As a former competitive cyclist (WSU Cycling Club) I was really disappointed to find there was no iPhone application for the Tour De France. This post is just an application idea, if you built it maybe you could sell it to the TDF organization, just call up Bernard Hinault I’m sure he’s not busy.
There are principally three kinds of TDF fans, those who want to track results, those who want to follow a rider or a team or a country and those who want to play directeur sportif and pick their own virtual team to compete against their friends.
The style of the the entire application is NOT about watching video or listening to audio coverage it is about tracking the evolving stage in the way they show the time gaps and jersey locations on the bottom of the televised coverage. Now certainly you could tie in video or radio coverage, but I think that is secondary. If I wanted to watch or listen I’d use a better device than my Phone. The real underlying component is replaying what I’ll telemetry data for all the riders. Further this is really just a platform and could be used for all the major tours or any race big enough to have this kind of data and rider tracking infrastructure.
For the event tracker you need the following pieces:
Overall and Stage Standings
Pretty straight forward, list of the riders in the overall standings for all jerseys and team standings for the tour as a whole or an individual stage.
Stage Overview
For each stage a course profile and key stats (length, vertical gain, dates climbs used, any previous winners, etc.)
Stage In Progress
For a stage which is in progress you should show all the break always and chase groups along a zoomable course profile (or overhead map view). Also represented should be all jerseys and any subscribed riders or teams.
This course map should also have a time slider that allows you to scroll through the stage as it evolved showing the riders as they were along the course at various points in time. Sliding your finger across an area of the screen should accomplish this smoothly and continuously (i.e. not just at 4 time intervals, but much much more granular than that more like 100 or a 1000 samples)
NOTE: I’m assuming the Tour actually has this data, I’m not sure how granular it is, can they show is a rider is in the back or the front of the peloton for instance.
$ - In addition to the race info, weather information should be available along the route. This is a good opportunity for a tie in to another iPhone app or data provider or sponsor.
Team Updates and Subscriptions, Rider Profiles and Subscriptions
The obvious rider and team write ups with their race resumes. Subscribing to a rider should show that rider in the Stage in progress views and notify you whenever the rider has a major event like a stage result, break away, mechanical, etc.
$$ Fantasy Tour $$
This is a little more complicated because you need to group people into many virtual tours and let them draft riders and manage their teams. The “exciting” (not to me) thing about other fantasy sports in the ongoing management of the team, picking who to play, etc.You would have to introduce during race team management or trade events in order to do more than have a user pick a team and just watch it evolve. A gamer should chime in here because I am not a gamer.
It might be necessary to have teams organized into specific results (jersey winners) or a just stage wins, or Overall teams with some weighted gain for each jersey, days in jersey an stage wins.
Ok, that’s PeaThink #1 now somebody go build it!