Frequently asked
Questions,
answered.
What Aster is, how it compares, what it costs. Pulled from the questions organisers, athletes, and journalists actually ask.
What is Aster?
What is Aster?
What is Aster?
Aster is a phone-first live tracking and sharing platform for endurance cycling — races, group rides, and point-to-point adventures. Athletes carry their phone (no hardware to ship), watchers get a link to a live map, and organisers get a dashboard. iOS, Android, and web.
Who is Aster for?
Five audiences run on one platform: athletes (race + train), watchers (friends, family, fans), teams (clubs to pro programmes), organisers (race directors), and brand partners (sponsors looking for editorial alignment). Built primarily around the 95% of bike races that have never had live tracking because hardware was out of reach.
What is "dot watching"?
Dot watching is the community's term for following live GPS positions on a map during ultra-endurance bike races — bikepacking events like Tour Divide, Trans Am, the Atlas Mountain Race. It started as a subculture around Trackleaders' bikepacking coverage and has grown into the mainstream of endurance cycling spectatorship. Aster is built to bring that experience to every race, not just the marquee 5%.
How is Aster different from Strava?
Strava is a training-log and segment-leaderboard product. Strava Beacon (the live-share feature) is capped at 3 contacts and treated as a safety ping for family. Aster is a live tracking and sharing platform — unlimited watchers, real-time leaderboard, organiser dashboard, race-event infrastructure. Different product, different category. We integrate with Strava for post-ride push when a rider finishes.
For race organisers
For race organisers
How does Aster compare to Trackleaders?
Trackleaders runs on hardware satellite trackers (Spot Gen 4, Garmin inReach, Zoleo) shipped to each rider. Aster uses the rider's phone — no hardware to ship, recover, or replace.
How does Aster compare to RaceMap?
RaceMap is a B2B SaaS with per-map-activation pricing plus per-tracker SIM fees, used mostly by larger European events. Aster is phone-first with a simple organiser subscription, plus an editorial layer (story feed, race recaps, athlete profiles) baked in.
What does it cost to put a race on Aster?
Athletes and watchers never pay — tracking and spectating are free, forever. Organisers pay a simple subscription sized to their event, which replaces the hardware line on the budget with one bill: live tracking, leaderboards, and sponsor inventory included. No per-rider hardware cost, no platform fee on your entries. See the pricing page for current plans.
How long does it take to set up?
Under an hour for a typical race. Create an organiser account, upload your GPX route, set the start/finish line lat/lon and radius, share the watch link. We're on the phone with organisers for the race-day of their first event as a baseline service.
Does Aster work with my timing system?
Yes. Aster sits alongside RaceResult, MyLaps, ChronoTrack, or chip-on-the-line — we handle the live tracking and watcher experience; your timing partner handles the official splits. Most organisers run both.
Can I embed the tracker on my own event website?
Yes — the watch link is embeddable as a widget on your event site, so your domain stays the canonical destination and Aster powers the live tracking surface.
For athletes
For athletes
Do my watchers need to install an app?
No. The watcher experience is web-first — your friends and family open a link in any browser (phone or desktop) and see your live position. No app install, no account creation, no friction.
How many people can watch my ride?
Unlimited. Strava Beacon, Garmin LiveTrack, and Wahoo Companion cap at ~3 contacts. Aster has no limit — share the link with your whole family, your club channel, your sponsors, anyone.
Does it work in dead zones?
Yes. Pings queue on-device for up to 7 days and upload automatically when signal returns. If you ride into a dead zone, the live line pauses on the map; when you come out the other side, it picks up where you left off — without losing the offline section.
Is there a Free Ride mode?
Yes. Free Ride is for any ride that isn't part of an event — solo training, group spins, recces, exploring. Same tracking, same watcher link, no event registration needed. Free for riders, always.
What about safety / SOS?
Tap the big red SOS button (4-digit confirmation code to prevent pocket-taps), and the organiser dashboard lights up with your position. Two-way chat for the organiser to talk to you. Auto-SOS via crash detection in Free Ride mode. The whole flow audit-trails to event records.
How the product works
How the product works
Does phone GPS work as well as a dedicated bike computer?
For modern phones, yes. iPhone 14+ and recent Android flagships use multi-band GNSS (L1 + L5) which matches Garmin and Wahoo bike computers for accuracy. The bottleneck for tracking in remote terrain is signal upload, not GPS lock — and Aster's offline ping queue handles that.
What happens if my phone battery dies mid-ride?
Tracking stops when the battery does. Aster runs in background-low-power mode by default to extend battery life (target: a 12-hour ride on an 80% start charge). Long-distance bikepackers should bring a power bank — same as they would for any phone-dependent ride. If the battery dies and the rider charges later, the on-device buffer uploads on app reopen, so the polyline shows what they did even if the live feed went dark.
What about the persistent notification while tracking?
iOS and Android both require a visible notification when an app is using GPS in the background. The notification is informational only — it says "still tracking, X km" — and crucially has no "Stop" button. Pocket-taps on the lock screen cannot end a ride.
What's the Aster Free Ride model exactly?
A standalone ride not associated with any event. Start, ride, stop. Generates a watch link you can share with anyone. Stats, polyline, photos all attach to a personal ride record. Push to Strava on finish if you connect Strava. Crash detection runs in the background as an auto-SOS safety net.
About the company
About the company
Who built Aster?
James Vickers — 15 years in cycling industry marketing. Co-founder of RGT Cycling (acquired by Wahoo Fitness in 2022). Previously: Wahoo, Classified Cycling, current Marketing Consultant at Ribble Cycles. Aster is built solo with AI agent orchestration handling engineering, content, and operations.
Where is Aster based?
United Kingdom (Manual Focus Ltd). Operating globally — first marquee gravel events targeted for spring 2027 across the UK, EU, and US.
Is Aster open-source?
No. The platform is proprietary. We publish technical writing and architecture decisions openly via our docs and blog, but the codebase itself is closed.
Are you raising money?
Yes — a £400–600k UK pre-seed, SEIS + EIS qualified. For investor enquiries, email james@astertrack.app.