2020 scoring system – is it an improvement?

@DismalScientist 199234 wrote:

Geez… I am not even participating this year.:rolleyes:

Then what did you mean by “we?”
And not being on a team or not does not preclude one from offering pointless prizes. Several people who are not assigned to teams are doing so. Feel free to jump in!

I kinda like the point system this year, but I definitely rode more last year! I don’t like the idea of teams getting negative points for teammates to miss a day – that would penalize the folks that do ride more rather than provide incentive for the rider that misses a day or two or more.

@JoM 199265 wrote:

I kinda like the point system this year, but I definitely rode more last year! I don’t like the idea of teams getting negative points for teammates to miss a day – that would penalize the folks that do ride more rather than provide incentive for the rider that misses a day or two or more.

If you can handle the truth, that is unless of course a “Code Red” is implemented.

What exactly is the main objective of the scoring system? Is it to prevent a runaway winner? or is it to improve competition? I do not believe there is a solution that can address the former, but if one looks at the overall competitiveness of teams, it is definitely an improvement over the previous. Furthermore, the fact that I rode TEN TIMES more per day as I did last year solely because of this new point system alone is a winner to me.

How about have the data do the talking? Do we have the data from past seasons for comparison?

i think the scoring system is generally good. the organizers could consider incentivizing the first 5 miles rather than the first 10, or reducing the number of points the first 10 miles are worth. either could be a good compromise between this year’s and last year’s scoring system for the competitiveness issue. if you miss/do low mileage for even just a day or 2, it’s really hard to make up those points, so it seems a little punitive. there was one day i was particularly busy and really had to force out even just 5 miles (which i really felt compelled to do since my team is at the top of the leaderboard, my psychology admittedly would have been a lot different if we weren’t positioned well). but that day was probably the least fun day of the competition and gave me some anxiety about being able to get the ride in since i didn’t want to let my team down. rather than the suggestion to punish non-ride days i would actually propose offering a grace day (or 2) by dropping the lowest scoring day for every rider. at the same time, you could still offer some kind of end-of-season incentive for those who did ride everyday.

this all being said, i have really enjoyed participating in BAFS for the first time this year. i’m semi new to Strava, but was definitely using it more for speed prior to the competition. since mileage is more important than speed for BAFS, it allowed me to think about my rides differently. i stopped and took more pictures, and generally enjoyed riding more, even though i’m mainly just a bike commuter. it also helped push me to get in shape after an injury for a difficult new commute on the custis. thanks to all who helped put this on!

Definitely an improvement over last year’s. I’ve really enjoyed seeing the power daily riders have had to make a difference. And we haven’t had the problem we had last year that teams were just stuck in place with no movement. This year there are some tight races!

…. says the captain of the team in 9th/10th place…. [emoji16]

Every time black diamonds passes us by I wanna glue David P to his sofa. But when they don’t I check his rides to make sure he’s okay.

[emoji3590]

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I admit that I was one of those who liked last year’s, because having a cap lessened the stress that I felt to do really long rides all the time when I have so much more going on in my life than just FS.

But, I like this year’s scoring perhaps a little better. It certainly made me get at least 6-8 mile on days when I would have been tempted to sleaze last year and then make up some other day in the week. And I still don’t feel the stress to get out and ride whacky miles – but that’s probably because my team is pretty consistently around 20th place.