Open Tracking

14/06/2026

So much been going on this weekend.. not had a chance to post here.. but as a flavour.

With Rat Race at the Wall
Spine Race events - Challenger South, Main Spine Race, Sprint south, still more to come.
Celtman up in Torridon
Man V Horse - new one for us, great event.
South Downs Way 50k and 100 with Centurion Running
The YOMP over at Kirby Stephen
We tracked and timed the Swim Run at the Great Swim Event on Windermere.
We have our scanners out on the Lakeland 100/50 recce day
Convex Coastal lap of the country with some 80 trackers attached to 80 riders taking on a different segment
Race the Sun with Adventure The Adventure Element Ltd
On Friday we tracked Ekiden a relay run along the Thames.
Add on numerous Scout and DofE groups..

It was that weekend when we just didn't have a tracker spare.

09/06/2026

This weekend is proving to be the busiest of Open Tracking's life.. with just shy of 6000 trackers out on hire.

But meanwhile there is 1 chugging its way up the country with womens football champion Jill Scott with Comic Relief

Football icon Jill Scott MBE is making her way home. Not just to a place, but to the people and communities that shaped her.

30/05/2026

Results from the Welsh 1000m races are here

https://results.opentracking.co.uk/event/shortwelsh1000m2026
https://results.opentracking.co.uk/event/longwelsh1000m2026

11/05/2026

How do we do it?

Yesterday we witnessed what has to be the largest single event we have tracked with over 2300 trackers on riders. We used our new smaller OT30 trackers. Crunch is the battery on these little trackers is setup to last 12hrs and the event lasts 12hrs.

What makes this unique is that we dynamically issued all 2300 trackers in just 90 mins. As you can see in the video we had 5 staff scanning either the riders number or the helmet sticker then scan the tracker. This process not only allocated the tracker to the rider but also ran a few checks on the tracker.

We check the battery level on the tracker - as we were pushing the limit, any with less than 95% were put to one side, to either be top up charged or handed to faster riders starting later (was not needed). The scanning also checks to make sure the tracker has sent data in the last 30 mins and finally there are checks on the numbers scanned - is it a bib number or a tracker number..

Its a very efficient process, something some of our customers are starting to do themselves. It is done using our own custom app on commercial Zebra handheld computers - like what you would see a courier use. If for whatever reason the internet connection drops out they will still record the scans and upload when ready.

If an event consistently has say 20% DNS rate over say 5 years. It be fair to provide say 10% less trackers than the entry list. Only works if we can dynamically allocate on the day.

Suffice to say some events have very low DNS rates - usually expensive events where you will find a good number of people with coughs and colds who on any other race day would stay at home. Also team or pairs based events have low DNS rates (e.g. Saunders Mountain Marathon). Cheaper / remote events have higher DNS rates and we have seen it as high as 40%.

07/05/2026

We are back tracking one of the finest SPORTIVEs in the country. Doesn't get much epic that this.

We are out with 2400 of our new small 39g trackers. We have 6 staff dynamically allocating these trackers just before they set off. Alongside the tracking, we supply a trailer mounted LED screen, trackers for the event staff and starlinks / wifi for remote locations and backup internet for event control.

After last year’s success, all riders on the Fred will carry a GPS tracking device again this year.

Use the link below to open the tracking page. It’s time to get the link shared far and wide amongst family and friends.

Link: https://live.opentracking.co.uk/fred26/

If you’re not sure what rider number your friend or family member has, there is a rider list on our website in alphabetical order.

We still have highly accurate chip timing on the event and these will be posted on our website in the usual way after the event.

Happy dot watching!

Provided by:

06/05/2026

We have been supplying trackers to events for some 14 years, and a significant part of our world is what we call "Self Managed". We parcel up trackers in a bright orange peli case for the organiser to power them up and hand them out.

The organiser needs to manage retirements / did not starts / make sure batteries are OK. For sub 300 participant events its a great way to save money by not paying for someone from Open Tracking to travel to the event. It still needs the organiser to have resource to manage the trackers.

Over the years this has worked well, but when an organiser does have a problem, we will be honest and say our out of hours support has been ad-hoc. With staff checking on incoming emails as and when..

At the beginning of this year we created an on call rota, and now setup a whatsapp channel with the event. We make sure one of us is online when the event starts and highlight any problems we foresee. Whoever is on-call is not glued to their computer.. these are self managed events.. but there is someone there to help if needed.

It was great to get this feedback following an event last weekend. Reinforcing its the right approach.

02/05/2026

Events on today

Thames Path 100 with Centurion Running
https://live.opentracking.co.uk/TP100-2026/

Blast Running Pilgrims Way
https://live.opentracking.co.uk/brpilgrimway26/

Charm Bracelet Trail Events Esk Valley Epic
https://live.opentracking.co.uk/eskvalley26/

Run, walk, crawl with Marathon, 100 mile and Ultra
https://live.opentracking.co.uk/26rasus100/

Plenty of Scouts and DofE stuff.

Tomorrow Marlborough Downs Challenge.
https://live.opentracking.co.uk/mdc2026/

Kong Running have plenty of trackers out, but also one on the Steve Parr Round with Arthur Hill (handy runner in the fells).
https://live.kongtracking.com/SPR2026/?b=2

01/05/2026

The physical tracker is only one part of the story. Getting the settings right, having a web interface to cope with high traffic and be user friendly is another part.

Trackers are usually made without the event market in mind. They come with a USB cable to charge a single tracker. Charging 100's / 1000's especially if you are using them from one weekend to the next is an onerous task and arguably results in problems with trackers being disconnected.

With the new small tracker that we have been using on short races and sportives - we created our own charging trays. Each device has a home. The trays can be stacked, requiring just one power supply. Each tray houses 25 trackers.. hence if you hire these from us they come in 25's (minimum of 100).

In this photo there is 600 trackers - quick and easy to charge. Huge amounts of work have gone in to creating these trays.. with enough to look after 2700 devices.

And yes we colour code the trackers to make it easy to sort them at the end of an event.

So another part of the sauce that makes supplying trackers in large numbers to events work smoothly and without drama.

26/04/2026

Someone found one of our trackers in London this afternoon.. we have Adam trying to catch them up. Currently said tracker is in Kings Cross about to get on a train at Platform 9 3/4's

Beats reality TV this does.. but if you are reading this post having found a tracker with an Open Tracking label on it - just message us. We will find you, special skills and all that. Although a train to Hogwarts takes this to a new level.

25/04/2026

Its the Fellsman today - a 60 mile jog around the Yorkshire Dales.

Live track the event here https://live.opentracking.co.uk/fellsman26/

The shorter DART starts at 1pm and can be tracked here
https://live.opentracking.co.uk/dart26/