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This will be the 5th year I’ve helped run a little MTB TT series here in town. Every year it gets a little bigger and a little more fun. It’s super low key, emphasis is on fun, not competition. Of course, it is pretty competitive too, especially among groups of friends all trying to beat each other.
For timing we generally do stop watches and pencil and paper. Today I got to thinking, I wonder if there’s an app for that?? Of course there is, but I haven’t found one that does what I need for a reasonable cost yet. Electronic scoring would be nice ‘cause there’s less chance of us making a math error calculating lap times (which is rare, but does happen at least once a year usually), and would be convenient.
One, Webscorer, seems like it would do the job, but requires a subscription for timing TT style races, and being able to enter the different classes. It’s $10/week or $50 for a year. We’d need the yearly, and that’s more than I’m willing to spend.
The frustrating one is called Race Timer, and it’s frustrating because it’s so close to being perfect. You set up your start list, you can enter their class, then you click a button when they start, and another when they finish, and it calcs the lap time. So it has ALL the info I need (name, class, start time, finish time, lap time) BUT NO USEFUL WAY TO SEE IT ALL! There’s no results in the app. You can sort the list of racers and times by racer name, but not by lap time. WTF!?!?! You can e-mail results, but the e-mail doesn’t include classes, and doesn’t sort by lap time either.
I’m thinking that setting up a spreadsheet in Google Drive will be the easiest way to do what I need to do, and we enter the start/finish times and let it calc lap and sort by fastest times. But it’d be nice to eliminate an actual stopwatch all together if possible.
Any suggestions?
We’re not going to lug a laptop down there, we have enough stuff to get out to the trail (which you have to ride to) as it is, and don’t want to run the risk of one getting damaged.
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How about just setting up a Strava segment? Or are you doing multiple laps at a time?
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"mtbgreg1" wrote
How about just setting up a Strava segment? Or are you doing multiple laps at a time?
It’s only one lap, but not everyone will have a smartphone, and the lap is so short I don’t trust the accuracy of Strava. It’s not unusual for the podiums to have a spread of only about 5 seconds.
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"dgaddis" wrote
[quote="mtbgreg1":3jm56mvv]How about just setting up a Strava segment? Or are you doing multiple laps at a time?
It’s only one lap, but not everyone will have a smartphone, and the lap is so short I don’t trust the accuracy of Strava. It’s not unusual for the podiums to have a spread of only about 5 seconds.[/quote:3jm56mvv]
How short is it?
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"mtbgreg1" wrote
[quote="dgaddis":176946qi][quote="mtbgreg1":176946qi]How about just setting up a Strava segment? Or are you doing multiple laps at a time?
It’s only one lap, but not everyone will have a smartphone, and the lap is so short I don’t trust the accuracy of Strava. It’s not unusual for the podiums to have a spread of only about 5 seconds.[/quote:176946qi]
How short is it?[/quote:176946qi]
It’s the canal trail, 2.8ish mile loop. Here’s the results from the Expert class at one of the races last year, to give you an idea of how close it can be:
EXPERT
1 – Chuck Norris – 11:09
2 – Josh Jackson – 11:12
3 – Drew Jordan – 11:16
4 – Josh Bennet – 11:24
5 – Dustin Gaddis – 11:42
6 – Walter Reck – 11:56
7 – Sean McClure – 11:59
8 – Ben Hyler – 12:00
9 – David Findley – 12:42
10 – Matt Cawthon – 12:43
11 – Lee Stevens – 12:51
12 – Aaron Pyle – 12:54 -
"dgaddis" wrote
[quote="mtbgreg1":2yly9mfx][quote="dgaddis":2yly9mfx]
It’s only one lap, but not everyone will have a smartphone, and the lap is so short I don’t trust the accuracy of Strava. It’s not unusual for the podiums to have a spread of only about 5 seconds.
How short is it?[/quote:2yly9mfx]
It’s the canal trail, 2.8ish mile loop. Here’s the results from the Expert class at one of the races last year, to give you an idea of how close it can be:
EXPERT
1 – Chuck Norris – 11:09
2 – Josh Jackson – 11:12
3 – Drew Jordan – 11:16
4 – Josh Bennet – 11:24
5 – Dustin Gaddis – 11:42
6 – Walter Reck – 11:56
7 – Sean McClure – 11:59
8 – Ben Hyler – 12:00
9 – David Findley – 12:42
10 – Matt Cawthon – 12:43
11 – Lee Stevens – 12:51
12 – Aaron Pyle – 12:54[/quote:2yly9mfx]I mean, you’re asking for a mobile app that would automate timing, and that seems like exactly what Strava does. Nobody would get any faster… I think the worst that could happen is someone might get robbed from a GPS glitch.
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"mtbgreg1" wrote
I mean, you’re asking for a mobile app that would automate timing, and that seems like exactly what Strava does. Nobody would get any faster… I think the worst that could happen is someone might get robbed from a GPS glitch.
No one would get faster, but how much of the course would they ride before STRAVA decided they were actually on the course? How many times a minute does STRAVA record GPS positions?
And, with STRAVA, everyone would have to have the app, which they don’t. And we’d have to go looking into each of their accounts to get times, etc.
I’m going to try that Webscorer. They have a free 30 day trial, and I think it might be useful for timing the Baker’s Dozen this fall (it runs on an iPad as well as iPhone), which could potentially save the club a TON of money vs. hiring a professional chip timing service.
Oh, and this: http://www.scarletfire.co.uk/2013/03/st … droid-app/
^^1, 2, or 3 seconds matter in this race.
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No one would get faster, but how much of the course would they ride before STRAVA decided they were actually on the course? How many times a minute does STRAVA record GPS positions?
If you just included a short run up, say maybe 100 yards, to the segment, and then a short run out after the segment, I don’t think you’d have an issue.
Strava records GPS positions pretty regularly, but once you’re out on the course it doesn’t really matter until you get back to the finish line. Strava seems to be pretty consistent with the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of segments that they already have,so I personally wouldn’t worry about it.
And, with STRAVA, everyone would have to have the app, which they don’t. And we’d have to go looking into each of their accounts to get times, etc.Everyone would only need the app if you wanted results right at the finish line. If someone had a Garmin, they could always upload their data when they got home to be included in the results. Of course, that opens up the possibility that the GPS track could be altered and someone could cheat, but how low do you have to be to cheat at a bike race?
Oh wait…
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I agree that Strava is not accurate enough for this task. Not only can there be Strava discrepancies, but different smartphones handle the GPS interaction differently. Some mark a waypoint every x number of seconds, some every x number of feet, some don’t mark one at all if there is a loss of GPS signal.
Not to mention DigitalEPO.com … 😼
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"maddslacker" wrote
I agree that Strava is not accurate enough for this task. Not only can there be Strava discrepancies, but different smartphones handle the GPS interaction differently. Some mark a waypoint every x number of seconds, some every x number of feet, some don’t mark one at all if there is a loss of GPS signal.
Not to mention DigitalEPO.com … 😼
Lol that site is hilarious!
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"mtbgreg1" wrote
[quote="maddslacker":4d3284k5]I agree that Strava is not accurate enough for this task. Not only can there be Strava discrepancies, but different smartphones handle the GPS interaction differently. Some mark a waypoint every x number of seconds, some every x number of feet, some don’t mark one at all if there is a loss of GPS signal.
Not to mention DigitalEPO.com … 😼
Lol that site is hilarious![/quote:4d3284k5]
Yes it is lol.
And we do need to everyone’s times there at the trailhead, ’cause we need to award the killer trophies to the top 3 in each class. 😆
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