AMB Activ Transponders to be used at Le Tour

Should prove to be be quite amusing on the stages where multiple crashes cause half the field to change bikes.

I sure hope Matsport has worked with Tour Officials to put procedures in place so transponders are on all bikes regardless of if it's on top of a car or actually being ridden.

We recently used the AMB Activ Transponders at the Great River Energy Fest/Nature Valley Grand Prix. They worked great, however, if the officials don't support the use of them and the team managers don't see that they get on the primary and secondary bikes, you definitely start missing riders. We used both the transponders and FinishLynx Cameras and it was truly amazing to see the accuracy of the AMB Activ transponder system when comparing it to the FinishLynx System.

Video will always be necessary, but in terms of producing announcing information and quickness to producing results the AMB Activ transponder system has proven to be very effective.

Sure enough....stage 2, Thor Hushovd from Credit Agricole stacked it about 30 minutes before the finale. He grabbed an unmarked, un-numbered bike off the team car and won the stage, completely anonymous to the AMB system.

The AMB transponders are a nice toy, but anyone who relies on them without photofinish as their primary scoring tool is asking for a meltdown.

Link to picture of transponder mounted on rear chain stay of USPS team bike.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/tour04/tech/?id=usps_stage3/CN-TDF04-Tech32_Bontrager

Remember that the transponders are used for unofficial scoring purposes for the media and not for order of finish.

quote:

Originally posted by TheMightySkunk:
Sure enough....stage 2, Thor Hushovd from Credit Agricole stacked it about 30 minutes before the finale. He grabbed an unmarked, un-numbered bike off the team car and won the stage, completely anonymous to the AMB system.

The AMB transponders are a nice toy, but anyone who relies on them without photofinish as their primary scoring tool is asking for a meltdown.

James,
We noticed a while back that you requested the protocols for the AMB Activ system. Do you plan to implement that into Skunkware? I was curious so that should a customer ask, we can let them know they can work with your SW as well as Runscore and Race Director.

Ryan
AMB Identification & Timing

I've not added AMB support to any flavors of Skunkware yet. But I'm thinking about it.

I requested the Activ protocols in order to provide timing TV graphics to an NBC broadcast of the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon in Minneapolis. The event already used the AMB Activ system, but NBC had no way of getting that data into a Dekko and onto the air in real time, so I got a phone call from an NBC executive producer. The broadcast went quite well, and the AMB Activ equipment, in that context, worked very nicely indeed. The AMB protocols are very well-documented, and the way the decoder interface works (as a server allowing multiple TCP connections) is slick and solid. From my perspective as a programmer, the stuff does exactly what it is supposed to do.

Unfortunately, for most of the sports the various flavors of Skunkware support, the Activ stuff isn't homologated to the necessary resolutions. But what I'm thinking of doing is adding the capability to "stage" racers via transponder inpulse (i.e. identify the racer approaching an INT or FINISH) and then take the actual impulse with a photocell.

It is under discussion around here.

James,
Glad you found our protocols clearly defined and easy to use for the triathlon TV graphics.

Since we do not have a Stage Race and Velodrome SW option for our hardware, it would be interesting to see Skunkworks fill that gap for our customers. In addition, I think having the software combine the FinishLynx camera images with the transponder times for instant verification would be the ultimate all-in-one SW setup. I am aware that FinishLynx has done some work in this area, but it does not provide live results output or GC rankings. Just my thoughts.

Regarding the staging of racers, there's a company in California that is changing how triathlons are being done. They ask the fastest 100 racers to cross one of our detection points that they have prior to the swim to lineup for the 1st wave. This is regardless of their class. This way, racers can go when they feel comfortable and not get overwhelmed in the swim by faster swimmers. Neat concept.

How come LeTour don't use the transponder data at the finish?

While I know that it's not 100% reliable for placings, transponder data helps the photo-finish identification process and offers instant information on the composition of the peleton. I've used this data to quickly calculate the podium and send it to TV.

Last year we arranged a trip on bikes and it was really a tremendous trip to enjoy. There are lots of risks but when we completed it as a group all the troubles changed as beautiful memories. We are planning it again this year.

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