For those that do not know, eric marshall is a well known promoter, rider and racer in the mid-Atlantic.  He has been involved in a number of events, almost all of them innovative in one regard or another.  this past weekend, he rolled out something really cool, and to my knowledge, this will be the first time it has been attempted.  as many of you may be aware, eric has been working hard on integrating his existing race-registration system with a bar-code scanning system.  simply put, the system scans the bar code on your license, looks up the rider's information in a database, and produces a completed (and legible!!) standard release with all the information.  It can also assign numbers, produce start sheets and allow for miscellaneous other functions as well.  promoters who have seen this in action are already expressing interest in it.  below is a brief question and answer with eric about promoting races, his new license scanning system, and other new technologies.  I've put a few pictures at the end of the interview as well.     -sg

Q. How long have you lived in the area? 

A. We moved from Philadelphia down to Herndon in 1987 because of a new job for me. Fortunately for us, the economic boom of the 90's made Northern Virginia a lot nicer place to live and work than Philly, and we've lived here ever since.

Q. Where do you work? 

A. I've been president of my own software consulting firm, EMI Software Engineering, for the past 10 years. It's a small entire (just me), but I'm still at the top, which I think is a lot better than the alternative!

Q. Are you in a family way?

A. If you're asking me if I'm pregnant, I'm not. If you're asking about my immediate family, I'll be Celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary in a few months and I have two older teenage daughters.

Q. What got you into biking?  Do you race actively?

A. I've always had a bike to ride, but the fever really bit me after we moved down to Virginia and I started commuting by bike. It was so fun riding to work that I started riding on the W & OD by myself a few times a week during lunches. I sold my commuter bike after just a year for a sportier bike. I rode with the Reston Bike Club for a few years before I tried my hand at racing, which I've been doing for 6 years now. I've been racing a full season both on the road and cyclo-cross, which is a total blast. I had been president of Whole Wheel Velo Club for the past three years, but recently switched to Squadra Coppi.

Q. How did you get into promoting races? 

A. I got into promoting races when I was president of Whole Wheel, as they already had an established race in place, the Quicksilver Crit, which needed taking care of. I did that for the past three years, which included the unfortunate back-to-back monsoon years of 2003 and 2004. The 2005 edition of Quicksilver was sunny and warm and we had over 500 racers, so I left on a high note. Just like Lance. I also co-promoted the only two UCI races in Virginia the past few years, the Capital 'Cross Classic, albeit I didn't do too much on it this past year as I did on the inaugural year before. Sorry Chip.

And of course I'm promoting the upcoming Quicksilver Winter Solstice Series, with the help of four local clubs (Evolution Cycling, Racing Union, Squadra Coppi, and Whole Wheel Velo Club) providing the race-day manpower.


Q. What's been your most successful gambit or idea as a promoter?  What's been your biggest flop?  What would you like to do that you have not accomplished yet?

A. Hopefully the best is yet to come in my bike race promotion career, as we'll be introducing two MABRA firsts with the Quicksilver series, drive-thru registration and license bar-code scanning. Last year at the summertime Quicksilver race we introduced the first, and perhaps only, MABRA Masters 4/5 race, which I thought was very well received as we received many complements on it. This year's only a couple of months old already but it's already bigger and better than last year with our latest race registration innovations.

Q. What's up with EMI Racing?

A. Although I was promoting the Quicksilver races with Whole Wheel, I felt I had a lot of energy I wanted to put into the local bicycling community that was outside of our club's boundaries, e.g., cyclo-cross events. Because I'm a computer nerd and can do such things, I've also written a bunch of software to help in the production of most of the paperwork necessary for the registration process. I've used the software in a half-dozen races so far and it's been an incredible time saver for the registration staff. I wrote the software as web Applications with the intent of putting it on the Internet for other clubs to freely use, but so far I haven't gotten around to sharing it. Perhaps this is the year.

Q. Why did you start the quicksilver winter series?  What are your goals in promoting that?

A. Just another megalomaniacal outlet for my energies. I hope it's well received though, as I think we have a lot to offer the riders. I put a lot of time and thought into providing the best racing experience I can for the folks that show up, even if that includes thinking outside the status quo. That's what motivated me to include a drive-thru registration in the Quicksilver Winter Solstice Series. Who wants to stand in long lines in the cold waiting to register? Not me! Unfortunately, I won't have time to enjoy the fruits of my own labor, but at least I can get a cup or two of our free coffee and hot chocolate.

Q. When did you get the idea to try electronic registration?  Was your background instrumental in your ability to pursue this?  Could anyone with initiative have put something like this together? 

A. As I mentioned above, I've already done a lot to address the inclusion of technology and automation into the registration process, but anything worth doing is worth overdoing! Because the new 2006 USCF licenses contain a barcode of the rider's license number on them, its obvious intent is to use it in some larger electronic system, so I did, and we'll be using it at the Quicksilver series.

Although USA Cycling is reported to be working with Sports Base Online to produce a Proprietary system that provides similar capabilities to what I developed, it's currently not available and will be quite expensive when it's delivered (their words not mine) sometime in the future. Apparently I even pushed the technology envelope *past* its limits. 

Q. I’m interested in the rough flow of how your system works. 

A. The basic flow is as follows: use a lap top and a handheld barcode scanner with a USB interface.  For the operational side, we will run our software on the laptop and produce forms from a printer; everything powered by a generator.  The prospective rider comes up, you scan their license, turn the license scan into a license number, lookup the rider’s information from a database, populate a standard release form with data, and then print out releases and get the “wet ink” signature.  Oh, and we'll give them safety pins as well

Q. What sort of logistical, technological, organizational or legalistic hurdles have you had to leap to get this off the ground?  Do you think it will fly for the training series? 

A. The scanner I finally decided on isn't wireless, but uses a standard USB cable. The guy I spoke with at Sports Base Online about their system says they're currently specifying a specific bluetooth-based barcode scanner, but because it alone costs $500 (!), they'll probably be looking for more affordable alternatives in the futures.

The first barcode scanner that I bought was the one I really thought would be the best one to use, which had the form factor of a pen. You just "write" over the barcode and it gets scanned in. It seemed like it would eliminate the trial and error of "shooting" the barcode with a gun-like scanner from a few inches away, which is the kind I ended up using. Unfortunately, the pen model just wouldn't scan the bar codes on the back of the new 2006 USCF licenses. It would scan plenty of other barcodes I found around the house, so it was working, but just not on the barcodes I was interested in.

I also tried scanning the new licenses on other barcode scanners I found in public, e.g., at my grocery store, my gym, etc. Most of those scanners wouldn't scan the licenses either, so I thought we might have to forgo the use of the barcode scanners. As this is my first adventure into using barcode scanners, I won't be pointing fingers at anyone about my poor scanning experiences, but I attribute the lackluster results to the low print quality of the licenses.

If you look closely at the fronts of the licenses, there is a high contrast between the black letters and the white background. This would allow for accurate barcode scanning. But if you look at the backs of the licenses, where the barcode is, you'll see that there is a lot of smeared gray within the letters themselves, and also between the bars within the barcode. I suspect that without a clearer delineation between the black barcode and white background, the other barcode scanners couldn't perform properly. Another success story for the lowest-bidder mentality.

I also investigated the use of a digital signature tablet, ala modern credit card purchases, for inclusion in our system. But after considerable investigation on the part of USA Cycling's legal department (apparently USAC has never thought about the idea 
before), they determined that the legal implications of electronic signatures simply aren't compatible with today's liability minefield. So it seems we'll all be stuck with "wet signatures" for some time to come.

- - end interview

i have a few additional thought on this.  eric’s plan for the digital signature capture was the most interesting from my perspective.  Eric envisioned a system from start to finish, in which the license was scanned and a digital signature was captured.  The true beauty of this system is that the promoter could print out the standard release at their leisure (say at the end of the race day or later than night) because all the data for the forms had been captured as well as a digital signature so producing a hard-copy of the forms could literally be done anytime.  I can also imagine a worst case scenario where part or all of the data is lost due to unanticipated circumstances (power outage, hard drive crash, etc).  But this is not unusual: finish line cameras have malfunctioned as well.  it’s part of relying completely on technology.  A truly robust system to be deployed in the field will need to be battle ready.  eric is probably 85% of the way there.

i believe that issues may arise with how any system like this interfaces with computerized pre-registration such as bikereg.com that is so popular with all the mid-atlantic promoters.  eric's system seems to thrive in an environment where there is considerable walk up registration, so it may not be of as much utility to a race which has sold out practically all of it's fields and can download and print standard releases automatically.  electronic registration has brought on it's own problems, as I documented so clearly here.  it's sometimes a race to the bottom as people clamber to fill limited slots.  but this is clearly not worse than the way things were before electronic registration where entries were mailed, and you sometimes gambled on showing up to a race not knowing if there were open slots or not.  each technology bring change in the way people do things.  it will be interestign to watch all fo these issues continue to evolve.

a few pictures: 

behind the scenes, setting up generators to power the equipment while the turkey fryer heats water for hot chocolate.   mmmm, hot chocolate.

the tools of the trade: the scanner scans, the computer computes, the printer prints. 

once the system captures your information, it populates standard releases and assigns numbers.  that informaiton is carried through to start sheets and can be ported to results as well.  sweeeet.

if you happen to see eric out and about, show him a little love.  he's done this whole thing on his own time and his own dime.  a large part of the "structure" of cycling in the mid-atlantic is driven by volunteers and people who go the extra mile because they love to see cycling thrive.  there is no hallmark holiday for these people. 

- - posted by scott