Finish Time

[Sandro]

These have to be the WORST timing chips ever created. Used one last week for the Montecasino Classic via the zip tie/holder jobby that I was given and that ended up coming off in the middle of the Cradle after hitting a bump, along with that result. Yesterday I decided to rather put the chip in my pocket and play it safe and lo and behold I have no result yet again. There isn't even a proper contact method on their 'site'. Please can we rather have ONE PERMANENT timing chip thats used for all races that is actually reliable and not a piece of utter *** designed on a MS DOS platform In 2024 surely this is not a big ask.

Rant over.

Edited February 19 by Sandro

[PregoRoll]

We used to electrical tape them to the lower of the fork, right above where the QR lever would be. 

The rattling got annoying with the little adapter

[Danger Dassie]

19 minutes ago, PregoRoll said:

We used to electrical tape them to the lower of the fork, right above where the QR lever would be. 

The rattling got annoying with the little adapter

Seen/done similar with an offcut of innertube or heat-shrink. Looks neat and can be forgotten about. 

[NISI]

The zip tie must go thru the holder and number and around the seatpost.

[Jbr]

5 minutes ago, NISI said:

The zip tie must go thru the holder and number and around the seatpost.

😅

I heard of a few stories of people losing their boards, I only use 1 zip tie through the upper hole in the board (and holder) and so far so good

[Spinnekop]

Easy.

Cut a second hole in the board.
Cut a second hole in the rubber holder.

Now two cable ties securely goes around post and through the board.

Problem sorted (on my end)

Edited February 19 by Spinnekop

[Spinnekop]

But imagine how cool it would be to receive a PERMANENT board that one can securely fix on your bike every time you go race??!??!?!?!
No more sitting in traffic to fetch shitty numbers that tear your expensive MAAP shirt with bobbypins.  Just a board that gets scanned at the starting blocks o see if you have legally entered. 

In some ways MTBing in SA is MILES and MILES ahead of road bike events.  Cause they already have that with the SAS numbers.

 

[Jbr]

1 minute ago, Spinnekop said:

No more sitting in traffic to fetch shitty numbers

Even when we had permanent chips or when we race big number boards at WP races we still have those stupid numbers on our backs... Will never understand why Cycling is so backwards

[ChrisF]

3 minutes ago, Spinnekop said:

But imagine how cool it would be to receive a PERMANENT board that one can securely fix on your bike every time you go race??!??!?!?!
No more sitting in traffic to fetch shitty numbers that tear your expensive MAAP shirt with bobbypins.  Just a board that gets scanned at the starting blocks o see if you have legally entered. 

In some ways MTBing in SA is MILES and MILES ahead of road bike events.  Cause they already have that with the SAS numbers.

 

 

They, Finish Time, is MILKING us !!

 

We will be getting the permanent chips at CTCT .... but until then we spend extra money per event.

 

 

 

After 99er a couple went to the event organiser, their chips also "fell off" during the event.

 

 

Durbie Dash my chip never registered at the start, so I was just given a group start ..... Since then they just show less data.  

 

 

 

I am having an issue with my name vs full name on results.  I can only register under my full names for an event, but the last three events Finish Time has me under my name (not full names).  Thus these times means less than zero for seeding.

 

I reached out to PPA ..... "Contact Finish Time"

 

The feedback from Finish Time (copied from their email) "

The database isn't kept by us. This information must be updated with PPA as well as Cycle Tour as they calculate your seeding for events.

 

 

Worst part - absolutely no idea how this happened, nor how to prevent this from happening again ....

[Bub Marley]

Surely if the board is zip tied, it shouldn’t fall off. It can come loose but it’s zip tied around your seat post through the hole in the timing board. Impossible to fall off. 

[Skubarra]

17 minutes ago, Bub Marley said:

Surely if the board is zip tied, it shouldn’t fall off. It can come loose but it’s zip tied around your seat post through the hole in the timing board. Impossible to fall off. 

Weird to me as well.... Cannot imagine how that holder thingie and timing board properly tied with a zip tie will just fall off 🤷‍♂️

[tinmug]

52 minutes ago, Bub Marley said:

Surely if the board is zip tied, it shouldn’t fall off. It can come loose but it’s zip tied around your seat post through the hole in the timing board. Impossible to fall off. 

The plastic board is probably ABS, so over tightening it may weaken the structure. Double cable ties is a good idea.

Does anyone know what reads it? No RFID that I can see, and just a tiny barcode (that surely cannot be it, can it?).

[Bub Marley]

35 minutes ago, Skubarra said:

Weird to me as well.... Cannot imagine how that holder thingie and timing board properly tied with a zip tie will just fall off 🤷‍♂️

Agreed, unless he means it came loose and because of this it couldn’t read over the timing mat. I’m not really sure how much difference the angle of the chip actually makes when it reads. I can’t imagine it really matters. 

 

Putting it in your jersey pocket may be a bit too high to read but again im just speculating. Too me it seems your chip was faulty if this is what actually happened. 

[Bub Marley]

1 hour ago, ChrisF said:

 

They, Finish Time, is MILKING us !!

 

We will be getting the permanent chips at CTCT .... but until then we spend extra money per event.

 

 

 

After 99er a couple went to the event organiser, their chips also "fell off" during the event.

 

 

Durbie Dash my chip never registered at the start, so I was just given a group start ..... Since then they just show less data.  

 

 

 

I am having an issue with my name vs full name on results.  I can only register under my full names for an event, but the last three events Finish Time has me under my name (not full names).  Thus these times means less than zero for seeding.

 

I reached out to PPA ..... "Contact Finish Time"

 

The feedback from Finish Time (copied from their email) "

The database isn't kept by us. This information must be updated with PPA as well as Cycle Tour as they calculate your seeding for events.

 

 

Worst part - absolutely no idea how this happened, nor how to prevent this from happening again ....

On the FinishTime website when I search my name and surname, i get one set of results. When i search my name, middle name and surname I also get different set of results.

 

I’ve also noticed that some events i did last year like Gravel & Grape, Ronde van riebeeck & Boland Gravel Monster are listed on FinishTime website but haven’t been ported over to Racetec. I’m not sure if this is because they weren’t PPA supported events or not but would be nice if everything could be in one place.

[TIB]

Slightly off topic.

From what I have gathered from this thread is that CTCT timing will move from Racetec to Finish Time.

What is going to happen with Racetec? It has been my 'record' of all my CTCT Tours and Karoo to Coast races.

Can someone please help an explain how to download my personal Ractec results in order to preserve a copy? Export to Excel? But I have no idea how.

Please explain very, very slowly 😅. All I know of SQL is that it is a three letter acronym!

[Sven142]

Yes the board and holder look cheap but we not paying extra for it so I won't complain but what really killed me, is on half the boards they stuck the race number sticker on the left (wrong) side on the blue board. I know its something small but it just killed my OCD self! 

Any race commissaire would never be able to get a riders number when its on the left side 😆