Reading the posts about the poor race announcing for the recent US Open race in VA got me to thinking about an idea that hit me as I was watching the race.
Now that we've got the ability to track the position of others' cell phones through GPS, why can't we tweak it just a bit and develop the ability to monitor a gps tracker on each rider's bike, which could me monitored via computer.
Of course it would be nuts to try to track instantaneously the position of every rider within the peloton, but there's no need for that. But, it would be pretty easy to sort out the composition of smaller groups such as breakaways or solo attackers. No more fiddling with J. Eustice or B. Roll trying to figure out who a particular rider is. Just look at the gps positioning readouts and you could tell instantly who's in the break.
Now, if any of you brainiacs want to develop such a system, feel free to use my idea. I just want my fair share of any revenues!
Stuff like this is already used in tri's, look at www.championchip.com for one, their are others, I'm sure there must be a cycle race that has/or is
"Scott" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:
Reading the posts about the poor race announcing for the recent US Open race in VA got me to thinking about an idea that hit me as I was watching the race.
Now that we've got the ability to track the position of others' cell phones through GPS, why can't we tweak it just a bit and develop the ability to monitor a gps tracker on each rider's bike, which could me monitored via computer.
Of course it would be nuts to try to track instantaneously the position of every rider within the peloton, but there's no need for that. But, it would be pretty easy to sort out the composition of smaller groups such as breakaways or solo attackers. No more fiddling with J. Eustice or B. Roll trying to figure out who a particular rider is. Just look at the gps positioning readouts and you could tell instantly who's in the break.
Stuff like this is already used in tri's, look atwww.championchip.com for one, their are others, I'm sure there must be a cycle race that has/or is
the championchip system doesn't do what scott is suggesting. that system uses mats which would have to be placed around the course. ie. the system doesn't tell you where someone is, it tells you when they cross certain points.
the euro races seem to use some kind of real time tracking, but the transponders seem to be on race vehicles (motos), not riders.
in any big race though the announcers should listen to the race radio, the officials and team instantly know what the composition of a break is.
Reading the posts about the poor race announcing for the recent US Open race in VA got me to thinking about an idea that hit me as I was watching the race.
Now that we've got the ability to track the position of others' cell phones through GPS, why can't we tweak it just a bit and develop the ability to monitor a gps tracker on each rider's bike, which could me monitored via computer.
Of course it would be nuts to try to track instantaneously the position of every rider within the peloton, but there's no need for that. But, it would be pretty easy to sort out the composition of smaller groups such as breakaways or solo attackers. No more fiddling with J. Eustice or B. Roll trying to figure out who a particular rider is. Just look at the gps positioning readouts and you could tell instantly who's in the break.
Now, if any of you brainiacs want to develop such a system, feel free to use my idea. I just want my fair share of any revenues!
CSC had developed a tracking system for the Tour of California. I didn't follow it and haven't heard if it was successful. The device was supposedly placed on a few riders every stage, as well as the some cars with the various groups.
There was an interesting discussion during the CSC pre race press conference - Voigt complaining about being part of a video game...But at least even Bjarne agreed it shouldn't be used to track riders during training...
the euro races seem to use some kind of real time tracking, but the transponders seem to be on race vehicles (motos), not riders.
Ham radios allow this. The Nature Valley GP has used ham operators for race communications, one of them was set up to do that. They had a laptop at the finish that had a real time display of where the cars were.
It was by no means necessary for what they were doing. But it was pretty cool for the spectators.
