A Mobile App That Changes the Way Fans Watch Pro Cycling Tour Tracker app provides fan with real-time tracking of racers.
By Matt Villano •
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With courses often exceeding 100 miles, professional bike racing isn't exactly a spectator sport. Along the route, a fan is lucky to catch a mere five seconds of frenzied excitement as the riders zoom past. This is why gearheads are geeking out over Tour Tracker, a mobile app for iOS and Android smartphones.
The app provides fans with real-time tracking of the racers on course maps and elevation profiles, live streaming video, live text commentary, chat rooms, race results, stage overviews and more. "We try to replicate as much about the race experience as we possibly can so a fan knows everything that's going on," says Allan Padgett, the app's creator.
Padgett, a recreational cyclist and one of the creators of the Adobe Acrobat software program, volunteered to build the first prototype of Tour Tracker in December 2006 as a showcase for Adobe's Flash media player, finishing it just in time for 2007's Amgen Tour of California bike race. After the prototype's initial success, Adobe allowed Padgett to continue working on it in his spare time (the programming was originally all open source, so Adobe never owned it), gradually improving it with each successive Amgen Tour.
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