Taken by official finish line camera during cycloross race.
(Photo: OBRA)
(Photo: OBRA)
The photo above was snapped by an official Oregon Bicycle Racing Association finish line camera during a cyclocross race over the weekend. Yes, the guy looks to be texting or checking emails during his race! (Or, as a commenter below pointed out, it also might be a GPS device).
OBRA official Candi Murray shared the photo on the OBRA email list last night and added, “Tell me he was not making a call.”
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Classic. There is no hope for our species. 😉
hi mom
I bet he was timing his race and stopping the stopwatch on his phone/gps/computer
That looks more like a Garmin to me. I think I see a mount on his handlebars. Though why you’d cyclocross with one of those is beyond me. The risk to it is high.
Cell phone is a rash conclusion… or… this guy needs a reality check.
HOWEVER, is that a bidon in his back pocket? Who races cyclocross with a bidon in his back pocket?!
If you want water during a race, that’s about the only place to put it.
No, it’s a telescoping baton! He’s about to extend it and crack the next rider across the back of the head.
ROAD RASH CX style!
“Dude, guess what position I just got.”
Hmm.. yeah, that definitely looks like it could be a GPS. It’s a bit too big for a phone. It’s large for a GPS, too, but it could be one of the older Garmins or one of the Magellan units.
It looks to me like a big cell phone in a plastic sandwich bag, the kind you’d have in your jersey pocket. I don’t use my phone while riding, but once in a while I can hear I got a call or a message or a text and I’ll wonder who called, often pulling over to pull it out and see.
I could see glancing at it to see what he missed while racing, especially if you’ve got family at home and it might have been a call from your spouse.
I’m in labor – meet me at the hospital! Hope you won your race.
I bet it’s his victory salute.
Calling in his beer order???
He’s calling his guy in the pit and telling them he needs his bike ready…
Using his GPS to locate the, uh, finish line two feet in front of him? I’ve known cyclists to use GPS for dumber things 😉
Talk about phoning it in.
twitter addict
To parole officer “ankle bracelet will be back on in 5 minutes…tops”
Who uses the word “bidon”?? It’s a bottle.
I use the word bidon whenever I like. Especially when the nipple appears to be pink like a Rapha BIDON. I also call myself Little Package… I like eclairs, au gratin, and café au lait. C’est la vie, so sue me, BRIAN JOHNSON. 😛
“…bidon…”. “…’Tish! …That’s French!!”.
I have used the cell phone during any number of races, not to mention the “Far Away Yeller”(nextel).
Have also dropped and crushed phones while racing for that matter…..
Bottles are for babies. A bidon is for cyclists.
And his is in the pack pocket of his Maillot. (That’s what real cyclists wear)
After reading the comments on bike portland for the last several years, I think bottle is a more appropriate term.
seems like the sort of thing that deserves a few fact-finding phone calls before publishing and speculating on the photo
Bottles are for putting water in. A bidon is for effete francophiles.
Semantics are for really boring people.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Maybe he’s a time traveller: http://www.youtube.com/user/yellowfeverbelfast
PS I just had to make a comment to try out the new comment field. I think I like it.
It’s a padded iPhone with an app for controlling the electric assist motor hidden in his frame. That bottle is actually a wireless battery pack. He also may have a device that fires little darts into the spokes of competitors as they attempt to pass, but I believe OBRA allows those.
To test out my stalker skills and the new comments, I believe you could just ask him. Name’s Doug I think: http://www.crossresults.com/racer/9605
Sorry if I’m wrong!
Also, cool lacing on those wheels.
The funky spoke pattern is due to how the OBRA camera takes pictures. It’s tons of vertical pictures, all taken at the time that portion of the person passed the finish line, that are pasted together into one image. That’s also why the background looks like a bunch of horizontal lines.
Youy might want to retest your stalking ability. Look up rider 975 in the master C 35+ catagory here:
http://obra.org/events/15429/results#race_261706
It don’t appear to be Doug.
Awh, dammit! Career change in order, asap!
Foursquare check in 😉
Checking his power output during the race…
Forget the phone/GPS discussion…are those REFLECTORS(!!!) on his wheels? The Fred is strong with this one.
Holy Tooledo!! You’re right! I also see a seatpost reflector! 🙂
Impressive. Most impressive.
Annnnnnnnnnd *pause*
I think he’s just making the jump to lightspeed. He’s gone to plaid.
is than a blue-tooth mic sticking out by his mouth?
reflectors? awesome!
if he had a handlebar mount for it I don’t think he’d be holding it…
and I don’t see anything weird with having the bottle in your back shirt pocket… better than getting it muddy and risk losing it on the frame mount…
he’s turning off the motor on his mechanical doping devicw. Call in the scientist.
At some point, a certain segment of the population will be opting for the hands-free implant directly into the head. You’ll never know if they are talking to you, checking what their friends are doing right now (I’m in the bathroom…), or if they are schizoids conversing with the voices that are truly now in their heads.
BTW, the govt can surveil your movements at all times when you carry a cell-phone. Nice. You could turn it off, but some phones still report even then. Must take the battery out to be sure. Just food for thought.
https://ssd.eff.org/wire/protect/cell-tracking
oncall support tech, living the dream
He may be saving his Map My Ride route.
There’s also that thing in his mouth, which could be part of a food wrapper. He’s a diabetic and needs to restore balance to his juices.
Or, as stated above, just ask the dude.
fyi, if you have time to drink water during a cyclocross race, you’re doing it wrong!
As one commenter pointed out the FinishLynx camera does not take a picture of the rider. It takes many pictures of the vertical space above the finish and then assembles them into an image that actually represents a graph of the items occupying that vertical space vs time represented on the horizontal. The point of this pedantic explanation is that the poor guy in this picture may not have been holding whatever the thing is fo very long. He may have just been putting it in his pocket. Sure makes a funny picture though.
It’s an energy bar…
One-upping Cavendish.
Yeah, energy bar with a piece of wrapper in his mouth.
I used my garmin 500 in the only cross races I’ve done, I didn’t manage to click the lap button for each lap, but I kind of wish I had..
More importantly – why is he in the little ring on the track?
This could be his heart monitor, ….
remote for the obra camera
great picture by the way
Yeah, it’s a giant energy bar… and he’s reading the ingredients to make sure there’s no high-fructose corn syrup!