About
We built the tool we always wished existed.
Lanterne Rouge is race-day intelligence for cycling event organizers — born from two decades of producing events with spreadsheets, best guesses, and hope.
The problem with guesswork
Bike Monkey is an event production company with more than 20 years of experience organizing some of cycling's most celebrated rides. Events like the Levi's GranFondo, where thousands of riders take on multiple routes through Northern California's wine country.
For every one of those events, the same questions needed answers: When will the fastest riders reach each checkpoint? When will the last rider pass the final aid station? How many volunteers are needed at each intersection — and for how long? How much food, water, and medical supplies should be distributed to each stop along the course?
For years, the answers came from spreadsheets, experienced intuition, and a fair amount of hoping for the best. The team had even developed semi-refined manual procedures to estimate supply distribution — based on which routes pass through each aid station, how many riders are on each course, and how those routes converge back together downstream.
"It was so easy to make a mistake. We always knew this information was one big math experiment — if only there were a tool that could let us plug in the basic variables and just get all the answers back."
The basic variables were always the same: the routes, the infrastructure points along them, the start times for each course, and the speeds of riders from the fastest professionals to the most casual participants. The math to connect those inputs to actionable output — when riders arrive, how many, for how long — was solvable. It just needed the right tool.
Nothing existed. So we built our own. And now it's available to the rest of the world.
Why "Lanterne Rouge"?
In professional cycling, the lanterne rouge — French for "red lantern" — is the rider in last place in a stage race. The term comes from the red lantern hung on the last car of a railway train, signaling the end of the consist.
Over time, the lanterne rouge became a celebrated figure in the peloton. Not a mark of shame, but proof that finishing matters as much as winning. The last rider on the course often endures the longest hours, faces the most solitude, and demonstrates the most persistence.
We named this tool after that rider — because in event planning, the last participant is the most important person to account for. They determine how long your intersections stay controlled, when your volunteers can go home, how much food and water you need deep into the afternoon. If you plan for them, everyone in front of them is covered too.
Shine a light on everyone.
Lanterne Rouge helps event organizers see the full picture — not just the leaders, but the entire field, from first across the line to last. Every rider accounted for. Every resource in place.
What Lanterne Rouge does
A visual race analysis platform that turns route data and rider profiles into the intelligence you need to plan with confidence.
Multi-route impact analysis
Import multiple GPS routes and rider activities. Visualize how course segments interact on a synchronized map, elevation chart, and data console. Scrub through time or distance to see where every rider will be.
Virtual athlete profiles
Build performance models from real rider data and generate virtual activities at any target speed. Model how professionals, mid-pack riders, and beginners will each experience the course differently.
Intelligent points of interest
Place 13 types of waypoints — aid stations, police, medical, time-cuts, and more. Each POI automatically calculates rider volume, arrival histograms, and first/last rider times based on your virtual race field.
Peloton tail visualization
See how your race field spreads out behind the leader using real log-normal distribution models. Adjustable percentiles let you fine-tune how much of the field to visualize.
Time-cut rerouting
Set time-of-day cutoffs at any checkpoint. Riders who miss the deadline are automatically diverted to alternate routes, and all downstream projections update accordingly — helping you free up on-course resources more efficiently.
Printable PDF reports
Generate one-sheet PDFs for each POI with satellite maps, QR codes for driving directions, colored arrival histograms, and rider data. Print them and put actionable intelligence in every volunteer's hands.
Team collaboration
Save to the cloud, invite team members, and work together with role-based access. Safety locks prevent conflicts. Save locally for offline access or sync to the cloud for real-time team planning.
Lanterne Rouge is built by Bike Monkey, an event production company with more than 20 years of experience organizing cycling events in Northern California and beyond.