Friday, January 10, 2014

Racevine Re-boot



Way back when I was blogging regularly (I'm trying to get back at it), I mentioned Racevine, a site that provides a forum for athletes to review races and events. In previous years, I've used TriFind.com to find races. Racevine provides a community-driven source for events, plus reviews of events that may help you determine on which ones you should spend your hard-earned dollars (or euros or pounds sterling).

Racevine just re-launched their website with a nicer UI and more features, including over 35,000 races (they add them manually), new user profiles, a new race search (helpful for discovering new races nearby), and new event information.

I've never found a site that provides a good aggregate of race information, which seems strange to me, given how many triathletes are involved in IT and web design. I imagine it has more to do with the transience of many races--especially small, community-based races and events (5ks, 10ks, road rides, crits); and most sites rely on event organizers to report them. Racevine attempts to feel that space, and does an admirable job by using crowd-sourcing techniques. It's not quite there yet--it doesn't include cycling events, which are admittedly more of a niche activity--but it's a great resource. Check out their new site.

By the way, I did win a few canisters of salt tablets in a Racevine race report competition, and they sent me a free technical shirt by way of promotion. That was several years ago, and I haven't had any contact with the site directors since then. I'm just promoting the site because I think it's a cool resource.

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