2017 Freezing Saddles Thread #1

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  • October 26, 2016 at 3:33 pm #1059409
    cvcalhoun
    Participant

    @Sunyata 147870 wrote:

    We should have a hard cut off date for registration. Last year’s last minute additions were a HUGE pain in the saddle sore.
    Is there a way to make sure that everyone who signs up, actually participates? If so, can we do that?

    For the record, the rules last year were supposed to be that only people who registered by the cut-off would automatically be on teams. Those who registered later were supposed to get on only a) to balance out teams so each one would have the same number of players, or b) to replace people who dropped out. You were the one who let people on without regard to that. So if we just enforce the existing rules, we should be fine on that part of it.

    We’d also talked last year about cutting off assignment to teams even before the cut-off once registrations hit a certain number. I believe 250 was the number hozn suggested. That keeps the game from getting too cumbersome, and also avoids programming issues that arise with a larger group.

    And I’d be happy with a rule that said that if you don’t participate in the first week or two (and don’t provide a good reason like, “I’m in a cast right now, but it’s coming off next week”), you’re off the team. Let one of those late registrants have that spot.

    October 26, 2016 at 3:40 pm #1059410
    cvcalhoun
    Participant

    @rcannon100 147880 wrote:

    Yes. People who are not part of this community – who get recruited to join – have, in my experience, a low participation rate. A solution would be to limit FS to this community – as it was always designed as a game among friends – not as anything else. Keep it within the community, and you will increase participation.

    FWIW, only people who are part of this community have ever been allowed to join–we require a forum name to join. So the issue would be whether to require some minimum number of posts.

    October 26, 2016 at 3:52 pm #1059412
    rcannon100
    Participant

    To the people who oppose the slacker team, the begged question is -> what in the world difference does it make TO YOU. There is this patronizing tone to this argument about whether there should or should not be a slacker team. Where people are declaring what other people should be allowed to do. But what is lacking is that it has NO IMPACT ON YOU. It doesnt matter to you. Good for you – you have an opinion on the matter. You dont want to be on the slacker team – DONT BE ON THE SLACKER TEAM. But declaring BS that you dont think the slacker team should be allowed because X, or Y, or Z – is imposing your views on how other people get to participate in this game. You dont like it – dont be on the slacker team – but the existence of the slacker team impacts you not in the least.

    Why is the slacker team? Like Chris said, there are people who want to participate in FS, who dont want to be part of the competitive team process. “Every miles counts, and blah blah blah” – look, some people for differing reasons – dont want to compete and dont want to hear about it when, for example, they know half way through the season they will no longer be participating.

    I always find this to be one of the stupidiest FS discussions. If you dont want to be on the slacker team, DONT BE. But why would deny the opportunity to participate to someone who choses to play FS in a more limited way. The existence of the slacker team does not impact YOUR participation in FS in the least. So let go of it.

    October 26, 2016 at 3:56 pm #1059413
    cvcalhoun
    Participant

    @chris_s 147859 wrote:

    Anyone wishing to advocate for no e-bikes is required to pedal my fully loaded bakfiets up Superman Hill with the pedal assist turned off. DM me to setup a time.

    I agree. E-bikes (other than the Elf) have always been allowed, and excluding them would disqualify some of our longest and most enthusiastic participants.

    We could argue all day about whether the effort to ride X miles on an e-bike is greater or less than the amount of effort required to ride X miles on a fully nonelectric bike, taking into account the weight of the bikes that typically get e-assist, the number of children riding in them, and the size of the hills those people are going up. But let’s face it–this is more social than hard core competition. And I am 100% certain that no one spends the amount of money required to buy an e-bike just to get an advantage in Freezing Saddles

    And the effort required per mile is already quite disparate. I ride a 65-lb. bike. I almost always ride the CCT, which is all uphill on the way home, so my elevation gain is out of proportion to the miles ridden. The guy doing Haynes Point laps on his 15-lb. bike has it a lot easier than me. But I don’t get extra credit for either the weight of my bike or the elevation. So I have no issue with letting e-bikes in, whether or not the effort to pedal them is equal to mine.

    October 26, 2016 at 4:10 pm #1059414
    cvcalhoun
    Participant

    @hozn 147867 wrote:

    I may be able to integrate registration in with the application. But work is also heating up, so that may not be feasible by sign-up time. My goal would be to have people log in with their forum credentials (don’t worry, we won’t store unhashed passwords) and then also authorize the application for strava. That will validate that they have a valid forum login and it’ll also take any guess work out of looking at their performance (in strava) for last freezing saddles and/or looking at average monthly points for purposes of populating the teams.

    So, do you want me to come up with a registration form, on the theory you won’t have time to do it before sign-up time? Or do you want me to hold off until you figure out whether you will have time?

    October 26, 2016 at 4:11 pm #1059415
    vvill
    Participant

    @chris_s 147890 wrote:

    I think the existence of a slacker team is fully justifiable (as above) and what/whom does it harm?

    Agreed.

    Also, e-bikes: yes.

    On participation – I think just have the first two weeks or so (14 days as jrenaut suggests) without team assignments. After two weeks, assign teams based on those who’ve actually registered successfully and logged rides. (Of course you could “underachieve” for the first two weeks and then suddenly ride a lot – but you’ll already have sacrificed two weeks of riding points by then.) Don’t need to worry about seeding from previous years/newbies who actually ride a lot/etc.

    October 26, 2016 at 4:16 pm #1059416
    TwoWheelsDC
    Participant

    @rcannon100 147893 wrote:

    To the people who oppose the slacker team, the begged question is -> what in the world difference does it make TO YOU. There is this patronizing tone to this argument about whether there should or should not be a slacker team. Where people are declaring what other people should be allowed to do. But what is lacking is that it has NO IMPACT ON YOU. It doesnt matter to you. Good for you – you have an opinion on the matter. You dont want to be on the slacker team – DONT BE ON THE SLACKER TEAM. But declaring BS that you dont think the slacker team should be allowed because X, or Y, or Z – is imposing your views on how other people get to participate in this game. You dont like it – dont be on the slacker team – but the existence of the slacker team impacts you not in the least.

    Why is the slacker team? Like Chris said, there are people who want to participate in FS, who dont want to be part of the competitive team process. “Every miles counts, and blah blah blah” – look, some people for differing reasons – dont want to compete and dont want to hear about it when, for example, they know half way through the season they will no longer be participating.

    I always find this to be one of the stupidiest FS discussions. If you dont want to be on the slacker team, DONT BE. But why would deny the opportunity to participate to someone who choses to play FS in a more limited way. The existence of the slacker team does not impact YOUR participation in FS in the least. So let go of it.

    My thinking is that it just adds another layer of complexity for those doing the work on the back end (another box to add to the sign-up sheet, another team to create on the website, etc…), when the functional need for a Slacker Team has gone away. At this point in the competition, I think the onus is on wannabe Slackers to justify the extra work beyond “cuz we wanna.” However, if the people actually doing the organizational/technical work don’t care, then sure, Slacker Team…

    October 26, 2016 at 4:17 pm #1059411
    cvcalhoun
    Participant

    @TwoWheelsDC 147897 wrote:

    My thinking is that it just adds another layer of complexity for those doing the work on the back end (another box to add to the sign-up sheet, another team to create on the website, etc…), when the functional need for a Slacker Team has gone away. At this point in the competition, I think the onus is on wannabe Slackers to justify the extra work beyond “cuz we wanna.” However, if the people actually doing the organizational/technical work don’t care, then sure, Slacker Team…

    We had a poll last year in which the vote was in favor of the existing system, in which we allow slackers but limit participation as a slacker to veterans. We can, of course, beat that dead horse again this year, but if it were up to me, I wouldn’t.

    And by the way, I did the registration form last year. Adding one extra box to the form is not really an issue–and it ensures that those who become slackers have pledged that they are veterans, have put in their forum names and Strava numbers, etc. Having slackers sign up only by joining the slacker team after registration is over, by contrast, is a huge pain in the saddle area.

    October 26, 2016 at 4:35 pm #1059421
    TwoWheelsDC
    Participant

    @TwoWheelsDC 147897 wrote:

    My thinking is that it just adds another layer of complexity for those doing the work on the back end (another box to add to the sign-up sheet, another team to create on the website, etc…), when the functional need for a Slacker Team has gone away. At this point in the competition, I think the onus is on wannabe Slackers to justify the extra work beyond “cuz we wanna.” However, if the people actually doing the organizational/technical work don’t care, then sure, Slacker Team…

    Also, I would add that the insistence on being placed on a Slacker team at this point is essentially no different than lobbying to be on a specific team (because friends or whatever) which, to my knowledge, has never been allowed.

    October 26, 2016 at 5:00 pm #1059422
    lordofthemark
    Participant

    @hozn 147867 wrote:

    I may be able to integrate registration in with the application. But work is also heating up, so that may not be feasible by sign-up time. My goal would be to have people log in with their forum credentials (don’t worry, we won’t store unhashed passwords) and then also authorize the application for strava. That will validate that they have a valid forum login and it’ll also take any guess work out of looking at their performance (in strava) for last freezing saddles and/or looking at average monthly points for purposes of populating the teams.

    (I do not have any ambitions of making a team population algorithm, but someone is welcome to decide they’d take that on [and all the baggage therein].)

    I don’t care about ebikes, because they haven’t shown to actually disrupt the competition (or at least the leaderboards) in any way. Heck, I hardly saw the Elf guy driving the W&OD last winter, so I wouldn’t even care if we let that troll play. :-)

    I would like to disallow manual entries, though. If you want to get creative you can always construct GPX files and upload them (you could do this in Strava too to get around their prohibition of manual rides for all their competitions).

    And FWIW I tend to agree with SteveO that the slackers team probably doesn’t need to exist. The competition has grown large enough that there isn’t much reason to feel like you have to go out and ride like crazy. Maybe the placement algorithm (person) could take into consideration expectation of riding far fewer miles for placement purposes. On the other hand, this competition has gotten really big. If growth trends continue this year, we might need to start thinking of subdividing the competition or something. There are some technical challenges (and work!) there to say the least.

    The manual rides are the only thing here that effects me, as I do sometimes have issues with Strava, and have no idea how to create a GPX file. But I appreciate the volunteer effort of our coders, and if it makes it easier to leave that out, fine. I will need to A. Be more careful about logging rides and B. Just accept I will miss some miles on some rides.

    October 26, 2016 at 5:11 pm #1059423
    cvcalhoun
    Participant

    @hozn 147867 wrote:

    I would like to disallow manual entries, though. If you want to get creative you can always construct GPX files and upload them (you could do this in Strava too to get around their prohibition of manual rides for all their competitions).

    On the other hand, this competition has gotten really big. If growth trends continue this year, we might need to start thinking of subdividing the competition or something. There are some technical challenges (and work!) there to say the least.

    @lordofthemark 147905 wrote:

    The manual rides are the only thing here that effects me, as I do sometimes have issues with Strava, and have no idea how to create a GPX file. But I appreciate the volunteer effort of our coders, and if it makes it easier to leave that out, fine. I will need to A. Be more careful about logging rides and B. Just accept I will miss some miles on some rides.

    Yeah, leaving out manual rides would be a bit frustrating for me–it seems like when I forget to turn on the Garmin or its battery dies, it’s always for a particularly long or difficult ride. However, I now have two Garmins (one on the bike, one on my watch), which should alleviate the problem. And I figure that other people also forget to record rides, so it all works out in the end. So I’m happy to eliminate manual rides if that makes hozn’s job easier.

    As for splitting the competition, I’d rather just limit the total size. That way, the people who are paying attention here on the forum get in, and the ones who aren’t, don’t, which fosters the goal of getting only people who are going to pay attention once the competition starts. Splitting the competition would take away a lot of the social aspects, as people could easily find that they are not in the same competition as any of their friends. And newbies to the competition would only meet half the people.

    October 26, 2016 at 5:14 pm #1059424
    Steve O
    Participant

    @TwoWheelsDC 147904 wrote:

    Also, I would add that the insistence on being placed on a Slacker team at this point is essentially no different than lobbying to be on a specific team (because friends or whatever) which, to my knowledge, has never been allowed.

    I think the way around this is there is no “team.” There are individual slackers/friends/supporters/whatever who participate in the side bets, social activities, etc., but are not on any team. I think that captures the idea of what the slackers want: the fun without the competitive frenzy.

    Another idea would be to assign the slackers to a team, and they would serve as a sort of coxswain. They wouldn’t have any points or miles counted but would rather be in a position to provide moral support to their teammates and smack talk to their enemies. The more I think about this idea the more I like it. Have the slackers be the captains: they round and rally the troops without worrying about riding themselves.

    October 26, 2016 at 5:32 pm #1059426
    dkel
    Participant

    @Steve O 147907 wrote:

    Have the slackers be the captains: they round and rally the troops without worrying about riding themselves.

    You want to do less for whatever reason, so we make you a team captain. :confused:

    October 26, 2016 at 5:34 pm #1059427
    TwoWheelsDC
    Participant

    @Steve O 147907 wrote:

    I think the way around this is there is no “team.” There are individual slackers/friends/supporters/whatever who participate in the side bets, social activities, etc., but are not on any team. I think that captures the idea of what the slackers want: the fun without the competitive frenzy.

    Another idea would be to assign the slackers to a team, and they would serve as a sort of coxswain. They wouldn’t have any points or miles counted but would rather be in a position to provide moral support to their teammates and smack talk to their enemies. The more I think about this idea the more I like it. Have the slackers be the captains: they round and rally the troops without worrying about riding themselves.

    Going back to my original point…”slacking” isn’t a thing anymore, given that so many competitors just don’t put in many miles. So the impetus for a “Slacker” team is gone and there is effectively zero pressure to put in miles, since the top 10% of riders do 90% of the miles. So if the “slackers” are going to sign up anyway, just put them on a team like everyone else; how much moral support they provide is up to them and no one is going to put any competitive pressure on them anyway.

    October 26, 2016 at 5:57 pm #1059428
    vern
    Participant

    Reading this thread makes me feel like I’m captured in the middle of some episode of Seinfeld where, in the end, it’s all about nothing.

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