Behind the scenes: The DCRainmaker Gadget Cave

Back a while ago I had shown a photo of the heart rate strap collection I have, where I stash the massive number of heart rate straps that I seem to have obtained (usually just because they came with various products).  During that post, some folks asked to see what the full sports gadget collection looks like.

It used to be that the collection all fit into a single Rubbermaid container.  Well, mostly.  As you saw in my post on ‘Behind the scenes in product reviews’, it was overflowing at the time.  So this spring I decided to upgrade it.  And by ‘upgrade’, I mean I went to Ikea and bought the cheapest shelving system they had.

Now, I should point out an important item because I’m not sure if everyone realizes it.  After I’m done reviewing a product, I almost always end up returning the product to the vendor – no matter if the item costs $2,000 or $200.  About the only items I don’t send back are ones that I’ve consumed (i.e…food), which is fairly rare.  In some cases, the companies don’t want them back – so I give them away (a hint at what might be coming up soon…).

After the product has gone back though, I end up re-purchasing almost all of them.  I do this to be able to answer your questions as companies add new features, or to be able to add them as comparisons in product reviews.  Obviously, this costs real hard cold cash, hence why I’m super thankful for all of you who use the Amazon links.

With that – let me introduce the portable side of the sports gadget collection.  Note this does not include trainers, or anything else that doesn’t fit in the closet.

Above, the closet.  You’ll notice Mr. Shark is hanging out there, guarding the goods.  He sits behind the pull-up bar (an artifact as part of the Men’s Health partnership).  The pull up bar keeps him in the room, like one of those children’s fences.

Once you’re inside and navigated him out of the way, I’ve organized everything into levels.  Starting at the very top is basically a place where I can stash boxes that don’t really fit anywhere else – these are mostly just scales and the like.

Then from there we go into swim stuff (you’ll notice the pattern: Swim, Bike, Run…).  Because Swim doesn’t really need as much room as the others, I also stash some health and fitness stuff in here – like Zeo.

Moving down a layer we’ve got ‘Bike’.  Now in general these are products that I’ve already reviewed, but there are some others in there that I just haven’t gotten around to.  In some cases, the product may never be reviewed (simply due to lack of time), and in others, it’s still on my radar.  For items that are triathlon and could swing both bike or run, I stash it wherever seems to have the most space that day.

Moving on we’re onto the run!  This is without question the biggest category, as it’s the one where I write the most product reviews for.  Lots of stuff in here.  Sometimes I have two of an item, either because The Girl has one, or because I’ve had multiples for some random reason (i.e. there are two Nike+ GPS watches there, one of them is shattered).

Below the run, we’ve got the ‘To Review’ pile.  This serves as a handy reminder of things I’m working on.  Some items are higher priority than others, usually determined by your demand.  Occasionally determined by public release.  Virtually never determined by what a company wants (I recently reminded a company of that, subsequently sending back their products without review after they got pushy).  I aim to deliver what I believe you’ll find interesting, not what some PR person wants.  Of course, if I find something interesting, then you’ll never know what you’ll get (hence the Shark and blender things).

Finally, there’s that good ole Rubbermaid bin!  Yup, he lives on.  Currently he’s the miscellaneous parts box, with random stuff that I scrounge from.  I’ve got enough zip ties in there to easily take care of any WTO event.  And of course, off to the side is my trusty roller wheel for measuring courses, hanging out next to my underwater photography case for underwater review items.

I’ve also got two more little piles out of view (gotta have surprises!).  The first being unreleased/unannounced products, and the second being a very good chunk of stuff that I’ll be giving away shortly.  It’s a fairly substantial pile – sorta like ‘The mother of all DC Rainmaker giveaways’.  And, more fun to keep that a surprise.  When have you ever been disappointed by one of my giveaways?

With that – hope you enjoyed the little tour, and hope you have an enjoyable weekend!

Thanks for reading!