[- seb]

Well, I don't know about you monkeys, but here in the UK, race results are a pain in the ass. Every organiser's different. Some do nice PDFs. Most do horrible HTML tables. The worst ones just post them in text in a forum. Worst of all, there's no system to link all of these results together.

I'm betting it's much the same in the US?

The closest we have to a useful system in the UK is BritishCycling's website. But that only applies to people who hold a licence (only about 1/5th of the racing population), and even then all it shows you is your position in each race, nothing more. No run times etc etc.

Well, I'm a bit of a geek, so I decided to make something. And here it is:

http://www.rootsandrain.co.uk/

As an example, me: http://www.rootsandrain.co.uk/rider154/seb-frost/

Now the site's in a very early stage of development at the moment. I plan to do a LOT more with it, this is just phase one, and I literally put it live about... ooh, 30 minutes ago.

I've been working on this on and off for quite some while now. But, now I have the code... well, it'd be trivial to roll it out for other countries.

So what do you say monkeys? Reckon there's a market for a system like this in the US? Or are you not as geeky as me?

Like I say, there'll be a lot more coming soon, I have plenty of ideas of how to improve on what's already there, but I think you'll agree it's a good start!

Oh and you want splits? It does splits... though I admit this may not be the most user-friendly of screens at the moment:
http://www.rootsandrain.co.uk/race34/09-pearce-cycles-3/

I will be most likely putting world cups into this this year, so we can all anally obsess over splits even more than normal!

- seb


[Spam? Maybe, but interesting spam I think you'll agree. And I cleared it with da mods before posting, ain't I good eh!]

 

[jeremy_2640]

Very cool mate...you need to get this sorted with the Aussie races as well....

 

[- seb]

It'll need a different name, sounds a bit too dusty down there!

 

[Whoops]

that's odd... I was reading DD's thread on pro GRT racing yesterday and thinking he should offer this as a service to small clubs around the world (free? for a fee?)... you guys should join forces and take over the world...

open source DH calendars, rankings, etc.... etc.... maybe Google will buy it and you'll be rich! Rich beyond your wildest dreams!

 

[Gridds]

Nice one Seb, looking good!

You might be pleased to know I just entered Rounds 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the Pearce Series this year!

Catch up soon...

 

[Racebike]

seb: We have the same bother here in Sweden with race results.

Nice work with this! Defo something that could be marketable in other countries.

 

[norbar]

Great idea. Not much else to say

 

[- seb]

Yeah I guess as none of you know any of the racers it's not that interesting, but I'm glad you like the concept

 

[monkeyfcuker]

Seb, very very good! Clear, concise with none of the clutter that you normally find on other websites, I'm very impressed!

I've only looked for a few minutes and have already seen 50% of the races I've done, it's good being able to quickly compare times from different races. I especially like the calender as I can look at the whole year at a glance and it even gives me venue details etc etc! [massive thumbs up]

You defo deserve a beer from every UK racer for this and IMO a link should be stickied on every race organisers individual message board.

 

[monkeyfcuker]

Wow just noticed the rider histories!! Category nemesis has the lad I was racing with/against all year haha! Even more impressed now.

 

[Gary]

Excellent work Seb!! - any plans for an archive going back to say 1996?

BTW, who d'you have to blow to get into Experts with those kinda (senior) results?

only kiddin

 

[- seb]

Cheers Gary! Question is, will I stay in Experts and carry on struggling at the bottom of the field (not done much training this winter), or slide gracefully into Masters and take some podiums!

I would like to increase the archive, maybe I'll add 2006 as a starter over the next couple of weeks. Gets harder and harder to find the results the further back you go though, and it'd annoy me to only be able to add 75% of the races from a year because 25% are lost in the mists of time!

 

[- seb]

And thanks for the kind words monkey****er et al!

 

[Muttely]

Seb you are a hero to british DH, wicked site

 

[- seb]

You're all being very kind. I'm sure away from the computer the words "massive ****ing loser" are used a lot more than "hero"

 

[jonKranked]

Two sure signs of a great idea:

1) Simplicity

2) Smacking yourself in the forehead for not thinking of it sooner.

 

[- seb]

Ah, but after you have the idea, you quickly get to

3) this is actually a lot harder than it looks. Why can no-one spell, and why do people have the same names as each other, feckers!!!

 

[Floor Tom]

Seb, this is a pretty cool site. I really like the Nemisis section in the rider history. Could be a good tool for riders to show sponsors how they have been doing.

 

[- seb]

You defo deserve a beer from every UK racer for this and IMO a link should be stickied on every race organisers individual message board.

Forget the beer, I'll take the money, ta. Do I need to make the donate link bigger?

Seb, this is a pretty cool site. I really like the Nemisis section in the rider history. Could be a good tool for riders to show sponsors how they have been doing.

Maybe, though I imagine that's the one thing riders WON'T like about it, no hiding from a few poor results here!

 

[Floor Tom]

Maybe, though I imagine that's the one thing riders WON'T like about it, no hiding from a few poor results here!

Maybie. I suppose it depends on how consistant you are. There was a few shocks in there in my nemisis section who I wouldn't have thought I would have done that well against. For sponsors in the know it will be a really good way of getting the overall picture of how good a rider is.

 

[yetihenry]

Seb, just an idea, maybe ask the BC to issue free rider numbers, and then optional paid race licenses/membership if you want points/insurance? So you just sign up for a free identity number, all race organisers insist you have one, and it only takes a few seconds on BCs website?

 

[Muerto]

Great work!

Would be nice to adapt the system for the Swedish scene. As Racebike said, we face the same problems here.

Care to make it open source for the better good of the DH community?

 

[al-irl]

thats a deadly site such a good idea. Definitely feed my racing geek if you had the Irish races.

 

[- seb]

Seb, just an idea, maybe ask the BC to issue free rider numbers, and then optional paid race licenses/membership if you want points/insurance? So you just sign up for a free identity number, all race organisers insist you have one, and it only takes a few seconds on BCs website?

Well, it's a nice idea, but I think it's a bit early for me to start throwing my weight around like that. Certainly would make my life easier, and the results on the site more accurate. But there's a lot of people out there who wont give a **** about this site, and I'd hate to get them all riled up by complicating their lives and making them get a BC number, however straightforward it might be!

 

[- seb]

thats a deadly site such a good idea. Definitely feed my racing geek if you had the Irish races.

Already had someone ask for Irish dates to be included.... I don't know much of the Irish scene, are there loads of series or is it just the Irish NPS? If it's just one series maybe I could be tempted, it's QUITE local after all... where would I find the results?

Had a request to add Isle of Man dates to the calendar too, they want to entice some UK riders over.

 

[dhjunke]

Yes, some us sites have the same problems.
Nice, Like how you went the extra mile. Sorting title, see entire history of races.

Geek questions

Did you create a administration interface for the importing/adding of data?
For the times and splits etc, if the data isn't there is it displayed?

Please let us know if you make it open source. Could easily adapt this for a local series. Would make the results much easier to view.

Thanks for sharing

 

[- seb]

dhjunke - yes I did, but it's far from idiot proof, I'd have to work on it quite a bit if I wanted someone to help me out, or if I wanted to sell/share the code.

Not sure what you meant by your other question, but I think the answer is "no"?

Race that had splits:
http://www.rootsandrain.co.uk/race33/09-pearce-cycles-2-and-midland-champs/
Race that didn't have splits:
http://www.rootsandrain.co.uk/race81/09-sda-2/
No splits, and a seeding run instead of two race runs:
http://www.rootsandrain.co.uk/race45/09-nps-2/

Or did I totally misunderstand your question?

 

[al-irl]

www.irishdh.com

theres a results archive on there and more info. We have a winter league of 4 races and then the nps series

 

[- seb]

The results have been posted up as images, so no way I can do it. If someone emails me the original PDFs, or shows me where to find them, then you might be in with a chance

Actually not all of them, just some. Maybe only one, just the one I happened to click on first!

 

[al-irl]

nacc events do our timing so they usually have the results in full pdf

heres all last years results

http://dm27.com/nacc/archive/

 

[- seb]

Ah didn't know Dave did that, fair play, cheers!

 

[al-irl]

yeah hes been coming over to us for about 2 years he did the full season last year, looked after the league points etc. Was great knowing how you were fixed in the series as soon as you crossed the line. As far as i know hes doing all the races again this year.

 

[Beast]

80% or more (I'm estimating) of the USA's mountain bike racing population is licensed through USA Cycling. They have a results database already: http://www.usacycling.org/results/

This isn't to say that your site and service isn't marketable in the US. I'd just like to point out that we already have a system in place for the large majority of races, and that the dinosaur of an organization that runs it likely won't be too keen on updating it. Who knows, you might be able to give them a run for their money.

BTW, I really dig the "category nemeses" thing!

 

[- seb]

Ah glad some countries are on top of it Beast. BritishCycling has a database too, but all they show (and as far as I know, all they store) is your position and the national ranking points you get to go with them. It's certainly very very limited compared to what I'm trying to set up.

 

[SuspectDevice]

seb- ww.crossresults.com Colin does the same thing with Domestic CX. Results tabulated like this are far superior to the halfassed ranking schemes devised by governing bodies- here in New England we even use the rankings to determine start-grid position in UCI events. Doing it for DH would be frikkin rad.

 

[- seb]

Cheers SD. I found a roadie site that did a similar thing too.

Certainly a rider ranking is something I want to work into the site - getting it as "perfect" as possible from the data I have, rather than just saying "1st = 60pts, 2nd = 56pts ..... 40th = 1pt" etc. Haven't worked the algorithm out fully yet, but obviously your results need to be related to the strength of the field at each particular race, etc etc. Should be fun!