You may think that whiteboards and chalkboards belong in the conference room or classroom, but breakaway bicyclists in the Tour de France use them to stay a step ahead of the main pack in back of them. More specifically, motorbikes ride alongside the lead cyclists with boards that show up-to-date race information, which in turn helps those lead cyclists decide how to pace themselves for the rest of the race. When you add in the fact that many racers wear radio earpieces, purists complain that the Tour loses some of its drama when competitors know too much about what everyone else is doing.
Personally, I’ll leave the debate to the Europeans, since most Americans probably stopped following the biggest bike race in the world once Floyd Landis got stripped of his 2006 Tour title for doping. That said, this interesting application of whiteboards and chalkboards shows their versatility as an easy-to-see and easy-to-carry solution for mobile information transmission. And at the end of the day, it may be easier for competitors to scramble radio signals than it is to sabotage a moving magnetic dry erase board display, if any of that kind of gamesmanship is even legal (or detectable). Look for chalkboards, whiteboards and perhaps even interactive whiteboards to play an increasingly important role in keeping riders and racers fully appraised and prepared for whatever comes their way in major competitions around the world.
(Photo courtesy of Ajay Kumar Singh) Posted by Taeho Lim
