Existential Thread: Or What is Freezing Saddles Really All About

This topic has 134 replies, 49 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 4 months ago by Powerful Pete.

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February 23, 2016 at 4:41 pm #1048162

americancyclo
Participant

@Steve O 135395 wrote:

I like to think of FS as a tool to grow our community.

Why bury the lede?

@Steve O 135395 wrote:

I want to cast a wide net to bring people in.

To the forum or to winter cycling?

Are you asking if the forum should be exclusionary or if Freezing Saddles should be exclusionary?

I don’t think we ever established rules about participation, but there were some guidelines from the archives:
@rcannon100 101029 wrote:

Please keep in mind that this is a game of the forum, by the forum, and for the forum. The whole point is a bunch of friends coming together to goof off. We hope that people will join in the reindeer games, come to happy hours, participate and even organize pointless prizes and side bets, and join in group rides.

Take care inviting weirdos to join. If you dont think the weirdo is going to join in the forum, or come to a happy hour, or join a group ride – maybe dont invite them. If on the other hand the weirdo likes reindeer games, and is interested in adopting a puppy, maybe they are perfect. Every year new people assimilate into our community during FS. But there are also those who sign up, never show up, never play – and we then have to deal with how to fix our game.

Registration goes through December 24th. People who buy me pie at FCCII will be put on a good team. The rest of you will be put on Steve O’s team.

February 23, 2016 at 5:39 pm #1048163

TwoWheelsDC
Participant

I think it’s possible to have a contest that can be for everyone. I mean, sure, require participants to sign up through the forum or whatever, but if this becomes a bigger thing within the DC area, that’s pretty cool. The forum could still play the host to the sidebets and happy hours and all that stuff, so those who want to have the motivation to ride but not the social aspect (ala the National Bike Challenge) can do so, but if they want to get anything more out of it, they come to the forum. Contrary to Bob’s guidelines, I’m not sure how this negatively impacts the competition…is the concern having riders on your team who aren’t social, or who don’t pull their weight? I think that happens whether it’s a “forum thing” or not (this year, I’m a good example of that type of teammate…sorry team!).

February 23, 2016 at 6:24 pm #1048164

ShawnoftheDread
Participant

There seem to be several new people here. And a lot of teams do their discussions on strava. You can’t expect everyone to join in the forum scrum.

February 23, 2016 at 8:48 pm #1048168

Bob James
Participant

I don’t comment in the forum much, but do read most of the comments and add a “like” here or there. Our team (11) decided to mostly comment within strava which made more sense for us for team discussion, but maybe not so much for BAFS-wide discussions. I do try to click on many’s BAFS rides in Strava and make comments of encouragement (or smack talk). I’ve been on only 1 ride this challenge with other riders (primarily for medical reasons), so I am not a shining example of the physical social aspects to BAFS, but I hear there is a final day big group ride at Haines Point that I look forward to meeting team and other BAFS rides who can attend. I guess my overall intent of posting this comments is there are other ways to communicate with team members and participate in the challenge than using this forum.

February 24, 2016 at 12:08 am #1048172

Rod Smith
Participant

Who invited this Bob James guy anyway (and his brother Caleb)? Bob seems like a nice guy and he came to my “team ride”, but he bumped me out of the top five individuals today and he doesn’t beerneur or own lots of n+1 bicycles. The James Brothers should be disqualified for unsociability and riding too much but I want them on our NBC team, so I say give them a pass.

I was amused to read a team captain’s post in which she mentioned that she “despises the forum” 😮 but Freezing Saddles has brought new blood to the forums. Whether it should be for existing members or for growing the community has been the subject of discussions before. I think the balance is pretty good. How are the new members finding Freezing Saddles? I think most find out about it in Facebook groups ‘Women and Bikes” and “Washington Area All-Stars” and word of mouth. I’m onboard with the effort to get more women riding, and I feel people who ride for the Washington Area All-Stars in the National Bike Challenge should be welcome. People who hear about by word of mouth are friends of friends. Not everyone who joins FS will become valued contributors to the forum but some will. Some will become members who visit the forum but don’t post much. What they learn here will make them better bicyclists. I know I have learned a lot here that has made me a better rider. Informed riders improve bicycling in greater DC generally which is good.

February 24, 2016 at 1:05 am #1048173

hozn
Participant

I don’t have a real strong opinion on whether this remains forum focused or whether the community is defined more broadly, but I do have a vested interest in some aspect of the competition logistics. So I have a few comments.

– I’m not sure how much larger this competition can grow without more sophisticated technology (making it possible for groups/teams and individual riders to self-diagnose problems about why rides aren’t syncing, etc.). So I guess what I’m suggesting is that we could cap ridership (at say 250) and decide how high we want to set the bar for participation, etc. Obviously we want it to be open to new people and those that aren’t going to ride 500 miles a week, but if someone doesn’t respond within 48 hours or log a ride in the first week of competition, it seems reasonable to drop them from the competition and pull in someone from a waitlist.

– Personally, I sympathize with the desire for teams not to converse on the forum. Forums are great when you really want to just read a single-topic thread, but really don’t fit many of the more modern paradigms that people use for communicating online. I don’t know that there’s an easy technological solution, but I think many agree that communication in the forum format is often poorly organized (“thread tangents” indicate the problem), easily missed, and oddly anonymous in the modern social-media age. Personally, I find Facebook a far easier way to track events, for example, than Forum threads. Whether the shop rides or the coffee clubs, etc. I notice those threads have gone cold on the Forum as they moved to Facebook. That all said, I still use the forum obviously, because others do too. And making it a requirement for FS participation seems reasonable if there is desire to increase membership.

– Ultimately, it probably doesn’t matter much how the competition started, but just what the current organizers & participants want to do with it going forward. I like the ideas vvill has raised this year with alternative scoring systems that could better capture the FS ethos. I think shifting focus a bit to make the side bets more first-class parts of the games would make sense. Maybe abolish the individual leaderboards or get more creative with them, to keep the focus more squarely on the teams. I liked Steve O’s earlier ideas of possibly shuffling things up teams during competition to keep things competitive. This year seems like it has had more top-spot churn, but there have been clear “not-winning” teams from pretty early on.

– And finally, on the technology front, I’d love to see the data being used to create more meaningful outside-of-competition relationships and improve cycling for everyone. E.g. “did you know that you and share a similar commute at similar time of day?” or “Did you know that the W&OD is now ridable again between Vienna and Falls Church?” There is a wealth of opportunity with the data we’re collecting. We’ve chipped a way at a little more this year, so it’s slowly evolving.

February 24, 2016 at 1:27 am #1048175

rcannon100
Participant

Team 11 we has it down. We dont talk neither on the Forum nor on Strava.

February 24, 2016 at 1:56 am #1048177

Bob James
Participant

Rod, I was only ahead of you in the standing very briefly and I had to bike at 2am just to have a few hours of glory before your next ride. As to the James boys, there should be a BAFS prize for the surname with the most points. You might think it would be the more common “Smith”, but no, it’s the James gang.

February 24, 2016 at 2:10 am #1048178

lbds137
Participant

As someone who rarely checks the forum (mainly because I never really got into it) and who was prodded to join the challenge by a coworker, I enjoy the data collection / competitive aspect of the challenge even though I don’t participate much socially (when I do, I definitely participate more on the Strava team page than here). I check my team’s Strava club leaderboard and the main Freezing Saddles data site pretty much daily, to see how I’m doing compared to my teammates and how my team is doing relative to other teams (and occasionally I check my individual stats against others’). I’m not super social in general, being more of an introvert, and I also don’t like the forum paradigm either. That Strava’s social interaction interface resembles Facebook’s more than this forum’s does is one of the reasons why I participate there more often than here, and another big reason is that I’m already on Strava anyway since I like to check up on my weekly goals for running and biking and give kudos to people I’m following. I also don’t like that the forum has an insecure (non-HTTPS) login form (whereas Strava does have HTTPS), which is why I’m using a weak / throwaway password here but not on Strava.

I’m not sure I’ll be checking the forums again super soon, but feel free to reply anyway. Just thought I’d share my $0.02…

February 24, 2016 at 2:17 am #1048182

jrenaut
Participant

@hozn 135413 wrote:

I’m not sure how much larger this competition can grow without more sophisticated technology (making it possible for groups/teams and individual riders to self-diagnose problems about why rides aren’t syncing, etc.)

This is an important point that I can relate to as a small-time contributor to the running of the FS website. If we expand much (any?) more, we need more help for hozn. I can help with mucking with data once it’s in the system, and tweaking the front end (I made the top 10 individual riders’ names bigger on the leaderboard and no one noticed), but I haven’t had the time (nor do I expect to have the time) to get far enough in to understand pulling the data from Strava. I know hozn isn’t going to just leave us stranded, but at the same time, real life has to come first, and if we don’t get more people contributing to the backend of the site, we can NOT get much bigger.

February 24, 2016 at 2:39 am #1048185

hozn
Participant

Yeah, all true. There are also API limits at play. We can’t fetch much more weather data than we are now, for example. And Strava increased the limits for this app, but that is also a factor. And Instagram API has limits, though I don’t know that we are hitting those.

I also wanted to mention that I like the role that FS has/could play in simply building community around winter cycling. That has been why I like the idea of a sidelines (slackers) team that wants to be part of a community, but not a competition. I don’t know that FS needs to be both, but I know I am always interested in seeing the snow ride pics even if not interested in playing.

February 24, 2016 at 3:17 am #1048186

Bob James
Participant

@jrenaut 135422 wrote:

…. (I made the top 10 individual riders’ names bigger on the leaderboard and no one noticed),…

I noticed and is one of my vain (err.. main) motivations to try and stay in the top 10 Thanks so much for yours, Hozn’s and anyone else contributing to the technical and administrative efforts of making this such a fun challenge.

February 24, 2016 at 3:29 am #1048187

Allan C
Participant

I’m a BAFS newbie. I think I learned about it from Twitter (Hey, forum, hello from 2016!) I’ve found it fun and social so far. Even though I’ve made it to only one happy hour so far (due to employment, children, and other trivialities), I still have hopes. And I’ve enjoyed meeting other riders on the trail and online. I’ve kudoed the hell out of folks on Strava and been modestly active in Team Fourth’s sanctum sanctorum on Facebook. I have ridden more because of this contest (including dragging my bike several blocks through thigh-deep snow for an 11pm sleaze ride in a blizzard.) So, I think Freezing Saddles is jolly game. But if it is all about the Forum… well, let me know where to return the green wristband.

February 24, 2016 at 3:30 am #1048188

Trailofgears
Participant

@Bob James 135417 wrote:

Rod, I was only ahead of you in the standing very briefly and I had to bike at 2am just to have a few hours of glory before your next ride. As to the James boys, there should be a BAFS prize for the surname with the most points. You might think it would be the more common “Smith”, but no, it’s the James gang.

Don’t Be a NEWB: Where there are gathered two or more individuals with the last name James, they shall be refered to as a gang; i.e. “The James Gang”. Failure to do so is punishable by immediate train robbery – per American lore and tradition.

To Your Oh So Existential AF Point: I cherish this community and consider myself a virtual “keeper” or “troll” in this and similar bike-related mediums. And I do not feel wholly comfortable in this internet-based persona. I do however feel comfortable on a bike, which is where you’ll find me – year round – and it’s never been easier to find me thanks to BAFS.

Reach out any way that makes you feel comfortable. Strava, Twitter, IG, FB, email, text. Late

P.S. I gave this disclaimer to my team in like our first week of existence, but we communicate primarily via Strava.

February 24, 2016 at 3:37 am #1048189

sjclaeys
Participant

I can understand the frustration with people who sign up but then don’t participate in any way with there teams on or off the Forum. Maybe we should just have an “individuals” team for those who like the data and the competition but are not interested in team building. I think that a bigger problem is people who sign up and then hardly ride. It isn’t fair to those on the waiting list and makes the team competition a crap shoot over who are unfortunate to get such people on their team. I think that there should be a ride/milage cut-off maybe at the end of each month. If you don’t meet it, you are dropped. I have ideas on how to keep things fair for the teams who has a dropped member. For those who haven’t ridden due to medical/work/family, then there could be an appeal process through the team captain.
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