A timing point is a box and what it is for. A read knows which box took it and what that reader's clock said. Only the timing point says that box was the finish line.
Until a box is standing somewhere, every read it takes is just a chip that went past something.
Naming one
On the website: Race setup, the Timing points card. Give it a name, say what kind of point it is, and choose the box standing there.
The kinds are finish, start, split, lap and spotter.
At the event you can name a point on the box itself — in Podium PC on the reader grid, in Podium Mobile on the box card.
The name has to match exactly. Finish and finish line are different points. There is no fuzzy matching, and a finish typed slightly differently from the name on the reads scores nobody while looking exactly like a mat that did not work.
What each kind does
- start — a start is the last read of that visit. People roll onto the mat and wait for the gun, so the first read is them arriving and the last is them leaving.
- finish — a finish is the first read of that crossing. A mat reads a chip several times as somebody runs over it, and again while they stand behind the line getting their breath back. The moment they crossed is the first of those.
- split — a time on the way round.
- lap — counts laps.
- spotter — out on the course for the commentator. It never gives anybody a time. Put it before another point in the running order and it can back that point up.
Reads before the gun are thrown away.
The gate
Each point has a gate, in seconds. It is how long a chip must be away before coming back counts as a fresh crossing rather than as more of the same one.
That is what stops somebody standing on the finish mat from collecting a second finish, and what lets a lap mat tell one lap from the next.
Be careful lengthening the gate on a start. A long gate on a start point merges a genuine second visit into the first one.
What to set it to
It starts at 120 seconds — two minutes — and that is right for most points. It is the box beside Add point on the Timing points card.
Two limits decide it, and it must sit between them:
- Longer than anybody stands on or near the mat. People wait on a start mat for the gun and stand behind a finish getting their breath back. A gate shorter than that splits one visit into two. Thirty seconds is too short for a start, which is why the default is not thirty.
- Shorter than the quickest genuine return. The fastest lap on a lap mat, or the fastest transition on a mat people come back over.
The case that catches people is a triathlon or duathlon transition. Somebody through transition in under a minute comes back over the same mat before two minutes are up, so the default merges their transition into the crossing before it — the finish never appears and every athlete scores as a DNF. Set a mat like that to around thirty seconds.
In Podium PC the same idea is called the lap gap, and it also defaults to two minutes. See The lap count is wrong.
One box doing two jobs
A swim finish that is also the bike finish is one box and two points. The order of the points in the list is what tells them apart, so put them in the order the race meets them.
More than one box on one point
Two mats spanning a wide line, or a backup beside the main one. Add the second box to the point and say what it is:
At this point — its reads are crossings— a real second mat. Its reads count.Watching it — never a crossing— a box that watches but must never contribute a time. The commentator's box up the road is this one.
The box card says "timing point unassigned"
Nobody has said where that box is standing. It still reads chips, it still looks healthy, and its reads score against nothing. Name its point.
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