August 6, 2019

"Germany's Fiona Kolbinger has beaten more than 200 men to become the first woman to win the Transcontinental Race, cycling more than 2,485 miles across Europe in just over 10 days...."

"After finishing in a time of 10 days, two hours and 48 minutes, Kolbinger says she could have 'gone harder,' adding: 'I could have slept less.' Britain's Ben Davies is poised to take second place, but he is yet to cross the finish line. He was still 124 miles (200km) away when Kolbinger finished on Tuesday morning.... Racers can choose their own route but must pass through four control points, taking them over varied terrain that includes gravel tracks and tough climbs.... The cyclists are not allowed to ask anybody the way or receive technical support from anyone else, and must find their own food and accommodation."

BBC reports.

The next competitor was 124 miles back when she crossed the finish line.... Is this a legit race? How do they exclude cheating?

ADDED: Here's the Wikipedia article on the race:
It is not a stage race, the clock never stops from the moment the riders leave the start to the moment that they reach the finish, so it is a long individual time trial. Riders must therefore strategically choose how much time to devote to riding, resting, and refueling each day. Being self-supported or unsupported means that drafting is not allowed, receiving any form of support from other racers is not allowed, nor is it from friends or family; all food, accommodation, repairs, etc., must be purchased from commercial sources....

Racer positions are monitored using GPS satellite-based tracker devices mounted on all participants' bikes that upload their positions every 5 minutes.... During the race, volunteers are stationed at each control point to register the passage of each rider. Volunteer "dot watchers" remotely follow the progress of each racer's tracker position and inform the organizers of possible rule violations (e.g., individual riders appearing to ride together for extended periods or people riding on prohibited roads)....

The organizers hope that an honor system is sufficient to curb violations, and in 2015 an online form was created for people to submit reports of rule-breaking. It is impossible to know how big a problem cheating actually is, but it is hoped that it is low since winning has no monetary value....
ALSO: There's a link on "honor system." Let me expand this posts topic with material on the honor system generally:

An honor system or honesty system is a philosophical way of running a variety of endeavors based on trust, honor, and honesty.....

Some hotels, mostly in continental Europe, operate an honesty bar, allowing guests to serve and record their own drinks and saving the cost of a night bartender. Patrons could theoretically lie about their drink consumption, and the hotel would have only limited powers to verify their claims....

The first honor system in America was penned by Thomas Jefferson at the College of William and Mary, Jefferson's alma mater. In some colleges, the honor system is used to administer tests unsupervised.... At the University of Virginia a student taking an examination is also required to sign a pledge not to give or receive aid and there is but one penalty for transgression of the honor code, and that is dismissal from the University.... A single-sanction Honor Code exists at the Virginia Military Institute, where a "drum out" ceremony is still carried out upon a cadet's dismissal.

Washington and Lee University maintains an Honor System that was introduced by General Robert E. Lee, who stated "We have but one rule here, and it is that every student must be a gentleman." The Washington & Lee Honor System is entirely administered through the student body. It is one of the few universities in the United States to have a non-codified system. As a result, students decide what constitutes a breach of honor. These breaches are commonly named as lying, cheating, or stealing, but what constitutes an honor violation is open to the interpretation of the current student body. A single sanction of dismissal is enforced when a student is found guilty of an honor violation....

Some lower security inmates at prisons are granted furloughs and allowed to temporarily leave the boundaries of the penitentiary for various reasons with the expectation they will return voluntarily when due without absconding. The reasons for departure may be for employment, education, recreation, or attending family events (such as weddings or funerals)....

Some supermarket chains allow customers to scan their own groceries with handheld barcode readers while placing them in their own carts (see self-checkout). While the system gives customers the ability to place groceries in their bags without paying, and customers can be randomly audited, participating supermarkets have reported that this experimental system has not increased the amount of shoplifting....

In the sport of airsoft, players rely on an honor system to tell whether or not an opponent is hit, because unlike paintballs, airsoft pellets leave no visible markings on clothing.

Two combat sports practiced by the Society for Creative Anachronism, Armored Combat and Rapier Combat, use an honor system to judge valid strikes. The individual who is hit is responsible for acknowledging if the impact was valid....

Sports that deliberately incorporate alternative sexualities, by necessity, rely on the honor system for enforcement. The National Gay Flag Football League limits heterosexual competition to 20% of a team's roster. Muggle quidditch requires a minimum number of players to be of a second gender, while allowing players to identify as any number of gender identities to qualify under the rule....

Deciding whether or not to obey an honor system can be a dilemma, especially if one places his/her personal financial self-interest above the interest of the institution they are patronizing. This can lead to a future negative impact towards their personal financial self-interest. Honor systems are often criticized for promoting laziness and bad behavior. Some have suggested it is paradoxical to ask people to obey a law if there is no apparent law.

60 comments:

tim in vermont said...

"The cyclists are not allowed to ask anybody the way or receive technical support from anyone else, and must find their own food and accommodation.”

Having a pussy is going to be a huge advantage in a race like this. The little purse that is never really empty. She might not have pulled a Rosy Ruiz, but how will we ever know?

Quayle said...

My son sends us a text message with a map of the route of his every-Saturday rides around Boston metro area. So there are gps devices riders can put on their bikes that track location and speed and store it centrally on the web for their analysis.

David Begley said...

Only in Europe.

tim in vermont said...

It’s not impossible that she never asked for directions and never received any help along the way, never rode in a car while somebody else rode the bike, never thought that the rules were a stupid guy thing.

rhhardin said...

Tortoise and the hare.

Big Mike said...

I know someone who graduated from Washington & Lee about 15 years ago. While he was there a starter on the football team confessed to plagiarizing an essay and was dismissed from the university. You won’t find that happening at a Division I university!

rhhardin said...

1544/(24*(10+2/24)) = 6.3mph average. Not a speed race.

Howard said...

Women dominate ultra long distance ocean swimming records. Seems plausibly legit to me. Up here in the ADK, locals sell camp wood on the honors system.

Back in the day, 3 on 3 pickup basketball you called fouls on yourself.

gilbar said...

a few years ago (Okay! years and years ago!),
a fancy runner dude, RAN the Appalachian Trail: with a support team that would drive ahead and set up the next night's campsite, and make his food, and bath and massage him, etc.
He Totally broke any existing records for through hiking.

The Interesting thing, is that coincidentally at the same time, there was some loser; that was actually hiking the AT, by himself; alone, no help.
The loser carried his gear (unlike the runner dude, that ran in running shorts), but the loser only slept about 4 hours a night. The loser would wake up, break camp, walk until 10pm or so; make camp, sleep a few hours, repeat.

The Runner dude beat the loser dude, but not by much; for most of the trail the runner dude would run past the loser every day, and the loser would Walk past the runner dude's campsite, every night.

her bike race was only 10 days, but only an hour a night's less sleep would put her 10 hours ahead of were she'd would have been. If all you do is ride and sleep, you could EASILY ride 16 hours a day (and still get your 8 hours sleep)
Looks like she was doing 2 and a half Century rides a day. Have any of You rode a Century ride? I have; it was easy to do (I took about 8 hours)

Howard said...

Yeah. All well and good, but we don't rely on Washington and Lee to cure cancer or participate in a Manhattan Project. The only innovation the honorable Confederate States ever produced was Jazz anc Co Cola

tim maguire said...

Reminds me of The Barkley Marathon in Tennessee, a 100 mile foot race though the woods. Most years there is no finisher.

Big Mike said...

@Howard, the educated fool, that is truly an ignorant statement.

Temujin said...

In high school I ran cross country. In one race we went to the other school's 'home course' which was miles running through a hilled and heavily wooded park in Michigan. I was on the JV team. During our race, the gaps between me and the other runners got great (as sometimes happens in long distance running). I was not familiar with this course, and though they had some signs around parts of the course, and human pointers in other parts, I got lost. Woods. Hills. No one in sight. Did not see any pointers, human or otherwise. I got lost. But I kept running. Just kept running until I came out of the woods and found the trail again.

And, Lo!. I came out of the woods apparently in a strong position. I remember running down the final stretch and one of the varsity guys was there, running alongside me, cheering me on- pushing me. (they never did that). I remember him shouting "Faster! Give it all you got!". I responded, "I am.". As I ran past him I heard him say, "If you can talk back to me, you're not giving it all." He was probably right.

Anyway- I ended up with a better time than half of our varsity team. I did not win the JV race, but I finished #1 for our squad that day. As I was getting mobbed by some of the varsity guys (who thought I was suddenly going to get promoted to their squad), I kept telling them that I got lost. "I got lost. I'm not sure if I ran the right course." I told my coach, "I got lost". He told me to shut up. Apparently they needed the score.

I was cheered pretty well that day on the bus ride home. I kept repeating to anyone who would listen that 'I got lost'. They just ignored what I meant by that. One guy told me I might have had an even better time if I had not gotten lost. I just said, "yeah, maybe" and continued to look out the bus window.

The next day at practice I resumed my normal times and easily secured my spot with the JV once again. All was past. All was forgotten and the world returned to normal.

I'm just saying that Fiona Kolbinger got lost.

gilbar said...

Howard reminds us, that it's okay to be a bigot, if you bigot correctly; by saying...
Yeah. All well and good, but we don't rely on Washington and Lee to cure cancer or participate in a Manhattan Project. The only innovation the honorable Confederate States ever produced was Jazz anc Co Cola

Well Howard; Bless Your Heart

tim in vermont said...

The transistor came from Texas. The transistor is the foundation of our age.

Eddie Jetson said...

The game of golf is based entirely on the honor system. There are no umpires. A player is responsible for calling his own penalties. The most famous example (as described in Golf Magazine), "At the 1925 U.S. Open, Bobby Jones moved his ball slightly while setting up for a shot. No one saw it, but Jones was adamant that the ball had moved and assessed himself a one-stroke penalty, costing him the win, as he went on to lose in a playoff. Praised for his classy move, Jones quipped, 'You might as well praise me for not robbing banks.'”

Darkisland said...

One of my preferred hotel chains is Candlewood Suites. They are part of the IHG group (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and others) Not really a suite but a big room with a really comfy bed, comfy recliner chair, big work surface where I can spread out, superfast wi-fi and a full kitchen. And really, who wants to stay in a hotel without a dishwasher in the room?

Usually less than $100/night if you stay 3 nights or more.

One of the things they have is a small convenience store. Very well stocked with everything from toiletries and snacks to complete meals.

They run that on the honor system. Take what you want, note the prices on slip of paper with your name and room number and drop it in the box.

Seems like it must work since it's in every property I've stayed in over the past 10-15 years.

John Henry

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

The honor system was sufficient for Seinfeld's masturbation "Competition".

"I'm sure we'll all feel comfortable within the confines of the honor system."

Darkisland said...

When I visited Frankfurt a few years ago I had a Sunday afternoon free so went downtown in the train. I was at the Airport Hilton and didn't even have to go outside.

I bought a ticket but nobody collected it. I was told the way the system worked was that they had inspectors who would spot check people for tickets and issue a $50 fine (or some large amount) if you didn't have one. But they only checked about 10%.

So an honor system with some checking like the bike race with 4 waypoints and GPS monitoring.

John Henry

rhhardin said...

Gasoline for the airplane was on the honor system, when I had airplanes. Fill the tank, write the meter readings on the slip and add it to the box. At the end of the month the tie-down fee had those slips added in.

Apparently it worked, the guy stayed in business until retirement.

stlcdr said...

The actual headline: "Woman beats all the men".

jaydub said...

Something fishy here. If you go to the referenced Wikipedia page and look at the results table at the bottom you'll find that for last year's race the women's winning time was almost 5 days after the overall winner's time. How does the 2019 race performance jump happen in one year? Asking for Rosie Ruiz.

Rory said...

"Seinfeld"

George cheated.

Howard said...

Bell Labs was in Texas?

tim in vermont said...

Sorry, Integrated Circuit.

Newly employed by Texas Instruments, Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the integrated circuit in July 1958, successfully demonstrating the first working integrated example on 12 September 1958.[11] In his patent application of 6 February 1959,[12] Kilby described his new device as "a body of semiconductor material … wherein all the components of the electronic circuit are completely integrated."[13] The first customer for the new invention was the US Air Force.[14] Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit.[15]. - Wikipedia

Howard said...

Kilby born in Missouri education in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Rory said...

Recent departure has left an opening for resident comment freak.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Howard said...

Is that you Rory from Watsonville?

tim in vermont said...

"The only innovation the honorable Confederate States ever produced was Jazz anc Co Cola” - Howard

This is why the liberal trolls eventually devolve into rambling smear merchants who shy away from factual assertions.

Rory said...

"How does the 2019 race performance jump happen in one year?"

The GPS tracking seems to make cheating very unwieldy. You can put the bike in a car, but then would have to drive along pretty slowly for ten days. That's a heavy commitment to a prank.

tim in vermont said...

“That's a heavy commitment to a prank.”

I do agree that it’s not that implausible that a woman could win an endurance race, but she could also have other people riding the bicycle for her. It’s impossible to know what really happened.

narayanan said...

Honor System collides with Taqqiya

Only in Europe. or Everywhere!

gilbar said...

people! leave Howard alone!
Anyone that doubts the superiority of Southern soft drinks* , can't be reasoned with


Southern soft drinks*
Coca Cola - Georgia
Pepsi - North Carolina
Dr Pepper - Texas
RC cola - Georgia

AND, don't Forget: Sweet Tea! folks up north, are So Stupid; that they put the sugar in After the ice!

Rory said...

"she could also have other people riding the bicycle for her."

Yeah, but that's even more complicated than the car. Obviously, it can be done if no one's watching. I'm having trouble imagining the person who would go to all the trouble.

Marco the Lab said...

Lael Wilcox, won the 4,200mi trans am race in 18 days, 2016. A relatively inexperienced female road racer. You have to be fast, but, the amount you sleep is just as important.
https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/01/05/lael-wilcox-endurance-racing

Known Unknown said...

" The only innovation the honorable Confederate States ever produced was Jazz anc Co Cola"

Pay no attention to that cotton gin.

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bagoh20 said...

But was there an undisclosed dick?

bagoh20 said...

That would be a good name for a pornogrind band: "Undisclosed Dick"

policraticus said...

Interesting. Endurance and speed are important, but so is equipment, preparation, planning, adaptive thinking, route planning, pacing, nutrition. I wonder how long participants know the route/checkpoints before the beginning of the race? She was obviously the better racer, but it would be interesting to know how much was her prep/strategy and how much was her physical ability. In a race like this, both things are very important.

johns said...

Eli Whitney's cotton gin was invented and produced in New Haven, CT.

Yancey Ward said...

I assume the starting location, the finish line, and the checkpoints are known at least a day in advance. If so, it isn't that hard to find a route that minimizes the distance and the effort to travel the five distinct legs of this race- so I don't think technical assistance is going to be all that important during the race.

I would think the main area of cheating, if it occurs, would be in having someone else ride the bike for some part of the day or days. You are talking about 250 miles a day on a bike- that takes a toll- just having half a day off is a significant edge.

However, I would surprised that anyone cheats in a contest like this with no real prize but finishing first- the negative reward of being caught cheating would seem to greatly outweigh any potential benefit.

Yancey Ward said...

We talked about this a few weeks ago- in running, all of the ultra long distance records are held by men- all of them. I suspect all of them are held by men in biking as well since the women aren't really all that close in the running records either, but will have to check to be sure.

Women hold some of the records for ultra marathon swimming- swimming sheer distances or periods of time. It seems a 100 mile lake swim was recently accomplished for the first time by any human, and it was a female, so she definitely holds the speed record for a 100 mile swim.

Christopher said...

The fact that women become more competitive as mileage increases is well known to anybody following endurance sports, although the exact point they can compete with the men isn't always clear.

Simply put as the length of a competition increases the importance of men's traditional physical advantages decreases and instead issues of energy consumption and efficiency of movement start to come into play.

Bobb said...

I question the effectiveness of an honor system in Europe. Outside the Anglo-world, honor is more flexible in most parts of the world.

While attending the University of Michigan Law School in the mid-1970s, I roomed with a Belgium foreign student. One day, following a law school exam, my roommate was talking to another Belgium law student about how they were cooperating on their answers during the exam. We explained that they were not to cooperate and asked if the professor had explained this prior to the exam. They confirmed he had, but said "if he did not expect them to cooperate, why did he leave the room?" By the way, I considered my roommate an honorable man, but with a different viewpoint of what that entailed.

Static Ping said...

When a sport is relatively new or is only performed by a small group of people, there are typically a large number of "efficiencies" that can be exploited. No one is quite sure on the optimal way of doing things, and if you can find an efficiency you can dominate the sport despite other disadvantages. So, sure, her victory is plausible. Long term this does not tend to last as the efficiency becomes known to other competitors, who either adopt the efficiency themselves or supersede it with a different efficiency.

In a mature sport with lots of competitors, it becomes much more difficult to make this work as there are more elite athletes that cannot be easily overcome and more of the efficiencies are revealed and adopted. That said, it does happen. Baseball is currently is going from one new efficiency to another.

walter said...

Temujin,
Great story.

bbear said...

Lucky for her they didn't ask her to play five sets of tennis...

JaimeRoberto said...

It's my understanding that some women have done very well in ultra-marathons as well. Their higher body fat gives them an advantage for these endurance events, so I'm not surprised that a woman has won the race.

Narr said...

In junior high, trotting to the showers after a pointless hour spent running around the grounds, one of the coaches asked me if I had thought about running cross-country. I panted, "no" and on my honor, I didn't even know what "cross-country" was. And apparently forgot to ask.

We were in Munich in 1978 and (honestly) couldn't figure out the U-bahn access, so we got on without tickets. Before the next stop we were busted by a frumpy couple of undercover transit police (or con-persons) and lighter by $40.00.

Southern innovations: Self-service grocery stores. WDIA. Holiday Inn, Federal Express.

Narr
No tea for me!

etbass said...

Howard, check these out:

Sound movies
Sunscreen
Submarines
Hearing aids
Microscopes
Anesthesia
Liquid Paper
Airbags
Dental Floss
Wikipedia
Traffic signals
Post it notes


Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"Lael Wilcox, won the 4,200mi trans am race in 18 days, 2016."

Are those people allowed to race against the women?

Rabel said...

Females are competitive in ultra-long distance bike races.

Here's one who finished third in the American Trans Am despite stopping for a rabies shot.

Scott M said...

1544/(24*(10+2/24)) = 6.3mph average. Not a speed race.

A point of personal privilege, comrade. This race was in Europe so your outdated mileage calculations are meaningless. No sparkles for you.

Lurker21 said...

"Germany's Fiona Kolbinger has beaten more than 200 men to become the first woman to win the Transcontinental Race, cycling more than 2,485 miles across Europe in just over 10 days...."

Ho-hum.

In any trans continental race, trans men have no hope against a trans woman.

Ron Nelson said...

Disappointing to read some of the comments. I followed several self-supported endurance races with tracking devices that featured women winning or placing high in the final standings. To win such a race requires fitness, ability to diagnose problems and maintain your bike, fundamental problem solving, some pre-planning for the route if specified and more so if not specified, and a fair amount of good fortune in the weather conditions you face, avoiding injury and food-born illness, the kind of breakdowns that occur, the motor vehicles that pass you (5 racers have been killed and more injured in the last few years), and even the animals you encounter (dogs are a persistent danger, but some racers have faced bears and three racers were knocked out by deer). None of this is gender related. Fiona's path to victory was abetted by extreme saddle sores in the initial leader causing him to drop out and foot problems for the subsequent leader than also sidelined him. Endurance racers suffer a number of ailments from which they have to recover even if they finish a race. Oh, and the prize money is $0. There is not a lot of incentive to cheat. People are following their trackers 24-hours a day, so deviations from a prescribed route are always noted. One commenter observed that there was a suspicious improvement in time this year from the woman who rode the fastest last year. Conditions changed dramatically from year to year in this race and it is fundamentally impossible to objectively compare races between years.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Good for her. I don't follow the sport, so I have no opinion beyond that.

TheThinMan said...

I accidentally missed a loop in a park in a marathon race, saving me two miles. I came in 2nd in my age group. I wrote to the directors to 1) disqualify me, 2) refund me for poor signage and support. They did neither.