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Small things I always use
- Garmin 90-degree charging adapter: Charges your Garmin from any USB-C cable. Essential when travelling. I use one.
- Body Glide: The blue anti-chafe stick swimmers and runners carry. I use it.
- Speedo earplugs: Fewer ear infections and no cold-water dizziness. I use them.
- Dryrobe Advance: My winter changing robe for open-water swims. I use one. A cheaper option is the AONYIYI changing robe.
- Maurten: Race fuel that stays easy on the stomach. I use them.
- Garmin charging puck: The quickest way to top up before a session. I use one.
- Injinji: Toe socks that stop rubbing, so you run more. I use them.
- Ultimate toe protectors: Stop black toenails on long runs. They work. I use them.
- Compressport R2 v2 calf sleeves: My calf sleeves of choice. I use them.
- Cellucor C4: My pre-workout before hard sessions.
- TPU tubes: Schwalbe Aerothan, Tubolito and Pirelli SmarTube. Light, tiny spares. I use all three.
- G8 insoles: Adjustable insoles that are good. I use them.
- Cycplus Cube: A 97g electric pump that gets a road tyre rideable in two minutes. I carry one. 5% off with code THE5KRUNNER.
Watches and sensors
- Polar H10: My daily driver for waking HRV.
- Polar Verity Sense: My backup arm-worn HR sensor.
- Nomad bedside charger: Charges my iPhone and Apple Watch overnight. I use it, and many of their bands.
- Train.Red: The best muscle oxygen sensor I’ve used.
- Tymewear: Accurate heart rate and reliable ventilatory zones. I use it to pace endurance rides over an hour.
- Garmin Forerunner 970: A pro-grade triathlon watch. I use this.
- Apple Watch Ultra 4: My daily smartwatch. No phone needed on rides.
- Garmin Fenix 9 Pro: I’ve just bought one.
On the bike
- Continental GP5000 for everyday riding, and Aero 111 on the front for special occasions.
- Helmets: Specialized S-Works Evade 3 for road riding, and Rudy Project Wing for TT-style races. I use both.
- Ravemen FR300: A front light that mounts under your Garmin or Wahoo. I use one.
- Wahoo TRACKR Radar: I use it on one bike and Varia on the other. They perform the same.
- Garmin Varia RTL515: Radar that warns you of cars from behind. I use this model.
- Wahoo ELEMNT Roam 3: The bike computer that’s easy to use. I use mine on most rides.
- Favero Assioma Pro RS2: Accurate power pedals that swap easily between bikes. I use this model.
Home and indoor training
- NPE Runn: Makes my basic treadmill smart, sending more accurate speed and distance to my watch and Zwift. I use it.
- Google Wifi: Keeps Zwift connected in my pain cave. I use it.
- Apple TV 4K: Zwift on the big screen. I use two.
- Google Nest Doorbell (wired, 2nd gen): My video doorbell, running in both Google Home and Apple Home. I use it.
Health, recovery and sleep
- FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus: Shows how my blood sugar responds to diet.
- hDrop: Measures my sweat loss in summer and indoors.
- Fourth Frontier Zone: Checks my heart under load in hard sessions.
- Oura Ring 5: My partner’s recovery tracker of choice.
- Kineon MOVE+: Red light therapy for niggles. It works.
- Eight Sleep: A cooling mattress cover my partner and I use nightly.
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID
Such a pleasure to see ST3 is still being used for analysis by t5kr.
🙂
I do have dcanalyzer software ready as backup for when st3 stops working
Hi,
interesting articles. I have use the 1030+ for a couple of weeks now. Before I had the 810. I experience Strava segment problems with the 1030+. During a 33km/h cruising speed ride I have multiple KOM’s with 50+ km/h. Very annoying. Like 70 km/h average with a max speed of 27 km/h.
Could it be the GPS settings?
hey, yes that is seriously wrong. Apart from obvious questions like…were you in a car a little alter on i can’t see a sensible explanation for this.
STRAVA do adjust segmeent performances and i guess it’s possibel that your gps might have incorrectly recorded the start/end of the segments.
For elevation accuracy, the only way to test would be using LiDAR data. There is wide variation across devices – I have found that Garmin Edge devices are good, as are Wahoo, but the latter does more smoothing and the former gives more unsmoother raw data (I prefer that). I have some detail on adding LiDAR data on YouTube:
See videos 7 and 8 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_xiJBvuN7zdfaGEqojYI9HySrXUpEh27
And this one too:
https://youtu.be/5WwPkmh9YNo
Also calibration of the device should be turned on, but not on as riding when riding the segment for comparison if you want all data to correlate, if you see what I mean.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/lidar.html
hey there, thank you for those links and your comment
surely though the 10m tiles will only be accurate if your gps can put you in the right one. eg on very steep hills that will be a problem as will urban canyons.
do you know the tile sizes for garmin’s DEM model?
Good point! I wasn’t using it that way, as I was creating a route. You can go down to 25 cm squares with good data, but as you say, to truly compare, that’d need the device to put you on that square.
Garmin’s DEM via Garmin Connect follows SRTM fairly closely. Strava’s is most refined.