Setup guide

How to run a race

Bikes in a room, a screen on the wall, and everyone taking turns. This is the whole thing end to end: what you need, what a rider does, and what happens between the first press of start and the results you share afterwards.

Create a race Will my bikes work?

How a race works

The whole thing in two paragraphs

Each bike gets a phone or tablet beside it. The tablet pairs with the bike over Bluetooth and streams its speed, distance and watts to the race as someone pedals. A separate screen, usually a laptop plugged into a TV, shows the live board that everyone watches.

Riders share the bikes and take turns. Whoever is about to ride puts their name on the tablet, rides, and ends their ride when they get off. Distance and time stay with the person, not the bike, so a rider can come back later and carry on adding to their own total.

What you need

Worth checking early, not on the day

Item	What matters
Bikes	They have to broadcast Bluetooth data: a smart bike, a power meter, or a speed and cadence sensor. One per station. A basic gym spin bike with no Bluetooth cannot be read and needs a clip-on sensor. See the device page for models known to work.
A phone or tablet per bike	Android with Chrome or Edge, or iPhone and iPad with the Bluefy browser. Safari cannot pair Bluetooth. Keep them plugged in and set the screen lock to never. A tablet that sleeps or switches app stops counting until someone wakes it.
A screen	Any laptop with a modern browser, plugged into the TV or projector, full screen and set never to sleep. Nothing to install. A spare tablet works as a second screen elsewhere in the building.
Wi-Fi	Reaching the bikes and the screen. Guest Wi-Fi is fine. A drop is harmless: a tablet keeps counting, reconnects on its own and sends the meters through, putting its rider back where they left off.
A sign at each bike	Three lines telling riders to put their name on, ride, and end their ride. The bikes are self-serve, so the sign does the job a volunteer would otherwise do.

Setting up

Twenty minutes, once, with the bikes in front of you

Create the race and make it yours Name it, add your logo and colors, and pick what the screen shows. The board takes on your branding for everyone watching.
Put the screen link on the TV Open /g/your-race on the laptop and press full screen. That is the spectator view: public, no login, safe to share.
Join each bike as a station On the tablet at the bike, open the same link, tap "Join as station", enter the six character join code and name it ("Bike 1"). Then "Add device" and pick the bike from the Bluetooth list.
Run a test race Start it from your dashboard, pedal for thirty seconds, check the distance looks right against the bike’s own console, then stop and start the next heat to clear the test off the board.

A tablet holding one bike becomes a rider screen

As soon as a station has exactly one bike paired, it switches to the rider view: the name of whoever is on, their live numbers, and two big buttons. That is the screen your riders will use all event, so it is worth setting each tablet up with one bike rather than running several from one place.

A rider's turn

About fifteen seconds of admin

Walk up to a free bike The tablet shows that one bike: who is on it, what they are doing, and two buttons.
Tap "I’m riding" If someone else is already on the bike it reads "Next rider" instead, and taking it over ends their turn for them.
Type your name and tap it Ridden before? Your name is already in the list, so a couple of letters finds it and your total carries on from where you left it.
Ride Your name appears on the big screen with live distance, speed and watts, and climbs as you go.
Tap "End my ride" when you stop That stops your clock and keeps your distance. If anyone forgets, an unattended bike credits nobody, and the next rider ends the turn just by putting their own name on.

Riders type their own names

Nobody has to record anything. One thing to decide in advance: names go on a screen the whole room can see, and the spectator link is public to anyone who has it, so first name plus last initial is the usual choice. You can rename or remove anyone from your dashboard while the race runs.

Running the race

Three buttons, and what each one keeps

Start opens the race, with an optional countdown for a mass start. Distance only counts from here: a bike pedaled before the start streams live numbers but banks nothing.
Stop closes it and saves the results. It is not the end of the road: Continue this race picks the same race back up with every rider, meter and minute still on the board.
Start the next heat is the other way out of a stopped race: it clears the board for a fresh run and keeps the finished one as its own set of results.

One race can span days

Because continuing keeps the board, a multi-day event is one race that sleeps overnight rather than a race per day to add up afterwards. Stop it when the room empties, continue it in the morning. If you forget, a race with nobody riding and no screen watching closes itself after about 15 minutes, which comes to the same thing.

A race can have a finish line: a distance, a number of laps, or a time limit. Riders who reach it are ranked in finishing order, and the race can stop itself when the last one is home.

What the screen shows

The part everyone else sees

Each rider by rank, with their distance, and their live speed, watts and cadence while they pedal.
Optional totals for the whole room: combined distance, combined time on the bikes, or both.
Whoever you choose: everyone on the roster from the start, everyone who has taken a turn, or only the riders on a bike right now.
With more riders than fit on a screen, the board can scroll through them on a timer.
Teams, if you use them, ranked by combined distance or by average per rider.

Map and lap races can be shown in 3D. If a screen cannot manage it, that screen quietly falls back to the flat map rather than showing nothing.

The screen link is public and read only. Anyone can watch from their desk, and nobody watching can change the race.

Results

What you are left with afterwards

Results save themselves while the race runs and again every time it stops: position, name, distance, time on the bike, average and peak watts. Nothing needs writing down.

A public recap page for each race, to share with everyone who took part.
A spreadsheet export from your dashboard, for one heat or the whole event.
Every heat kept separately, so a night of back-to-back races keeps all of them.

Good to know

The honest list

Distance comes from the bikes, not from us. Two different models will not measure identically, so bikes of the same model keep a competition fair. A bike that reads long or short can be calibrated, and any rider’s distance can be corrected from your dashboard.
Tablets have to stay awake and in front. A locked screen or a switched app stops that bike counting until someone taps it. This is the single most common thing that goes wrong at an event.
A rider has to be on the bike to count. A bike being pedaled with nobody selected records nothing, by design, so nobody inherits someone else’s meters.
A bike that goes quiet for 15 minutes drops off and its rider stops timing. The tablet puts both back by itself when the bike wakes up.
Room for 100 people and 16 bikes streaming at once. Both are settings, so tell us your headcount and we will size it before the day.
The spectator link is public. Anyone with it can watch. It cannot be used to change anything, and only the join code lets a device count.
No video, no photos, no personal data beyond a name. We keep the name typed at the bike and the ride data, nothing else.

Every tablet plugged in, screen lock off, race page open
Every bike showing as streaming
Screen on the TV, full screen, laptop set never to sleep
A test ride banked and the board cleared
A sign at each bike