Smartphone Devices Help Pro Cycling

Each of the Boulder, Colo.-based Team Slipstream/Chipotle riders was outfitted with a BlackBerry Pearl last week, which they'll carry with them at all times. The BlackBerry devices will be used to broadcast team updates, to notify riders of scheduling changes, to update the team's racing calendar -- and to keep the riders within contact of team managers at all times so that drug tests can be scheduled with a few hours' notice.

Part of the plan is an innovative testing program devised in conjunction with the independent Agency for Cycling Ethics that will take place alongside, not instead of, routine drug-testing by national cycling federations and the World Anti-Doping Agency. Slipstream riders will not be tested only for the direct evidence of illegal drugs: Their baseline personal and biological profiles will be tracked through a combination of metabolic states, lactic acid threshold, hematocrit levels, and medical histories. Any abnormalities will set off alarms, whether EPO or other enhancers are found in their bloodstream or not.

Along with team director Jonathan Vaughters, a former top racer himself, Doug Ellis decided to create a different kind of team -- one willing to give up the maillot jaune and stage victories in order to race purely and help clean up the sport.

Because the team travels constantly to competitions across Western Europe and North America (in addition to its Boulder headquarters, Slipstream/Chipotle maintains a training base in Girona, Spain), the Pearls have international data-plans from T-Mobile. With the service provider rebate the devices were effectively free; Fostvedt declines to say how much the service, which encompasses several BlackBerry 8700 models carried by team managers, in addition to the riders' Pearls, costs annually.

Source: InformationWeek