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Introduction

Syrac is a paragliding time attack platform. It allows you to race on permanent tasks and try to climb to the top of its leaderboard. You can also create and share your own tasks, challenging everyone to complete them as fast as possible.

Manifesto

Paragliding competitions are incredible events. You get to race with dozens of pilots across majestic landscapes, using gear which is nothing short of an engineering marvel. However, there are three important limitations:

  • scoring is obscure
  • competitions are expensive
  • weather plays an important part

The goal of Syrac is to offer an alternative to regular paragliding competitions by proposing solutions to these issues.

Scoring

Both local and international XC competitions have settled for an ever-changing way of computing the score of each pilot for a given flight. Scoring formulas have reached complexity levels such that you cannot know who is the winner of a task or a competition when you land.

Pilots have to wait for GPS tracks to be processed by closed-source software implementing loosely-defined specifications1 in order to elect their winner. Even though the reasons for introducing such complexity can be justified, it can also be argued that the evolution of scoring has hurt competitiveness.

Syrac addresses this issue by coming back to the essence of racing: time. The only thing that matters in a leaderboard is the time it took a pilot to complete the task from the Start of Speed Section (SSS) to the End of Speed Section (ESS).

Cost

Paragliding is an expensive sport. Equipment constitutes a significant budget, and has to be renewed fairly often. Local competitions are fairly affordable, but international competitions often involve long-haul flights, hotel bookings, logistics costs as well as registration fees. This cost of entry restricts high-level competition access to relatively wealthy pilots.

Syrac is free. Use it, give us your feedback, and we can make it better together. Everyone is welcome. We don't sell your data, we don't force you to see dumb ads, and we never will.

Weather

Competitions are scheduled months in advance so pilots can only hope for favourable weather conditions during the event. In the past, several international events spanning multiple weeks have had as little as a couple of flyable days.

Syrac tasks are here forever. Once a task is created, anyone can try to get the fastest time in as many attempts as they wish. This allows pilots who are not able fly every day to still be able to compete for the top of the leaderboard.

We hope Syrac offers an interesting alternative to XC competitions and permanent rankings, enabling pilots from all backgrounds to race together.

  1. See FAI Sporting Code or PWCA rules. ↩

Rules

Syrac is designed to have a few simple rules, which are described here. If you think some of these rules are not fair or could be improved, feel free to suggest a change.

Tasks

Creating tasks

Everyone can create tasks using either built-in XCTrack features or third-party tools. There are some restrictions regarding the tasks that can be submitted:

  • tasks should be submitted in XCTrack format
  • tasks should be of type ELAPSED-TIME
  • tasks must have a Start of Speed Section (SSS) and an End of Speed Section (ESS)
  • tasks must have between 0 and 20 turnpoints, excluding SSS and ESS
  • turnpoint radius must be between 100m and 100km
  • optimized task distance between SSS and ESS must be between 5km and 500km

In order to prevent spam, free users can create a maximum of 10 tasks per 24-hour window.

Deleting tasks

You can only delete the tasks you created, and which have not been completed yet. As soon as someone (including you) completes a given task, it becomes part Syrac's permanent task pool.

If you were the first one to complete a task which was deleted, feel free to re-create the task yourself and submit your track.

If you wish to request the deletion of a completed task, or the update of task metadata, please request a manual change. Make sure to include a link to the task as well as a clear explanation of the requested changes.

Flights

Everyone can submit attempts for all tasks, without limits. You can submit multiple attempts to the same task (or different ones) during the same day. Tracks should be submitted as IGC files with a valid signature.

Cheating

The following actions are considered cheating. Cheating users will first receive a warning, and then be permanently banned from the platform should they attempt to cheat again.

  • submitting a flight track which is not yours
  • submitting a forged IGC file

Privacy Policy

Updated March 19, 2022

This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.

We use Your Personal data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, You agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Interpretation and Definitions

Interpretation

The words of which the initial letter is capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.

Definitions

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy:

  • Account means a unique account created for You to access our Service or parts of our Service.

  • Affiliate means an entity that controls, is controlled by or is under common control with a party, where "control" means ownership of 50% or more of the shares, equity interest or other securities entitled to vote for election of directors or other managing authority.

  • Application means the software program provided by the Company downloaded by You on any electronic device, named Syrac.

  • Company (referred to as either "the Company", "We", "Us" or "Our" in this Agreement) refers to Syrac Organization.

  • Country refers to: France

  • Device means any device that can access the Service such as a computer, a cellphone or a digital tablet.

  • Personal Data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.

  • Service refers to the Application.

  • Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Company. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Company to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Company, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Company in analyzing how the Service is used.

  • Third-party Social Media Service refers to any website or any social network website through which a User can log in or create an account to use the Service.

  • Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).

  • You means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.

Collecting and Using Your Personal Data

Types of Data Collected

Personal Data

While using Our Service, We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

  • First name and last name
  • Email address
  • Usage Data

Usage Data

Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service.

Usage Data may include information such as Your Device's Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

When You access the Service by or through a mobile device, We may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device You use, Your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of Your mobile device, Your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser You use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit our Service or when You access the Service through a mobile device.

Information from Third-Party Social Media Services

The Company allows You to create an account and log in to use the Service through the following Third-party Social Media Services:

  • Google
  • Facebook

If You decide to register through a Third-Party Social Media Service, We may collect Personal data that is already associated with Your Third-Party Social Media Service's account, such as Your name, Your email address and Your profile picture.

Information Collected while Using the Application

While using Our Application, in order to provide features of Our Application, We may collect, with Your prior consent:

  • Information regarding your location

We use this information to provide features of Our Service, to improve and customize Our Service. The information may be uploaded to the Company's servers and/or a Service Provider's server.

You can enable or disable access to this information at any time, through the Application settings.

Use of Your Personal Data

The Company may use Personal Data for the following purposes:

  • To provide and maintain our Service, including to monitor the usage of our Service.

  • To manage Your Account: to manage Your registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user.

  • To contact You: To contact You by email, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application's push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the functionalities, products or contracted services, including the security updates, when necessary or reasonable for their implementation.

  • To manage Your requests: To attend and manage Your requests to Us.

  • For other purposes: We may use Your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, to evaluate and improve our Service and Your experience.

We may share Your personal information in the following situations:

  • With Service Providers: We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.

  • With other users: when You share personal information or otherwise interact in the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside. If You interact with other users or register through a Third-Party Social Media Service, Your contacts on the Third-Party Social Media Service may see Your name, profile, pictures and description of Your activity. Similarly, other users will be able to view descriptions of Your activity, communicate with You and view Your profile.

  • With Your consent: We may disclose Your personal information for any other purpose with Your consent.

Retention of Your Personal Data

The Company will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. You can request removal of all Your Personal Data at any time in the settings of the Application.

The Company will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Transfer of Your Personal Data

Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at the Company's servers. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of Your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from Your jurisdiction.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by Your submission of such information represents Your agreement to that transfer.

The Company will take all steps necessary to ensure that Your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of Your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.

All data transfers including Your information are encrypted using Transport Layer Security, so that your Personal Data is protected in transit.

Disclosure of Your Personal Data

Business Transactions

If the Company is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, Your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before Your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.

Law enforcement

Under certain circumstances, the Company may be required to disclose Your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).

The Company may disclose Your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

  • Comply with a legal obligation
  • Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company
  • Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
  • Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public
  • Protect against legal liability

Security of Your Personal Data

Children's Privacy

Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If You are a parent or guardian and You are aware that Your child has provided Us with Personal Data, please contact Us. If We become aware that We have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, We take steps to remove that information from Our servers.

If We need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing Your information and Your country requires consent from a parent, We may require Your parent's consent before We collect and use that information.

Links to Other Websites

Our Service may contain links to other websites that are not operated by Us. If You click on a third party link, You will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise You to review the Privacy Policy of every site You visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on Our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and modify the "Updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, You can contact us: