I have always wondered about the bib chips. One anecdote - the year Boston went to bib timing, a friend of mine was counted only at the start and finish. None of the 5k mats picked her up. The BAA threatened to disqualify her. Fortunately, we train with a coach who wrote a letter on her behalf, she runs lots of marathons and the finish time was well within the range she usually runs, and she was in multiple course photos along the way. (The only time she was happy with all her race photos!)  That was enough evidence to make the BAA decide it was a technical error.  Probably a fluke but it's made me worry about those bib chips.

I once ran a 30k race that used bib chip, and when I checked my finish time sometime after the race it was completely incorrect (I was loitering around and looking for food for a while until I noticed the timing tent). I don't remember the time but it was way faster or slower than my watch time, I'm talking about something like up to half an hour, not a couple minutes (there's also a HM and 10k option in that race). I was told someone might have run with a bib chip from a different race that matched mine. They eventually found my time in the system somehow and corrected it.

Ankle chip work great at Pistol.  I was a little worried it would not work in ankle+ deep water. I

There is NO WAY to keep time without some kind of chip. It simply can't be done.  A local, very small but USTAF-certified marathon did the impossible and kept time without chips. Several out-of-towners  ripped their tags off the bibs and discarded them before the race. They had never heard of a race using tags to keep time. The RD nearly had a meltdown at the start when he called everyone over for the pre-race briefing and noticed it.

Timing was done by hand for many years before the first chips came about (the Champion chip that was laced into your shoe was the first chip).  Putting the results together was a three part process.  First you had your timer record the time of each runner as they crossed the finish line.  This involved writing the times down a pad or pressing a button on the timer that printed out in time in order.  The second part was determining finishing order as runners exited the finishing chute.  This could be done by pulling the bib tag and adding it to a stringer, writing down the bib numbers as runners exited, or providing the runners with a Popsicle stick or a card indicating their finishing place that they would add their name to and turn it in.   The third part was putting the places together with the times and posting the results.  It would often take up to an hour after the race to get the results, but I have seen well trained timing crews process several hundred runners in a race with minimal issues.

Some of our local races are very low tech and don't use chips.  As stated, it takes a bit of time to get the results tabulated, especially age groups, but it can be done.

It was for this very reason that I wrote my own program for tabulating results of races (road and cross country). We use bar-coded bibs and scanning the bar codes on the bibs is a pretty fast process.  I don't wait until all runners are done before I start scanning.  Cross referencing a bar code to a registration database is pretty easy, and then breaking results out by age group (or team for XC races) is a pretty simple SQL query, and then a little php code wrapping it all together.  The few times I've done this, I have results in a matter of minutes after the last runner has finished. I'm always miffed why it takes some races an hour or more to tabulate results.

 

Timing was done by hand for many years before the first chips came about (the Champion chip that was laced into your shoe was the first chip).  Putting the results together was a three part process.  First you had your timer record the time of each runner as they crossed the finish line.  This involved writing the times down a pad or pressing a button on the timer that printed out in time in order.  The second part was determining finishing order as runners exited the finishing chute.  This could be done by pulling the bib tag and adding it to a stringer, writing down the bib numbers as runners exited, or providing the runners with a Popsicle stick or a card indicating their finishing place that they would add their name to and turn it in.   The third part was putting the places together with the times and posting the results.  It would often take up to an hour after the race to get the results, but I have seen well trained timing crews process several hundred runners in a race with minimal issues.

Yep, I've volunteered at local races that kept track by pulling the bottom piece of the bib off of each runner as he/she came thru the chute and putting the pieces on a giant safety pin-looking thing.  Simultaneously someone else kept track of a time for each person crossing the line.  Then the 2 are (hopefully accurately) matched up after the race is done and results can be posted.

I've heard of the popsicle stick method but have not had the pleasure of working a race where it was in use.

 

I have encountered volunteers passing out popsicle sticks (with whip cream on top) along the course, it was during my first marathon. I never picked one up, to this day I still have not bothered to find out what that was for, but something in my mind tells me that it was not food.

No, really, you should try it. :-)

 

Yep, I've volunteered at local races that kept track by pulling the bottom piece of the bib off of each runner as he/she came thru the chute and putting the pieces on a giant safety pin-looking thing.  Simultaneously someone else kept track of a time for each person crossing the line.  Then the 2 are (hopefully accurately) matched up after the race is done and results can be posted.

 

I've heard of the popsicle stick method but have not had the pleasure of working a race where it was in use.

MTA:  oops, I just saw that this process was described a couple of posts up.

I've done popsicle sticks (or index cards) as well as pull-off tabs.  The pull-offs are still the standard for most of our local races.  There is actually a third element.  The two you described -- someone pushes a plunger on the timing device as each person crosses the line, someone spindles the tabs at the end of the chute, and third, there should be two volunteers standing at the finish line writing down the bib numbers of finishers in order as carefully as possible (one looks, the other writes -- like sweeps judges for the swim team parents out there) as a sort of backup/double check.   When unregistered runners cross the finish line,  a runner crosses the line a second time, or worst of all, a runner gets out of the chute early and doesn't get their number spindled, it can wreak havoc with the timing. The backup folks' data can help sort things out if needed.

The popsicle sticks are only in the smallest races,  The cards/sticks are sequentially numbered.  Someone hands the place card/stick to each person as they cross the finish line (ie, first place has 1, second place 2, etc).  .  The finishers then go to a table and give their card/stick to someone who records their name and place.  Meanwhile, the timer should have been hitting the plunger to record each finish time.  The places are then matched to the times.

The ankle ones are still used in triathlon.  Tough to swim with your bib number pinned to you/your race belt.

I used to (still do) have my own ChampionChip that I purchased back when all the races used them.  Supposedly I'd be able to log onto their site and see all the races I'd done that needed it.  That went the way of the 8 track.

I just have to believe all those disposable ones are just filling landfills (though I keep all my race bibs, I bet I have 90% of them, all in a basket, for who knows why).