Free Cycling scoreboard

Why score Cycling with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for Cycling
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How Cycling scoring works

Results are measured either by finishing order at the line, or by time (time trial, pursuit). In a stage race, the general classification sums each rider's time across all stages, with the lowest total leading. Secondary classifications (points, mountains) award points at specific spots (sprints, summits) according to the event's regulations.

Match format

The format varies widely by discipline: a road race may last several hours, a track sprint a few seconds, and a grand tour spans three weeks over many stages. Mountain bike and cyclo-cross events are often run over a set number of laps or a fixed duration.

How to win

You win by crossing the finish line first (mass-start race) or by setting the best time (time trial, pursuit). In a stage race, the winner is the rider with the lowest cumulative time.

Recommended ScoreZen setup

For a time trial, use timer mode (best time wins). For a mass-start race or sprint, use a position/points score based on finishing order. Choose the Official preset to apply a precise scale, or Casual for simplified tracking.

How a bike race is actually scored

Cycling counts in three currencies, and the scorer has to know which one is running. On the road the classification is always determined by the order riders cross the finishing line, and that classification is what allocates prizes and points (2.3.037). Time is a separate column: everyone in the same bunch gets the same time (2.3.040), and a new time is taken only when a gap of one second or more opens between the back wheel of the last rider of one group and the front wheel of the first rider of the next (1.2.107).

Stage races add the general classification, the sum of the daily times. Bonus seconds come off it, but only where the technical guide of the event says so: 10, 6 and 4 at a stage finish, 6, 4 and 2 at a half-stage finish, 3, 2 and 1 at an intermediate sprint, with three intermediate sprints per stage at most (2.6.019). Bonuses show up only in the individual general classification on time, and never in an individual or team time trial (2.6.021). After a duly noted incident inside the last three kilometres of a stage, the riders concerned take the time of the riders they were with, but keep the placing they actually crossed the line in — except when the stage finishes at the top of a climb, where the article does not apply (2.6.027).

A criterium is scored one of two regulation ways, and you must know which before the start: classification at the finish of the last lap, or classification on laps covered plus the points won in the intermediate sprints (2.7.002). On the track, a points race gives 5, 3, 2 and 1 to the first four in each sprint, doubles the last sprint of the full distance (10, 6, 4, 2), and moves 20 points for every lap gained or lost (3.2.118). Sprints fall every 10 laps on a track shorter than 333.33 m, and every 5 laps on a track of 333.33 m or longer (3.2.116).

(UCI Cycling Regulations: Part 2 Road Races, articles 2.3.037 to 2.3.041, 2.6.019, 2.6.021, 2.6.027 and 2.7.002; Part 3 Track Races, articles 3.2.116 to 3.2.119; Part 5 Cyclo-cross, articles 5.1.048 to 5.1.051; timing, article 1.2.107 of Part 1.)

The mistakes that wreck a results sheet

The commonest error is writing gaps where times belong. The official form carries the winner's real time, then everyone else as a gap: at 10'', at 22'', at 1'46'' (2.2.088). Copy a gap into a general classification without adding the winner's time and the standings are wrong from that stage on.

A rider who crashed at 2 km to go and rolled in forty seconds down is placed where he crossed the line but timed with his group: two columns, two answers, and correcting one to match the other invents a result. The threshold that separates one group from the next is always the same — one second, back wheel to front wheel (1.2.107); there is no looser gap rule for sprint days. What can be flagged in advance is the distance: on a stage expected to finish in a bunch sprint the UCI may extend the incident zone of article 2.6.027 from three kilometres to five, and that extension has to be published in the special regulations or in a race communiqué before the start.

On the track, a tie in a sprint gives both riders the same position and the same points, and there is no second place that time (3.2.118): do not move the next rider up. Keep the categories clean too, because abandoned, did not start, outside the time limit and disqualified are four different lines. In cyclo-cross, lapped riders are not ranked on time at all: they must finish the lap they were lapped on, leave the course, and are then listed in the order they were pulled out with the number of laps they did not complete (5.1.051).

Keeping the result on race day

Stand on the line, on the judge's side, facing the riders, with nothing between you and the road. The finish crowd is the worst place there is: at 60 km/h you get one look at a bib number. One person calls the numbers out, another writes them down.

Before the start, check bib against name yourself on the sign-on sheet, because the bib is the only thing readable from the barrier. Count the starters then: the results form asks for that figure, alongside the riders finishing outside the time limits and the riders who abandoned (2.2.088), and a peloton cannot be counted once it has gone.

On a circuit, the lap count is the job. Cyclo-cross calculates and announces the number of laps at the end of the second lap so the race lands as close as possible to its target duration — 60 minutes for elite men, 50 for elite women racing on their own, 40 for junior men and junior women (5.1.048) — and the last lap is announced by the bell (5.1.049). Announce primes before the lap they are ridden for, never during.

After the finish the sheet is not finished: starters, riders outside the time limit, riders who abandoned (2.2.088). In a one-day road race, anyone finishing more than 8% slower than the winner is not placed, though the commissaires' panel may increase that limit in exceptional circumstances in consultation with the organiser (2.3.039). Post the result, then let the commissaires take the protests: you provide the record, they provide the verdict.

What ScoreZen changes for cycling

You run the race from your phone. Race mode starts everybody on one clock and you tap a rider as the wheel crosses the line: the order and the times build themselves, fastest first, with riders who have not finished held aside rather than given an invented time. Riders are listed by bib number, so the screen says what the road says.

On a circuit the screen carries the lap count: Lap 7 of 10, three to go, then the last lap and the chequered flag. It counts the head of the race, which is what a club criterium needs; riders taken a lap stay with the commissaires, because ScoreZen keeps one race-level lap counter rather than a lap count per rider. Leave the laps field empty and the race is simply timed to the finishing line, the way a hill climb or a pool session is.

What leaves the phone is the classification: the ranking exports as a shareable image carrying the race name, the times, the gaps and the race code, and TV mode fills a second screen at the finish so everyone reads the order without crowding the table. If your committee still works on paper, the printable A4 cycling sheet is a blank event / rider / result grid you fill in with a pen.

For a full programme, ScoreZen runs knockout with an optional third-place match, home-and-away league, pools then a final bracket, Swiss system, best-of-3 and best-of-5 series and rotating teams. There, one QR code covers the whole event: a rider opens it and finds their own fixture, and spectators are free, unlimited and never need an account. Fixtures export to CSV, the read-only public API needs no key, the ICS feed carries the calendar, the widget embeds in the club site, the transparent overlay drops the live score into OBS, and the Replay and the vertical Story are made to be shared. It keeps counting without a network and resyncs afterwards, in 25 languages across 34 sports. Three trial matches are free for life; after that, one payment of €1.99unlocks it for life.

Frequently asked questions