Chalkbot

AS I'M SURE EVERYONE KNOWS, the Tour de France begins this Saturday and runs for 23 days (tune in to Versus at 9:30 a.m. Saturday for live coverage of the Prologue in Monaco, preceded by an hour-long special on Lance Armstrong at 8:30).

One of the great traditions of the Tour de France is for the Tour "crazies" to "paint" (with chalk, usually) messages on the roads of France prior to the Tour rolling through: the names of favorite riders, "Viva la Tour!", etc. This year, technology has come to road painting. Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation, in connection with some American software guys who developed an amazing machine, will be spreading messages on the Tour roads in memory of cancer fighters and survivors.

The machine they developed—the Chalkbot—is pulled behind a pickup truck and has the ability to spray a message onto a roadway with perfect lettering. The message is typed into the machine, then software controls the pneumatic pumps that spray the liquid (?) chalk onto the roadway. Sure, it takes a bit of the romance out of the hand-chalked messages of yore, but it allows cancer fighters and survivors from all over the world to text their messages in and have them appear on the roadways of France during the Tour. Leave it to the Americans to integrate technology with tradition!

Check out the Chalkbot in action (short video) here.