[OHPV-list] HPV and Electrathon race timing

[Jeff Wills]

At the end of the races at PIR, I was standing around talking with Aaron
Williams (from Electrathon) and Shawn Cupples, who's a electronics techie.
Naturally, the issue of electronic timing and lap counting came up. The
consensus was that once the "sensor" portion of the equation could be
solved, it would be easy to do any kind of timing we wanted.

But the issue of cheap, reliable sensors seems to be the sticking point
for a lot of people. What follows is some comments from Mike Murray, who's
the head honcho at OBRA.  I think he's got a pretty good handle on the
issues. There's more comments about chip timing on the OBRA list:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/obra/read if you want to see more.

There's plenty of room for discussion about this, but other people haven't
figured out solutions either. I'm just putting this in front of people as
food for thought.

Jeff


------ Start of Forwarded Message ------
From: "Mike Murray" <mike.murray at obra.org>
Sent: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 13:49:56 -0700
To: <donoso at bendnet.com>,
 <obra at topica.com>
Subject: RE: [OBRA Chat] chip timeing


Don is incorrect in his assumption that chip timing is entirely
accurate.
It fails and has done so rather famously at big events where there was
little back up for it. Even if reliability and cost were not a problem 
there
are other issues.  I have been watching the chip timing issue for many  years
and it is really not a "ready for prime time" technology in my opinion.   I
am questioned about this so frequently that I have put together a stock
answer, which is below, for those interested in details.

Bottom line is that a race organizer might elect to rent chip timing  from a
company that does this but the cost will be, as Damian noted, fairly  high.
In addition, something that Damian did not note, is that someone will  need
to pay the cost for the inevitable lost chips.

One of the OBRA members is currently working on developing a chip system
that MAY address some of the problems with the commercially available
systems.  If it does, OBRA will fund that.

Mike Murray

I have been following the use of transponders in bike racing (as well as  in
running, triathlon, motor sports, model car racing, etc.) for several  years.
Although the transponders can work very well for some applications they  have
created major timing disasters at several bike races.  Sea Otter was
evidently an example of this one year.  As I understand it, the
transponder
signal was disrupted by metal structures in the finish area and the  results
produced were inaccurate.

There are several companies that produce these devices and systems.   They
vary in costs, reliability and set up requirements.  They don't have an
actual radio transmitter.  They use a chip that is energized by passing
through an antenna field at the measurement point.  This causes the chip 
to
emit a radio signal at that point that has an identifying code.  There  are
systems that use a mat that is placed on the finish line and other  systems
that use a set of vertical antennas at the side of the road. There are 2
types of chips; active and passive.  Active chips are more reliable and
transmit better but are substantially more expensive.  Passive chips are
cheaper but transmission is unreliable for the types of finishes
generally
done at bike races.

For racing at a single location where the set up of the finish area  antennae
system can be consistent many of the reliability issue can be tested and
resolved.  If the set up is different for every race, as it would be for
bike racing, the reliability goes downhill significantly.

There is also more benefit for events where there are large numbers of
competitors that all need to be timed, like running or triathlons.  In 
this
case the costs of the system (not only monetary) seem small compared to  the
costs of manual systems.  For bike racing the field sizes are smaller  and
generally the timing requirements are less because generally all the
competitors are not timed.  (In fact, for road races there is generally 
only
a time for the leader and order of finish is all that matters.  Even in
stage races bunches of riders are given pack times.)

The main monetary cost is the cost of the chips.  There are 3 basic  systems
for managing these:

1) All competitors purchase chips - This is the motor sport model  generally.
This probably causes them less problems for motor sports since the chip  cost
is small relative to equipment costs.  For bike racing, this would
significantly raise the cost of participating.  This would likely have a
negative effect on participation.

2) The organization purchases the chips - If OBRA were to do this we  would
need to purchase a minimum of 400 chips.  Even for the lowest priced  chip
systems (which are less reliable) this would cost ~$10,000+.  It would  also
require us to institute a system of collecting the chips after each  race.
At running or tri events this is easier because the finishing
competitors
can be funneled into a corral and not let out until the turn in their  chip.
This is far harder to do at a bike race.  The Atlanta Olympics used  chips
and they lost them so you can be assured that "shrinkage" would be a  major
issue for OBRA.  A deposit would need to be charged which would
complicate
the system and be a disincentive for participation.

3) The organization buys some chips and the competitors buy some - This  is
what some running events do.  The competitor gets an advantage in having  an
easier registration process and he eliminates the need to pay deposit,
collect and turn back in the transponder, etc.  For this convenience  they
pay the cost of the transponder.  The organization benefits by
decreasing
the number of transponders that they need.  This is probably the system  that
would work best for OBRA.  Unfortunately it would also require a
standard
registration system, purchase, maintenance and training of computers for
registration, etc.

Currently, the cost of using these systems for running and tri races is  too
high for individual races or even series of races.  When they use them  they
hire a timing company to provide the chips and run the system.  This  would
be available to bike races too but, at this point, there are few that  have
thought that the benefit justifies the cost.

I have no doubt that we will eventually be using this type of device but  I
do not think that the technology is yet to the point where they make  sense
for most races.  I will be continuing to follow this subject and when  there
is a product that makes sense from a practical and cost point of view we
will get it.

Mike Murray