Women's Cycling Coverage

Today Tour Tracker added expanded women's coverage to our Tour Tracker Grand Tours application. Over the past 10 years we have covered women's races every year, ranging from providing races custom apps free-of-charge to including select races in the Grand Tours app. And we are super excited to do our part in increasing the amount and quality of coverage of women's cycling. But with that excitement comes concern.

We can't speak for other members of the cycling press, but for us, the races Tour Tracker covers is directly related to the availability of information about and from the events. For better or worse, the Tour Tracker platform is dependent on having detailed information about an event available in specific formats and in a timely manner.

That information includes but is not limited to:

• Point-by-point GPS route data for each stage.

• Details about every team and rider.

• Reliable information about the race's progress.

• Timely, accurate results in standardized formats.

In fact to make the first Tour Tracker work back at the 2007 Tour of California, we spent 3 days clicking on maps to generate the route data by hand, dot by dot!

Ten years later we have found it sometimes challenging to get that level of data from women's events. Having been behind the scenes, we get it. Even at well-funded events the last thing a course director is worried about is whether the press has the GPS files for the race. In fact, they might not want them public. And at underfunded events, the challenge is 100x greater as just getting the race going can be a Herculean task.

So, we wanted to use this post to make two requests. One, that you try to enjoy our added women's coverage, knowing that we might not be working with all the data we need. We spent the off-season modifying the app to support a race without interactive routes, but some users might equate the lack of routes as a lack of desire to provide high-quality coverage, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

Two, I'd like to use these final words as a request to the race owners, race organizers, team owners and riders. Please help us help you. Women's race coverage can be a challenge when little information is available, just like any race.

Race organizers, please make your routes, start lists and results available to the press promptly. And teams, please do everything you can to get your rider information out there and help us fill in the gaps.

We hope you enjoy our expanded women's race coverage!

Allan & Clara

Climb Gradient Design Competition

User feedback on our new climb gradient visualization has been awesome. And the response to our survey was great, but there was not a clear winner. So, we thought it would be fun to let users submit their own designs. So we extended our web-based Tour Tracker to allow YOU to be the designer.

All you have to do is go to the URL listed below (on your laptop) and then start tweaking the design by changing the URL values. Below the URL is a list of options you can change / add to the URL. You can see your design better if you click on one of the climb icons on the profile and then select Gradients. Once your design is perfect, send us the final modified URL to support@thetourtracker.com. The best designs will be shared in the app and the top design will get TEAM coverage for life! Good luck!

http://live.thetourtracker.com/?show_gradients=true&gradient_colors_type=color_get_lighter&gradient_color=ff0000

Values you can set in the URL:

gradient_colors_type: This controls the basic design of the climb gradient graph. Values are:

• color_alpha_blend - A single color (red) will be blended on top of the profile color from transparent to opaque. Setting gradient_color=RRGGBB can override the default.

• four_colors - There are four colors in increasing grade: green, blue, black, red. Setting gradient_color_1=RRGGBB, gradient_color_2=RRGGBB, gradient_color_2=RRGGBB, gradient_color_2=RRGGBB can override these colors.

• color_get_darker - A single color (red) will go from bright to dark. Setting gradient_color=RRGGBB can override the default.

• color_get_lighter - A single color (red) will go from dark to bright. Setting gradient_color=RRGGBB can override the default.

Tour Tracker Tech #2 - Time Machine

One of the most powerful features in Tour Tracker is Time Machine, a feature exclusive to our apps that gives the user full control of, well, time. Read on to find out what it is and how it can make your experience following cycling better!

What is Time Machine?

The idea behind Time Machine is that you should be able to go back in time and see exactly what was happening at any moment in any race. How were the riders grouped and where where they on the course map and profile? What commentary had the reporter posted up to that point? What time trial splits and finishes were reported? What were the standings at that moment? Basically, if you had opened the app at that moment in time, what would have you seen?

Why would you use Time Machine?

Basically Time Machine turns Tour Tracker into a VCR that lets you rewind, fast forward, skip, play, pause your way through any race. The original goal of Time Machine was to let users who were watching a race on tape-delay always have the app in sync with where they were in the video playback. So if you started watching Stage 3 of the TDF in the evening you just rewind the app to the start time / 0km and press play. And if you pause the video to take a break, just pause the app too. Skip ahead on the video? Skip ahead in Tour Tracker. Voila!

How else can you use Time Machine?

Another great use of Time Machine is preventing spoilers. Let's say you launch the app for the first time when a stage is already live and/or done. Your about to start a video of the stage and want to preview the profile of the route. But sadly the profile has so much good data that it shows that a solo break won the day. And you are sad. But there is hope! Go to the Application Settings and enable Pause Live Coverage. This will automatically pause the app each day at the starting line for you. So you can look at the profile without any spoilers. And then when you are ready, you can use the Time Machine controls as you wish.

Anything else you can do with Time Machine?

Yep. Personally I sometimes just replay the entire stage holding down the fast forward button to see how it unfolded. The profile is a good one to watch. Or the virtual standings let's you see the moment when a new leader was born.

Enter, Control and Exit Time Machine

You can start Time Machine several ways:

• As mentioned, turn on Pause Live Coverage on the Application Settings page and it will engage automatically each day.

• On the mobile apps, select Time Machine from any stage's detail page. That brings up a page that lets you type in a distance to go (typically the easiest thing to see on a race video) and jump to that point in time. For time trials it just goes to the beginning of the day, but see below for how to do more.

• Alternatively, tap any icon on a stage's map or profile, which brings up details about that climb, sprint, etc. That page will also have a Time Machine item that when selected, will bring up the "distance to go" page with the distance already filled in for the climb/sprint you selected.

• Finally you can choose Pause Live Coverage from the option menu on the profile or map page. It will start Time Machine but immediately pause the app at that time. We know it is an odd place to find such a command, and if you have a better idea let us know.

To control Time Machine:

• Once started, the Time Machine control bar is always available at the bottom of the screen. Using that you can rewind - tapping once goes back 1 minute, holding your finger down will repeatedly go back - go forward, pause, unpause and exit entirely.

• You can also tap on the data value itself (e.g. 34km) to skip to a particular moment. For a road stage you can enter a new distance to go (e.g. 23) or the 24hr time of day in your time zone (e.g. 14:32). For a time trial you can enter a rider bib # or time of day.

• You can also tap the the words "Time Machine" of the left side of the control bar to rotate what data is displayed there between distance to go, distance covered, time elapsed and the actual time of day. By default it is distance to go.

• To exit Time Machine just tap the square stop button on the controls and you will be back to real time.