Top of the World 350

There's a new race this year, the Top of the World 350, and right now I think it's probably going to be the most interesting race of the season.  The race is to honor the memory of Chief Isaac Juneby of Eagle Village.

Why's this an interesting race?  A number of reasons:

• It's attracted a field of very top mushers from both Alaska and the Yukon.  This is an all-star race
• The format is novel.  There's going to be a "fun run" from Tok to Eagle Village, a potlatch and dance for the mushers, and then the race starts for real when the mushers depart Eagle Village for Tok.  The run up to Tok begins with a mass start, which is always pretty great entertainment
• It's a tough trail -- hilly, windblown, and remote

They will not be providing GPS tracking for this race, which will definitely make it more difficult to follow.  I'm hopeful that the checkpoint staffs will keep their website updated, and possibly have volunteers/fans posting from the trail on how things are going more generally.  Even though the first 175 miles are a "fun run" and have no direct impact on standings, you can expect a couple of teams to let their competitive natures get the better of them and gun it up to Eagle Village, possibly tiring their dogs for the actual race.  We can make some bets on who that will be, but I'm sure we'd be surprised.  I wish we could watch it in realtime, but in the meantime I'm thinking of going down to Tok for the start or finish, because I do think this is going to be a special race.  I'm absolutely wishing them the very best.  This is going to be a good 'un.

So, how big is our market, anyway?

If I were trying to make some money selling software to mushers I think one of the first questions I'd have is the size of the market.  I'm not really sure how to answer that question with any precision, beyond noting that intuitively it seems that trying to make some money from selling something other than dog food or equipment seems destined to be, er, "frustrating" (and some kinds of equipment seem challenging, as well).  But for an imprecise measure I took a look at Jacques Phillipe's nice Web Kennel content management site, acknowledging that he's trying to solve a rather different problem from the one being addressed by Musher's Checkpoint et al.  He's got nearly 500 kennels signed up, and I took a look at the listings to try to get a handle on how many of them are paying customers and how many are using it for free.  A rough estimate is that about 10% of his users are paying subscribers, or about 50.  I would guess (with an emphasis on guess) that that percentage would be likely to go up if he supported tracking training runs, adding veterinary records, etc., but even if it went up to 100% of his users that would still be about 500.  If you were able to sell some chunk of software magic to about 500 people at $100/pop, which strikes me as about what the market would bear, that would still be a gross of only $50,000.  Subtract expenses from that and it strikes me as not really worth anybody's while, acknowledging that I could be underestimating the size of the market by some amount.  Or, for that matter, overestimating it.

I guess where I'm going with this is that it strikes me as extremely difficult to come out much ahead selling software to mushers.  A more productive model may be to start out small and simple and give stuff away for free, and community input/participation will grow the software in ways that people actually find useful for their own purposes.  I believe the young people call this "open source," while those of us d'un certain âge recognize it as the way that things used to work more generally.

Why I'm not trying "Musher's Checkpoint"

Musher's Checkpoint is a new hunk of software that provides a very nice interface for maintaining kennel and training data.  Putting together small-scale databases is relatively straightforward (maintaining big hairball ones is a nightmare, but that's not what we're talking about here), but good user interfaces are difficult to design, and not everybody who writes software is good at it.  In fact, few are.  I'm terrible at user interface design and I really respect people who get it right.

Musher's Checkpoint also maintains much of the data I would if I were designing something similar from scratch.  Which, in fact, I am, but pretty much the only time I have to code for myself anymore is the week known as "breakup" in the Alaska interior, when we're done running dogs for the spring, it's too early to fish, and it's too muddy to work outside.  So in the abstract I'm delighted to see that somebody else has done the work.

The specifics are a little more difficult, though.  For one thing, as nearly as I can tell (the website doesn't really say) it only runs on Windows.  There was a time when I'd rather have stuck a fork in my eye than run Windows but now that I'm older and a little wiser I'm forgoing the fork and just not running Windows unless I have to for something I'm working on.  I know other mushers who only run Mac OS, so I'm not the only one.

But the show-stopper is this: annual licensing.  It's not a matter of the money, although of course there's a concern that after a couple of years the license fee could be jacked up.  The core issue is ownership of data, and access to it in perpetuity.  When I enter my dogs' pedigrees, their vet records, my training schedules, awkward photographs of unfortunate mishaps, etc., those are MY data.  I do not want to lose access to them, ever.  I've been orphaned by software companies going out of business and it's bad enough when it's just a regular one-time license fee.  If the company goes under for any reason and they are unable to renew the license because of problems on their end, I lose access to my data (note that this is a similar concern with "cloud computing" - make sure you've got local copies of anything you put in Google Docs Drive, etc.).  I am not going to take that risk - it's too much work to enter and maintain those data in the first place.

So, from my perspective it looks like a nice piece of software with a good user interface but a business model that makes me nervous (plus the platform issue).  I'm giving it a pass for the time being, and maybe next April I'll make some more progress on my own excellent database with the crappy user interface.

Musher Central

If you like dogsled race data, or are a mushing trivia fan, you'll enjoy the website, "Musher Central," quite a bit.  They've consolidated a lot of data about a few of the major distance races, in one place, and have aggregated some of it to provide interesting overviews.  For example, if you go to the summary page on our favorite race, the Yukon Quest, you'll find not just the most wins and most top-ten finishes, but also most starts without a win, most scratches, and other fun information.  There are summaries for individual runnings of the race, and summary pages for individual mushers.

There are really only two drawbacks.  One is that the site is kind of ugly (friends don't let friends use Javascript unless they're trained professionals working together with someone who's got a clue about user interfaces) and doesn't provide a way to link to individual race runnings (see previous comment about friends and Javascript).  The other is that the data are a little incomplete and occasionally surprising (for example, he's got data for the Minto race but not the Copper Basin, and nothing at all for the Kusko or Tustumena or a few other major races), and most of the races only have data for last year.  But it's a hard slog to put this kind of thing together and Jeff deserves both kudos and support for putting up this website.  I hope he's able to find the resources to continue to build his database, go further back on the races he's already got, and include more races.

IFSS Distance "World Championship" participation

There's much that can (and should) be said about the IFSS, its drive to get mushing adopted as an Olympic sport, and its insane and dog-hostile anti-doping rules, but that's probably got to wait until dust settles and we get a clearer picture of what's going to happen with the North Pole championships.  In the meantime, what we know for certain is that the distance "championships" will be held while Iditarod is underway.  What does this mean?  It means that the "Distance World Championship" will be held without the participation of the following mushers:

• Ken Anderson
• Aaron Burmeister
• John Baker
• Jake Berkowitz
• Martin Buser
• Paul Gebhardt
• Pete Kaiser
• Jeff King
• Lance Mackey
• Allen Moore
• Dallas Seavey
• Mitch Seavey
• Cim Smyth
• Ramey Smith
• Gerry Willomitzer
• Aliy Zirkle

As well as top-level purebred mushers Mike Ellis and Karen Ramstead.

So.  I wonder how on earth a "world championship" that excludes 4-time Iditarod champions and consistent top performers can possibly considered a "world championship."  This would seem to be an enormous marketing error on the side of IFSS (and possibly MUSA), but perhaps not a surprise given the lack of distance mushing experts in the IFSS and MUSA processes.

A distance "world championship?" Really?

The International Federation of Sled Dog Sports (IFSS) holds world championship races every year, with participants selected by a national body in their home country.  In the US that body is Mushing USA.  In Canada, it's Mushing Canada.  While the IFSS and their championships are not well-known or hotly contested in the world of distance mushing, they're highly-regarded and very competitive in sprint-oriented classes, including limited and open sled classes, nordic classes such as pulk and skijoring, and dryland racing (rig, scooter, bikejoring, and canicross).

It's not that they're not interested in having a world championship distance race - they are.  They've had them in the past, in conjunction with established distance races such as the Femundløpet.  This year they're trying to hold the world distance championship in conjunction with the Two Rivers 200.

There are probably two big issues that are likely to interfere with the success of the 2013 world distance championship.  One is a bit of an umbrella issue - visibility - and there are sub-issues that fall underneath it.  One is that the IFSS just doesn't have a lot of visibility, let alone stature, in the distance racing community, at least not in North America.  Not that many distance mushers know that there is a world championship.  A somewhat related problem is scheduling.  This year the TR200 takes place during Iditarod.  That's not a problem as far as the sponsoring club is concerned -- the TR200 is a Quest and Iditarod qualifier, it's a local, friendly race, and often Iditarod kennels will send their puppy teams and/or handlers to run the TR200 as preparation for longer races the following year.  However, holding the world championships during Iditarod is an entirely different story, and there's considerable question about what calling a race a "world championship" would mean for one that didn't include people like Lance Mackey, Jeff King, Aliy Zirkle, Dallas Seavey, and so on. If you're thinking "Not much," you're not alone.

The bigger problem is around IFSS anti-doping rules and dog care.  There seems to be a sense in the international sprint mushing community that if mushing is to be taken seriously as a sport at the international level there has to be a serious anti-doping regimen.  If you follow Nordic skiing at all you know the extent of the doping problems in that sport (see here, here, and here for a few examples), and so it's natural that sensitivity to those problems would be found in skijoring and other Nordic dog sports.  Unfortunately, however, they aren't just transplanting their awareness of and sensitivity to doping issues to other dog disciplines (i.e. distance mushing), but they're also transplanting the anti-doping rules, and that's hurting them in ways they may not fully understand.

Here's the issue:  if you take a look at the list of prohibited substances for dogs, it includes several substances that are considered part of best-practices dog care in the distance mushing community.  You may have noticed a drop in the number of dog deaths in the Iditarod and Quest over the past few years, and that's in part due to veterinary research having made advances in dog care.  For example,  famotidine (for example, Pepcid) and omeprazole (for example, Prilosec) can reduce the incidence of the stomach ulcers that lead to anemia in racing dogs.  Guess what?  It's banned by IFSS.  You've undoubtedly seen photographs of mushers at checkpoints massaging ointment into their dogs' feet to reduce crack formation and to heal them more quickly when they occur.  It's not banned by IFSS, but if a dog licks his feet and ingests the ointment, it can cause a false positive on a drug test.  Thyroid supplements are banned, as well.  Hypothyroidism is unfortunately common in all dogs, not just sled dogs, but treated hypothyroid dogs can and do lead normal, active, healthy lives.  But, they can't participate in IFSS races because thyroid supplements are banned.

A number of distance mushers have taken a look at the anti-doping rules and concluded that they cannot provide the kind of dog care they'd like under that particular regimen.  They say that given a choice between running the IFSS championships on the one hand or taking proper care of their dogs on the other, the dogs win, every time.

Personally, I'm heartened that so many mushers privilege their dogs over a putative "world championship."  It speaks well of the sport and of the people who participate in it.  I do think that if the IFSS wants to provide a serious distance world championship they need to figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't exclude the very top teams and in a way that makes dog care a priority.  In the meantime, I think most of us know who we think the top distance dog mushers are, right?

DeLorme InReach: competition for Spot?

The most recent (to my knowledge) addition to the pile of yuppie 911 gizmos is the DeLorme inReach, which provides similar functionality to a SPOT plus a little extra.  Arguably a lot extra, but it raises questions around whether the costs of providing that extra function are a good tradeoff for the costs, both monetary and decreased reliability/battery life/etc. for an emergency signaling device.

The other thing is that I'm going to be comparing it with the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger, even though the SPOT Connect is similar to the InReach.  The reason I'm doing what's quite likely an unfair comparison is because I'm interested in these gizmos for two things: 1) tracking, and 2) emergency signaling, and DeLorme doesn't have a simple all-in-one gizmo like the SPOT GPS Messenger.  It's got the InReach, with several different options for a GPS data source none of which appears to be, like, right there, on the device.

I'd like to say, first, that I hope to hell I am misunderstanding the device, because from all appearances all it does is communicate with a satellite, both uplink and downlink.  If you want to send out information on where you are - your GPS coordinates - you'll need a GPS device, whether it's a DeLorme PN-60w or your iOS or Android smartphone.  That is to say, if you need to signal for help you appear to need to have two devices fully powered (no dead batteries) and fully functional (not broken).  If you're familiar with issues around calculating mean time between failures (MTBF) and independent probabilities, you understand that independent probabilities multiply.  Here's an example with some totally fabricated numbers:

If there's a 10% probability that the InReach will fail, 
   P(InReachWorks) = .9
and a 40% probability that the iPhone will fail,
   P(iPhoneWorks) = .6
The probability that everything will be working is calculated as:
   P(HunkyDory) = P(InReachWorks) x P(iPhoneWorks),
or
   P(HunkyDory) = .9 x .6,
or  ... the bottom line is that the likelihood that everything will work is .56 (56%), or less than the probability that either device will work.  That is to say, even though neither device is likely to fail, it's more likely that one of the two of them will (probability is awesome).  If your primary interest in the InReach is as an emergency device, it's probably (heh) worth keeping the reliability issues around requiring multiple devices in mind.

It uses Bluetooth to pair with a phone or with the GPS.  Radio activity is expensive, in terms of battery draw.  I think this was not a great engineering decision for what's supposed to be an emergency device.

Where it really stands out, however, is in services.  The Spot has several messaging functions:

1. it can send an SOS message to an emergency response center
2. it can send an "I need help" message to a pre-programmed family member or friend
3. it can send a pre-programmed check-in/all's well message to SPOT's data center, which can be followed along by friends and family using SPOT's (unfortunate) web interface, and 
4. it can send tracking messages every 10 minutes

The InReach is designed to be more messaging-centric and less PLB-ish than the SPOT.  Because it's paired with a smartphone (or the DeLorme GPS, which has a rudimentary soft keyboard function), it allows the user to compose email or SMS messages, read email, and - heaven help us all - post to Facebook and Twitter.  The smartphone version allows downloading topo maps and marine charts over the satellite link, but have a thought for what that's going to do to your battery life.

Also, there's no API!  Seriously, that's going to limit the development of third party whizzies, like, say, TrackLeaders and other creative stuff.  I hope they'll reconsider that one.  

Costs: yup, and they're not trivial.  The satellite interface alone costs $249 (compared with the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger, at $119.99, and the SPOT Connect, at $169.99).  As for subscription services, the basic "Safety" plan includes 10 text messages and no tracking, at $9.95 per month ($119.40/year, as compared with SPOT's $99.99 year for SOS and unlimited check-ins with no tracking.  Tracking is available with the inReach Recreation and Expedition Plans, for $24.95/month ($299.40/year) and $49.95/month ($599.40/year) respectively.  The difference between those two plans seems to be in the number of messages (SMS/email/Facebook/Twitter) included.  With SPOT, tracking will run an additional $49.99/year, or a total of $149.98 for tracking, very limited messaging, and emergency services.

It's probably worthwhile to compare the inReach with the SPOT Connect device in a future post, but what I really wanted to bring out here is that I don't think that the inReach really is a competitor with the SPOT Satellite Messenger.  The latter provides reliable (granted, there have been some engineering issues with the SPOT-2) emergency signaling and tracking services, and the inReach has features that suggests a much stronger orientation towards communication from remote areas, at the unfortunate cost of questionable reliability for emergency signaling from the bush.  This may be fine in areas where you're likely to encounter other people on the trail within a time period of a few days but unfortunately is not something I'd consider using here in Alaska, where "remote" means that you really are on your own.