Tour de France

The Tour de France 2009 has been running from Saturday July 4th and will continue on to Sunday July 26th covering 21 stages of a total distance of 3,500 kilometers, which is just about 2,175 miles. All the stages range from mainly flat stages to mountain stages. These cyclists are tremendously brave. These athletes have so much endurance, it truly is incredible. The history of the Tour is timeless. Eddie Merckx winning the largest number of stage victories. Though, Lance Armstrong has the largest number of wins (7). In 1926, the tour was one of the longest lasting 5,745 km! Today, we are trying to bring cycling to more of a purer form. And how is that happening? The Tour is planning on to ban two-way radios for today and tomorrow's stages, to reduce the impact of technology on the race. Radios were the only form of communication to keep people in the know of the race. Speaking of communication, Lance isn't the only one posting to twitter anymore. But Chalkbot is. Not directly onto twitter, but on the road! Chalkbot is a robot that writes in water-soluble paint and has been scribing messages on the road. Chalkbot is taking input text messages and Twitter posts sent by the public and paints those messages (about 200 messages a day) in yellow facing the riders, so they can read them while they ride along the whole course of Tour de France. A lot of those messages are inspirational messages written or “twittered” by cancer survivors, friends, or family. So, what exactly is the Chalkbot? It is a tractor, literally. A device fitted with 48 nozzles that's pulled around by a truck about 5 mph and sprays out those messages on the road. The brilliance behind this idea is Nathan Martin, CEO of Deeplocal, a mobile software company based out of Pittsburgh that had initially designed the Chalkbot as part as an ad campaign for Nike. Along with those messages written on the road, they are then sent to the person who submitted the message. This enables people around the globe to be part of the Tour de France. THE ROAD IS YOUR CANVAS.

Photo Credit: nytimes.com, flickr.com/photos/cicli-raffa

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