BAFS 2020 teams and rules discussion

[Subby]

@josh 193356 wrote:

I like Subby’s idea he tossed out earlier this year — individual leaderboard is based solely on miles ridden (no cap), team leaderboard is based solely on days ridden (at least 1 mile). I’m indifferent to the size of teams, but I like local teams (although they’re more of a pain to set up). Alternatively, we could select captains from a volunteer pool, and have them draft players (this is cycling, drafting is important right?).

This is genius so genius I forgot I suggested it.

[jrenaut]

I vote no participants tear their Achilles in early March and miss the end of the competition.

I didn’t like the mileage cap. I don’t think it made it much closer, and it annoyed higher mileage riders. I’m okay annoying people for a better competition, but if I’m going to annoy people simply for annoyance sake, I’d rather be more creative about it.

I love that i nearly died of heat stroke two days ago and today we’re talking about Freezing Saddles.

Local teams do not work well for DC residents. On average, VA and MD residents have longer commutes and just do more miles. The year I was on a DC team I was our leading scorer but would have been 4th or 5th on the top teams, and I don’t think this is unusual. If we want to do regional teams that might work? MD teams and VA teams and then DC folks go one or the other depending on location in the city? Sounds complicated, though.

I’ve said for years that we should drop non-participants. I think the threshold should be more towards days ridden rather than mileage – if you ride 1-3 miles 4-5 days a week, awesome. If you ride once a week, regardless of mileage, bye.

[jrenaut]

@Shepard 193363 wrote:

This may be entirely too complicated but is there a way to create a points system that rewards the nervous newbie with extra points for riding more often or longer. In other words can we create a scoring system that rewards challenging oneself and improvement.

It wouldn’t be hard to give a points bump to someone classified as a newbie. The hard part is classifying newbies properly. New to cycling vs new to winter riding vs new to BAFS? We don’t want to give bonus points to year-round 300 miles a week riders just because this is their first BAFS

[rcannon100]

[rcannon100]

I would like to suggest that we start essentially with no rules. We do something, I dont know, like hide a water bottle. Whoever finds the water bottle, gets to propose a rule – and hide the water bottle. If the proposed rule gets like five votes, it becomes law. And in this way, the rules will be entirely made up, and the points wont matter. The game will be different every day you play it. And if Robyn is involved, the game will involve massive amounts of alcohol.

[rcannon100]

@drevil 193349 wrote:

I realize feelings can get hurt, but if they aren’t doing minimal points requirement, then maybe they’re better on the casual team?

And we could call that team…. wait for it….. The Slackers!*

*The original name of the team who just wanted to play the reindeer games, socialize, and not have to commute via Whites Ferry every day.

[chuxtr]

And this is exactly why I started this thread!

@rcannon100 193371 wrote:

[accordioneur]

@jrenaut 193367 wrote:

I vote no participants tear their Achilles in early March and miss the end of the competition.

Achilles Schmillies. During Freezing Saddles 2017 I got a call from my doctor with some alarming cardiac test results. She said I should immediately curtail all exercise and get to a cardiologist ASAP. I said I would … then went for a bike ride. I woulda biked to the ensuing heart surgery too if my wife had let me.

On a less tangential note, I agree that we should make an effort to keep it friendly for newbies.

[ChristoB50]

I dithered last winter about whether I should join or not, because it was my first winter ever attempting biking, and ultimately I missed the cutoff to sign up. But I used BAFS to motivate me to try winter riding, and by the end I logged 40 days of biking during the event, totaling 828 miles. Because I wasn’t on Strava for any of that time, I didn’t bother with sleaze rides on the off days, since I wasn’t earning points for a team.
I love that BAFS pushed me to try winter commuting! And I love that I also got a little competitive fix in, much to my surprise, via Judd’s Pointless Prize, since I’d never stand a chance of winning a mileage competition here.
Looking forward to reading the final rules for 2020, and probably dithering a bit again…

[huskerdont]

Last year’s rules were fine. This year’s rules will be fine. Ima ride my bike.

That said, I wouldn’t advocate for making it too difficult for newbies to join in, since that’s ostensibly one of the purposes of FS.

[Emm]

I liked local teams, and I like games. But honestly, I’ll ride my bike this winter with local people and play the games regardless of what the rules are. If you make a rule that encourages more happy hours, group rides, and friendship-making, I’ll support it. Otherwise, I am going to go hide under a rock until people stop talking about the rules.

[consularrider]

What I need to know is when the opening happy hour will be so I can start making travel plans. And the date of the post event awards/happy hour so I can coordinate a dental appointment.

[matteblack]

Last year was my first year doing Frozen Saddles (and the reason why I’m here in the first place). As a newbie participant, I would have been eligible for the previously mentioned bonus, but, since I consistently rode over 100 miles per week, getting bonus points as a newbie wouldn’t seem right. But, with that in mind, I wouldn’t mind upping the points cap to 150 — or making a daily cap of 25 points / day? Not sure what this would do to teams or whether it’d be the same, but it might allow teams that have some, ahem, slackers that only ride once or twice every two weeks to compete against other teams. (Or maybe I’m just thinking out loud.)

I like the idea of an individual leader board (no cap on miles) vs. the team leader board (capped miles).

As for the whole commuting thing, I guess that rules me out since I work from home full-time. That being said, I pretty much ride every day (well, 5-6 x week on average) so take that for what it’s worth (or not).

I never joined in social events with my team last year and didn’t go to opening/closing ceremonies (I’m in western Fairfax, I’m not going into DC unless it’s to see the Caps or Nats play or riding my monthly Gravelly Point lollipop). Had the ceremonies been in Arlington (which, based on the name of this forum, I thought they would be), I’d probably make a showing.

Just my 2¢ (and probably not even worth that) :p:D

That all being said, I’m competitive by nature and found that this kept me motivated to ride outside vs in the basement on the trainer. In 2018, I rode 4-5x per week between 1/1 and 3/21, but only twice in that entire span did I ride outside. This year (2019), I rode outside *every* day and only rode on my trainer 3x during that entire period. I can’t wait to do it again in 2020!

[jrenaut]

@matteblack 193418 wrote:

I like the idea of an individual leader board (no cap on miles) vs. the team leader board (capped miles)

Just to be clear – we DID (and still do) have this.

[ian74]

@rcannon100 193372 wrote:

I would like to suggest that we start essentially with no rules. We do something, I dont know, like hide a water bottle. Whoever finds the water bottle, gets to propose a rule – and hide the water bottle. If the proposed rule gets like five votes, it becomes law. And in this way, the rules will be entirely made up, and the points wont matter. The game will be different every day you play it. And if Robyn is involved, the game will involve massive amounts of alcohol.

Leave it to dirty ‘ol Cannon to jump right in and start suggesting the ol’ “Hide the Water Bottle” game…

Also….what are everyone’s thoughts on eBikes?

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