BAFS 2019 General Info Sticky

[ShawnoftheDread]

@rcannon100 wrote:

As for the decision at issue, I will say – I think Subby is right.

Good god, man, don’t encourage him.

[hozn]

@ShawnoftheDread 183570 wrote:

Ah, by “encourages daily riding” you meant “encourages lots of sleaze rides.”

Sure, yes,daily sleaze rides. Emphasis shifts to riding every day as opposed to riding for any duration or distance. I assume the number was chosen due to being a median distance for the competitors, but I have no idea.

But are any of us discussing this even playing this game? . I’m certainly not, and would be surprised if Subby were to come back to this again.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@hozn 183573 wrote:

Sure, yes,daily sleaze rides. Emphasis shifts to riding every day as opposed to riding for any duration or distance. I assume the number was chosen due to being a median distance for the competitors, but I have no idea.

But are any of us discussing this even playing this game? . I’m certainly not, and would be surprised if Subby were to come back to this again.

I was planning on returning to it, which is why I saw this thread.

[AlanA]

@ShawnoftheDread 183570 wrote:

Ah, by “encourages daily riding” you meant “encourages lots of sleaze rides.”

Although I am fairly new to this dumb challenge (which I must admit, is very addictive), I seem to recall that the whole point of this challenge when it started was to promote daily commuters. Based upon this, it certainly seems to have gotten back to it’s original roots. Sadly, I don’t work, so this really doesn’t work for me. And you will certainly never find me awake before 7:00 am (unless I’m catching a flight to somewhere much warmer). And as per one other comment on this thread mentioned, there will be no benefit to doing a long team ride over the weekend.

But I still signed up because it’s fun to be participating in something and meeting other fellow cyclists. I’m pretty sure that past winners and winning teams have not been able to retire based upon their winnings from this challenge.

And one final note, I think the 1 mile sleaze ride is quite bogus. I’ve certainly done it in the past, but what does it really accomplish? A person riding one mile around their neighborhood in awful weather (or while they are sick) is not promoting anything of value.

[AliasXIII]

I’m really interested in and optimistic about the new system!

I was new to this last year, and am playing again this year. I don’t have the numbers, so I may be talking out of my butt — but, my impression as a newbie last year was that the team stuff felt like a race among the top three or maybe four members of each team, and what the bottom six or seven did didn’t seem to matter one way or the other. If your number #1 rider was worse than their #1 rider, that seemed to be more or less it. Again — maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what it felt like.

With the new system, I suspect that the top three riders on each team will max out every week — so the efforts of the 4th, 5th, and 6th riders on each team will matter a lot more, and the 7th through 10th will potentially make more of a difference. I think that having more people have more of a meaningful role in the team competition is a good thing.

[musclys]

I think the mile-cap rule is terrible — though it might be better for my mental-health this winter. But if this is about leveling the playing field and encouraging broader participation, why don’t we just do away with miles entirely. Or maybe count any outdoor activity miles. Can we start an e-scooter thread?

[secstate]

I think the mile-cap rule is a modest nod toward a long debate about how much team scores should benefit from having a few high-mileage riders. There’s no right or wrong answer here, and given the diverse (and it seems sometimes unhinged) psychologies that people bring to the competition, no scoring system will satisfy every need. It will be interesting to hear from teams and in particular members who are consistently below the cap about whether it motivated them to ride more, organize more team events, and so on.

It’s a worthwhile experiment. Kudos to this year’s active volunteers for making the change.

[Subby]

ok fine everyone starts each week with 50 miles as a way to mitigate the effect of people who sign up and never ride

[jrenaut]

This wasn’t a Bike Arlington decision – don’t kill the messenger. This was a decision based on the fact that we haven’t had competitive teams in years. One team has run away with it early ever since like year 2. And I would love to boot people who don’t keep up a decent weekly average, but that idea has never gained any real traction.

As a volunteer-run game, the people who consistently volunteer for the hard jobs get to make the rules. If the cap sucks this year, we can change it next year.

[dbehrend]

@jrenaut 183584 wrote:

If the cap sucks this year, we can change it next year.

It seems worth a try. Initially, I was a little disappointed. However, I think it may balance out the team competition a little and stills provides some incentive for big miles through the individual competition.

Honestly though, I’m curious how the cap will affect my motivation this year. I definitely rode more miles last year to support my team. I’ll hit the weekly cap with my commute.

[rcannon100]

@jrenaut 183584 wrote:

As a volunteer-run game, the people who consistently volunteer for the hard jobs get to make the rules.

Not true. Not the way Freezing Saddles was originally administered.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@AlanA 183575 wrote:

And one final note, I think the 1 mile sleaze ride is quite bogus. I’ve certainly done it in the past, but what does it really accomplish? A person riding one mile around their neighborhood in awful weather (or while they are sick) is not promoting anything of value.

Only if you assume no one would ride ~1 mile for anything, which is definitely not the case. The 1-mile rule incentivizes people to take a bike when they may not otherwise, like taking CaBi instead of Metro or a Lyft or whatever. While the 1-mile rule does enable the type of “sleaze” rides to which you are referring, I think you’d be surprised at the number of 1-ish mile rides in FS that are people using bikes to complete everyday tasks.

[huskerdont]

@TwoWheelsDC 183606 wrote:

Only if you assume no one would ride ~1 mile for anything, which is definitely not the case. The 1-mile rule incentivizes people to take a bike when they may not otherwise, like taking CaBi instead of Metro or a Lyft or whatever. While the 1-mile rule does enable the type of “sleaze” rides to which you are referring, I think you’d be surprised at the number of 1-ish mile rides in FS that are people using bikes to complete everyday tasks.

The ride to my liquor store and back is about 1 mile, for instance. I’ve logged quite a few of those rides.

[Henry]

@rcannon100 183509 wrote:

Damn. Give Henry a little bit of authority and he goes full Al Haig on us.

[IMG]https://consequenceofsound.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/henry-rollins-pissed-e1340822305474.jpeg?quality=80&w=336[/IMG]

Freezing Saddles corrupts, and Absolut Freezing Saddles corrupts Absolutly.

[musclys]

@TwoWheelsDC 183606 wrote:

Only if you assume no one would ride ~1 mile for anything, which is definitely not the case.

This is true. When their stations aren’t out of service — frustratingly frequent lately — I CaBi to the gym at lunch. It’s about half a mile, and a nice walk. But bike is quicker, and a there and back makes a perfect sleaze.

[Author]

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