will likely seem like a niche post, and I’m OK with that. But, buried in a side-load only, no-new-feature, beta release 14.05 for the Instinct 2 series yesterday was a notable line item: “Removed the limitation on the number … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Yup, you read the title right! It’s the annual winter DCR Cave Open House! With the event right around the corner, we have lots to do, but first, we need to know how many beers to buy! So don't wait … Read More Here → | Continue reading
I just realized today I found this post in my drafts folder from a week ago, after I had published a complete Garmin Vivoactive 5 Beginners Guide over on YouTube. So, if you were subscribed to YouTube, you likely already … Read More Here → | Continue reading
Garmin has just announced the availability of ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality for the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro, Garmin Epix Pro, Garmin Tactix 7 AMOLED, and Garmin Venu 3/3S units/series. These four different sets of watches all share the same new … Read More Here → | Continue reading