# How do they time bike races?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 16, 2003, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934 "2003-07-16T18:03:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2003, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934/1 "2003-07-16T18:03:54Z")

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The Tour de France threads brought this to mind. How do they time bike races nowadays? From personal experience, 5K running races are often timed with electronic chips that go on your shoe – do bike races use the same basic technique? Or are the racers spread out enough that you can time it manually?

I’m not just interested in pro level races (with unlimited budgets), but also recreational/local weekend ones.

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2003, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934/2 "2003-07-16T18:37:07Z")

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You’d see the cables they run over if the shoe-chips were used. Since these aren’t visible, it must be an official timer at the finish. Keep in mind that it’s not as difficult as it seems since riders finishing in a pack all get the same time, even if they’re technically several seconds behind.

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**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2003, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934/3 "2003-07-16T20:09:57Z")

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As **John Mace** said, the peltenon (the pack of riders) all get the time of the lead rider in the pack. This accounts for the majority of the riders. Any group gets the same time as the lead group rider, so you don’t need to time each rider individually.

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**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2003, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934/4 "2003-07-16T20:30:13Z")

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…but you do need to be able to time the gap between riders. If there is a gap \> 1 sec between riders then they get a separate time.

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**Author:** ![quasar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quasar)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934/5 "2003-07-19T22:16:56Z")

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How precise is the measurement of this 1 second gap between packs of riders?

Tangential question: How do the bonuses work? Do they deduct **x** , **y** , **z** number of seconds off the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishers, respectively, after every stage? Does the time bonus vary to reflect (and compensate) stage difficulty? What is the rationale behind it? Make the race more exciting? Place a premium on sprinting ability, perhaps?

Cheers,

quasar

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**Author:** ![quasar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quasar)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-time-bike-races/188934/6 "2003-07-19T22:45:32Z")

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…3rd place finishers\*\*’ time\*\*…