Reading the Board and the Ticker on brandmybicycle

A sponsorship board is only worth looking at if it is true. The board on each brandmybicycle bike page, and the strip at the top of the site, read from the same records as the claim form and show what is there, including nothing. This post explains what each part shows, so that when you look at the road board or the gravel board you know exactly what you are reading.

The board on each bike page

Each bike has one board. It lists every sponsor who paid on that bike, the zone they hold and the share of the goal that zone is worth. Rows are the sponsors; each row is one paid zone. A sponsor with two zones appears twice, once per zone. The board on the bike page shows the first rows, and the full board for a bike is one click away on its own page.

Nothing on the board is placed by hand. A row appears when a payment completes and disappears only if that payment is refunded or disputed, in which case the zone goes back to open.

The goal bar

Each board carries a bar showing the money claimed on that bike against its goal. The goal is the bike’s list price in dollars and does not move. The claimed figure is the sum of every paid zone on the board. When the bar fills, the board closes forever; if the campaign closes before it fills, everyone on that board is refunded in full, which is explained in the refund rule.

Because zone prices are derived to add up to the goal, the bar filling and the last zone selling are the same event.

Open and taken zones

The bike on the page shows each zone as open or taken. A taken zone carries the name or logo of the sponsor who holds it. An open zone shows its price, which is derived from its print area and visibility as how zone prices are worked out describes. The count of open zones against the total is shown with the board, so a board that is nearly full reads as nearly full.

The ticker

The strip at the top of the site shows the most recent paid claims across both bikes: a name and a zone, newest first. It reads from the same records as the two boards, so a claim appears in it the moment the payment completes. When there are no claims yet, the strip does not invent any; it describes the open board instead. That is a deliberate choice: a strip that scrolled made-up names would make the real ones worthless.

Why an empty board looks empty

The site has a demo mode for development, and the records it uses are marked as demo and kept out of the live boards. If a board on the live site shows no sponsors, it has no sponsors. There is no seeded activity, no placeholder names and no count that is not a count of paid zones. This is the same honesty the refund rule rests on: the board is the product, and the product is only worth having if it is true.

Reading an open board

An open board tells you three things. Which zones are still available, and at what price. How far the goal is from filling, which is how close the board is to closing. And who is already on the bike, which tells you what company your logo will keep. Those are the facts; the board makes no other claim. Choosing a zone is about turning the first of them into a decision.

The share beside each name

Each row on the board shows the share of the goal that the sponsor’s zone is worth, which is the zone’s price as a fraction of the bike’s goal. The share is derived the same way as the price, from print area and visibility, so a large share means a large, visible surface. Shares on a full board add up to the whole, because the prices do.

The one page that is not the board

The home page for each bike shows the first rows of its board. That is the same board, from the same records, cut short so that the page stays readable; it is not a separate list and it cannot disagree with the full board. The full board is one click away and lists every row.

When a row disappears

A row leaves the board in one case only: the payment behind it was refunded or disputed through the payment processor. The zone then goes back to open at its derived price, and the board reflects that at once. A row never leaves because someone paid more, because there is no outbidding on brandmybicycle; a zone is sold once and held.

The board as the record

Once a board fills, it is the permanent record of the wrap: who is on the bike, where, and at what share. It stays on the site for the life of the campaign, which is the life of the bike. Nothing is added or removed after closing, because every zone is sold and the vinyl is on.

After the board closes

When a board fills it stays on the site forever, listing every sponsor and their zone, while the bike is out on the road. The board is the record of the wrap. Nothing is added to it after it closes, because nothing can be: every zone is sold and the vinyl is on. How brandmybicycle works covers the rest of what happens from there.