Tevis Cup - But WHERE is my Rider???

[Crysta Turnage]

The Western States Trail Foundation has a loyal group of volunteers that will be working hard to bring you up to date information during the ride weekend.  When the ride starts, there will be a link on the website http://www.teviscup.org/ to "Where's my rider", the live webcast. That link will allow you to search the progress of a specific rider, information by checkpoint, and a current list of pulled riders.

 

However, inevitably over the course of the event, it may appear through the webcast that a particular rider has gone astray, or many not be updated.  Why?  Well here's a bit of the behind the scenes:

 

Firstly, all of the people helping to man our EIGHTEEN various checkpoints are volunteers, typically working long hours for nothing more than the love of the event and a spiffy Tshirt.  They do their best.  There is typically one spotter and one number taker per check, trying to read the sweaty, dirty, stained numbers off horse's rear ends, or hear the tired riders call them out, and record all of these manually onto paper.  That paper then gets passed onto radio volunteers, who relay the information via HAM radio to WebCentral, where the information is again recorded and then input into the computer system for batch uploading.

 

You can imagine hard it is to NOT transpose numbers, either verbally when reading/calling them out, or while writing them down (think of 3-4 people having to hear/write the number for each instance) especially when you've been awake 20 hours and input sheet after sheet after sheet of rider numbers. Some check points may only report the first 20/last 20, while most others report the whole field (in and out - that can be 400 numbers, times 18 checkpoints). Keep in mind it's easy to miss a rider # if they all come in in a big group. If your rider shows up pulled or in a strange place - check again later and don't automatically assume it as gospel. The mistake may be found and rectified at the next update.  With the batch uploading process and some of the remote locations, they may take up to an hour OR MORE.

Also keep in mind that just because your rider stops at a particular location for longer than usual/planned, it's not necessarily significant. It could be that the spotters missed their number going out, or perhaps they stayed longer than planned to let their horse eat or rest for the upcoming trail segment.  There will be volunteers in Foresthill if you need assistance in looking up a rider. 

 

PLEASE CROSS POST AND FORWARD ON.  Thank you.

 

~ Crysta Turnage

Webcast Volunteer

[Terryl Reed]

Excellent Crysta! Having put on rides and working  behind the scene including in the control room I know how hard the volunteers work at getting the correct information onto the web site.

 

Terryl

 

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teviscup" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to teviscup+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
 
 

[Crysta Turnage]

Thanks all.  I just did the Facebook portion and the pre-ride rider pics.  There's a lot of other people involved as well.  We're a small but mighty crew!!  The main webcast people are in a trailer near the Fairgrounds and really don't even get the chance to see the horses and riders.

On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 11:24 AM, stephanie teeter <st...@endurance.net> wrote:

Indeed! the best coverage yet!

Steph

On Jul 21, 2013, at 11:50 AM, Barbara HB <dance...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

Well, Christa!  You did an excellent job this year!  Almost every time I went looking for a rider, there they were!  Thanks so much for your hard work!  It was wonderful to get "live" news of how the ride was going!  Thanks again!


Cheers!

Barbara H-B

---

__._,_.___

Reply via web post

Reply to sender

Reply to group

Start a New Topic

Messages in this topic (2)

Recent Activity:

• New Members 1

Visit Your Group

Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use • Send us Feedback

.

__,_._,___

--
~ Crysta
http://dreammakker.blogspot.com/

"Those of us who finish near the back, make the rest of you look good."
<\__~
 ((  ))...........

[Crysta Turnage]

The Western States Trail Foundation has a loyal group of volunteers that will be working hard to bring you up to date information during the ride weekend.  When the ride starts, there will be a link on the website http://www.teviscup.org/ to "Where's my rider", the live webcast. That link will allow you to search the progress of a specific rider, information status by checkpoint, current leaders, and a list of pulled riders.  You can also find updates and photos during the course of the ride on our Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/TevisCup/ 

 

However, inevitably over the course of the event, it may appear through the webcast that a particular rider has gone astray, or may not be updated.  Why?  Well here's a bit of the behind the scenes:

 

Firstly, all of the people helping to man our EIGHTEEN various checkpoints are volunteers, typically working long hours for nothing more than the love of the event and a spiffy Tshirt.  They do their best.  While some of the checkpoints will have volunteers with direct web access (Robinson's Flat, Foresthill, Finish), many of these spots are remote with no computer capabilities.  In these locations, there is typically one spotter and one number taker per check, trying to read the sweaty, dirty, stained numbers off horse's rear ends, or hear the tired riders call them out, and record all of these manually onto paper.  That paper then gets passed onto HAM radio volunteers, who relay the information to Net Control, where the information is again recorded and then input into the computer system for batch uploading.

 

You can imagine hard it is to NOT transpose numbers, either verbally when reading/calling them out, or while writing them down (think of 3-4 people having to hear/write the number for each instance) especially when you've been awake 20 hours and input sheet after sheet after sheet of rider numbers. Some check points may only report the first 20/last 20, while most others report the whole field (in and out - that can be 400+ numbers, times 18 checkpoints). Keep in mind it's easy to miss a rider # if they all come in in a big group. If your rider shows up pulled or in a strange place - check again later and don't automatically assume it as gospel. The mistake may be found and rectified at the next update.  With the batch uploading process and some of the remote locations, they may take up to an hour OR MORE.

[Crysta Turnage]

The Western States Trail Foundation has a loyal group of volunteers that will be working hard to bring you up to date information during the ride weekend.  When the ride starts, there will be a link on the main website http://www.teviscup.org/ to "Where's my rider", the live webcast. That link will allow you to search the progress of a specific rider, information status by checkpoint, current leaders, and a list of pulled riders.  You can also find updates and photos during the course of the ride on our Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/TevisCup/  

 

We have webcast photographers and crew at MORE checkpoints than ever this year.  And will be doing our best to provide continual coverage, upload pictures and video live during the event.  The “Where’s My Rider” webcast feature will again be taking center stage for rider tracking and race updates.

 

All of the people helping to man our EIGHTEEN various checkpoints are volunteers, typically working long hours for nothing more than the love of the event and a spiffy Tshirt.  They do their best.  Several new innovations have been introduced so that we now have only two checkpoints reporting in to Net Control via voice, Hodgson's cabin and Red Star Ridge.  All other stops are either direct internet uploading from the check point or an amazing piece of technology called Winlink which enables emails to be sent over short wave radio.  These two things allow us to be more accurate than in the past.  We will do our best to keep everyone up to date on their rider. 

 

You can imagine hard it is to not transpose numbers, either verbally when reading/calling them out (especially for tired riders), or while writing them down/typing them in (think of 3-4 people having to hear/write the number for each instance), especially when you've been awake 20+ hours. Keep in mind it's possible to miss a rider # if they all come in in a big group. If your rider shows up pulled or in a strange place - check again later and don't automatically assume it as gospel. There are automated tools to help the crew find and correct a mistake and rectify at the next update.  With the batch uploading process and some of the remote locations, they may take up to an hour to fully upload.

Also just because your rider stops at a particular location for longer than usual/planned, it's not necessarily significant. It could be that the spotters missed their number going out, or perhaps they stayed longer than planned to let their horse eat or rest for the upcoming trail segment.  There will be volunteers in Foresthill if you need assistance in looking up a rider.