Hey everyone,
I’ve been running grassroots enduro races around Reno for the last few years and timing has always been one of the biggest challenges. Most of the systems out there are either really expensive, built for foot races, or require chip timing hardware.
Over the past year I started building my own timing system called EnduroBro to solve that problem for smaller MTB events.
It’s a simple app-based system with three parts:
• Enduro Race Manager – create races, manage racers, and share the event with timing crew
• EnduroCrew – used by timers at the start or finish to record stage times
• EnduroResults – racers and spectators can see live results
The goal was to make something that works for grassroots enduro races without needing expensive timing equipment. It’s already being used for the races I run locally and has been working well so far.
I’m curious what other race directors are using and whether something like this would be useful for your events.
If anyone wants to check it out or give feedback:
endurobroapp.com
Would love to hear thoughts, feature ideas, or things you wish race timing apps did better.
Jeremy
P.S. if anyone would like to try it out for a year for free use code: “1yearbro” in the app under subscribe
I'm no longer running the local races but when I did it was using webscorer. It honestly worked fairly well but it did rely on having a couple of fairly diligent spotters. You tap the race number on the device as they cross the start / finish lines with basic clock syncing sorting out the timing later. This works fine in principal but inevitably someone would run out of sequence and you'd be scrambling to find the number. So having a spotter calling it out helped immensely.
Jeff Brines is also building a similar app. https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/feedback-wanted-strava-racing-app
Great feed back, thank you. I ran into that same issue early on. I mirrored their finish line logic in my first iteration and it was so difficult to find the correct bib number on the screen in time to hit it. I think I've solved that by just adding a record finish time button. It was too small at first but I think we have it at a good size now, its sized so that you don't even really need to be looking at the screen to record the time. Racers a generally 30 seconds apart giving the finish line person ample time to record the bib number next to the finish time. If people do finish close you can record as many finish times as you need to and add the bib numbers after you're done recording finish times. Any other issues you remember?
Used Webscorer. Probably the least intuitive App I've ever used but it worked flawless. but honestly the UX is 1994
Takes me back to the USAC Enduro Champs a couple of years ago at Ride Rock Creek when their timing modules failed on some stages and they tried to use the marshall's "timing sheets" that they were filling out for start/stop times for each rider. Needless to say, no one was real confident in the accuracy of those volunteer's handwritten timing sheets. They ended up just throwing out the stage(s). Another classic USAC move in that Neko has perfectly good, proven timing system for enduro racing at RRC, but USAC insisted on bringing in (and paying likely a huge fee) their own timing system which didn't work in the terrain.
Something like this would also be a great backup system instead of trying to use hand recorded timing by course marshalls as the backup.
It does make a great back up system. We actually got the opportunity to use it as backup timing for the Northstar DH series last year. It was a great opportunity to work out a few bugs. It also saved the day in a few races where the chip system failed big.
Agreed. Webscorer needs a refresh. I tried to make mine with an intuitive modern UX and very Enduro, DH, Grassroots specific.
It's been a while but I remember weirdness around operating systems. They had to be exactly the same down to the same iOSxx.xx etc. not just Android vs Apple. So I had to borrow my son's iPad to get them all talking together. So having something device agnostic would be great.
I also seem to recall that you could only enter racers on one "master device" despite having at least one other to hand which made last minute registration sooooo painful. So something where multiple lists could be easily merged would be great.
On that same theme getting people who registered in advance on the web downloaded to the device was a pain.
Also where I ran the races there is intermittent cell at best so this all has to work just off Bluetooth...
{Bringing back memories...}
Cool! As others pointed out I'm building a similar app that also leverages GPS, Garmin devices etc and has lightweight activity tracking, too. Being Rali (app name) is a big lift, I love the race community and I know people ant to race now I built "OpenRace" as an open sourced race app that is similar in concept to what you built as a quick/easy crono based alternative.
You can find a hosted version on Vercel here: https://openrace.vercel.app/
Those interested, the git repo is here" https://github.com/JeffBrines/OpenRace
If anyone is interested in hosting the product, the one thing you do need to spin up is your own supabase instance. Its designed around Postsgres but also uses Supabase Auth. Otherwise its a pretty straightforward Next.js app (React 19; node.js on server side). I'll probably need to upgrade my version of Next fairly soon.
I threw this together fairly quickly just so the community had a really easy way to run cron based timing for simple races. Feel free to create a branch and open a PR if you see ways to make it better! Obviously, the design is fairly "AI slop centric" lol and could certainly use a pile of improvement...but whatever. Does the job.
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