Teviscup.org
July 28, 2017
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 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. New this year, you can even save a list of Favorites to make checking on their progress throughout the day more streamlined!
You can also find updates, live streaming videos 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. We will be doing our best to provide continual coverage, upload pictures and video live during the event. Live streaming was a big hit last year. We plan to have even more if possible this year!
Additionally, this year we have a totally new feature of optional live GPS tracking for riders! For $40 riders can elect to carry a live tracker, which will send pings to update the riders’ status on the trail every 5 minutes. There may be locations on the trail where GPS signal is too weak to successfully send a ping, the unit will try three times before waiting for the next 5 minute interval. You can follow along with those riders who have elected this service here: http://trackleaders.com/teviscup17 We’re also working to have individual riders GPS unit tracking linked to their “Where’s My Rider” webcast page.
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 to provide updates as quickly and error-free as possible. Most stops are either direct internet uploading from the check point or through 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 how 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 take it as gospel. There are automated tools to help the webcast volunteers find and correct a mistake 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 with computers if you need assistance in looking up a rider.
Summary of how to follow us online:
Main Tevis Website: http://www.teviscup.org/
Official Tevis Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TevisCup
Event GPS tracking: http://trackleaders.com/teviscup17
Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/tevisnews
Flickr Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/teviscup/albums
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tevisfeed/
PLEASE CROSS POST AND FORWARD ON. Thank you.
~ Crysta Turnage
WSTF BOG Member, Webcast Volunteer
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