Feedback for New Event Idea?

Poor books! Maybe they can print a sheet with the tear-off strips, the ones you used to see at grocery stores with classifieds and the phone # on the tear-off portions.

Sounds like a neat thing. I think it’d be relatively straightforward to have everybody tag their stop in a google map at the start point, and have the race organizer share the map with all participants at the start of the race.

Do it. Everything good in the cycling community here is because someone had an idea, advertised it and didn’t worry if 1 person showed up or 100 did.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’d totally show up to this. And Bobco85’s idea is great too!

Maybe make it teams if enough people sign up so it can have a social aspect? I don’t think that’d speed anything up, but it would make it more fun to bike around and hang out with at least one other person.

@cmj7gh 160210 wrote:

Hains Point

It should be entirely at Hains Point.

Suggest New District Brewing…. Bike and dog friendly and WABA / BTWD have had events there before… plus, it’s my friend’s business, and I like to plug it. I may even benefit from it eventually… full disclosure.

@trailrunner 160217 wrote:

When I used to do a lot of trail running, I was going to (but never did) organize something similar on a local network of trails. The only twist I had was that I was going to assign different point values to each location. I forget the details, but it was some sort of scrabble-based system. Each checkpoint was a letter, and some letters gave you more points based on their scrabble value. The idea was to put a layer of thought into it — should I go for two easy, but low-value letters that are close by, or go for the high-value X that’s further away? I was trying to avoid making it a race won by the fastest, yet keep it relatively simple. Not sure how well the idea would have worked in practice.

That sounds like something I did with a few friends back in 2004(?) and Pandamania. There were 150 pandas scattered around town, and we did a scavenger hunt to find (and take a picture with) as many as we could and get back to whatever point at a certain time. Points were awarded based on the number assigned to the panda, which was alphabetical (I think) from whatever the artist had titled it (so one location could have numbers 2, 47, and 135 nearby). As a result, there was some strategy involved to maximize points beyond “here’s where the most look to be on the map.”

@cmj7gh 160221 wrote:

I like the idea of weighting checkpoints a lot, but that would mean someone would have to plan it and wouldn’t be able to participate (or would have an advantage)

what if we just said “anything outside of Arlington is worth double”?

Not necessarily. Just assign the points spontaneously when you reveal them on the map the morning of the event. You could eyeball the checkpoints that look further out and give them a higher value. Or take the fourth letter from each person’s book and use that as the Scrabble letter for each checkpoint. Or draw numbers 1-20 from a hat for each checkpoint when you post the map. It doesn’t have to be perfect or clever. Once the map and values for each checkpoint are revealed, people can stay and examine the map to optimize their route, or they can just ride and do it by the seat of their pants.

I liked the idea of keeping it within a relatively small area like Arlington.

@TwoWheelsDC 160223 wrote:

So….an Alleycat?

But you can’t call it that or all the messengers will show up and kick all our butts.

Last one I did involved easter eggs and Mapei jerseys, and was put on by someone who went by “Spud”. Fun times.