BAFS 2020 teams and rules discussion

[rcannon100]

@ian74 193445 wrote:

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

[Nadine]

@chuxtr 193354 wrote:

How soon would you start dropping riders from teams? After the first week? Two weeks? Would you drop a rider who has previously met the minimum but then doesn’t in a subsequent week?

I’d wait 2 weeks I think – because sometimes serious riders go on vacations in winter. Or are you planning to control for vacations a different way?

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[Nadine]

@Brandon 193359 wrote:

I wasn’t really a fan of it. I live FAR out of DC in Vienna and am an everyday commuter for the most part. Family and kid commitments typically limit my participation on weekends for group rides and with the length of my commute, it makes any sort of coffee/happy hours difficult as well. Basically, my participation has been limited to my commute for the most part. My first year I really felt like I was able to contribute to my team with the high mileage i racked up commuting so I didn’t feel awful if I missed days on the weekend. But with a mileage cap my contribution to the team is limited, especially since I’m not able to partake in the many social aspects of the game (which was the goal I realize for the cap anyways). And I don’t care about the individual points, I’m not out to “win” anything, I just want to let some others take advantage of my high miles to the benefit of a team.

The more “local” a team is for me raises the likelihood that I could participate in some of the social activities

I like the current team sizes

Yes

I agree with all of this. I rode LESS last bafs because of the mileage team contribution cap.

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[Smitty2k1]

Looking forward to my first year participating in this even though I’ve commuted all winter the past two seasons.

[obscurerichard]

I’m really excited to see such good ideas being posted. As it will fall to jrenaut and me (and maybe hozn if we are lucky) to implement any rule changes, in the absence of additional volunteers we are going to have to choose carefully what we pick.

My personal bias is to encourage camaraderie over hardcore competition and avoid rules that will drive new riders away or be hard to understand or implement. Giving the people the choice of preferring a local team is appealing. I like the idea of having a much smaller team, raising or changing the point cap for team scoring, or just making the team score based on days ridden.

I really like that last idea, btw, because it would allow a dedicated team that just rides every day to crush a team composed of elite racers and retired people who can ride hundreds of miles in a week.

If we can easily model the effect of a rule change on competitiveness it will have a better chance of becoming official.

I’m going to encourage people to continue to suggest rule ideas in this thread. I’m going to capture all of them and put them into GitHub issues here:

https://github.com/freezingsaddles/freezing-web/issues

(You can see this without a GitHub account but you can’t add an issue or comment until you have a GitHub account)

Please feel free to add new ideas directly to https://github.com/freezingsaddles/freezing-web/issues but also please mention that you have done so here in this thread and post the URL to your issue so people can review it.

Then the team setting the rules and implementing for them will organize and prioritize these on cards in the Icebox column of this Kannan board (GitHub account & freezingsaddles team membership required to see this – PM me for access please):

https://github.com/orgs/freezingsaddles/projects/1

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[chuxtr]

This is being discussed by “the powers that be” as a possible change to the scoring system. A “declining points” system (Steve O cites Bob James as the originator) whereby:

Mile 1 – 10 points
Mile 2 – 9 points
Mile 3 – 8 points
Mile 4 – 7 points
Mile 5 – 6 points
Mile 6 – 5 points
Mile 7 – 4 points
Mile 8 – 3 points
Mile 9 – 2 points
Mile 10 and all miles afterwards – 1 point

The perceived benefit of such a scoring system:

a. People who do shorter rides would be able to make a greater points contribution
b. Encourage more people (especially newbies) to ride more since they don’t necessarily have to log big miles to earn points. And isn’t Freezing Saddles about getting people to ride more regardless of how many miles? Giving people reasonable/achievable incentives to ride as much as possible over the winter?

But every mile still counts for those who are obssessed with uber mileage. And it would obviate the need for a mileage cap. And we could probably get rid of the 10 points for the first ride mile of the day.

So some examples of rides and points earned:

1 mile = 20 points
2 miles = 29 points
5 miles – 48 points
10 miles = 65 points
50 miles = 105 points
100 miles = 155 points

THOUGHTS???

[Nadine]

I like the first list better – the increase in points in the 2nd is too steep. Also I like the idea of either no mileage cap* or a higher one, so this is nice for that.

* I like the idea of being able to make up for a day I haven’t ridden. Course that’s way less possible in this system, but it’s worth trying when there’s no mileage cap!

But is the graded points for the first 10 miles / day something Jon and Obscure Richard can do without too much trouble? If it’s just a simple program rewrite, I vote yes.

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[chuxtr]

Nadine,

Sorry if I was confusing. The “first list” is how many points you earn for each mile. The “second list” is just an example of the total points you would earn based on how many miles you ride. The thinking is that this system would/should incentivize people to ride because the “big” points are for early miles. In the example shown, a 10 mile ride is worth more than half the points of a 50 mile ride, 65 vs 105. So in some ways, it’s more possible to make up for a day you haven’t ridden.

But since there’s no cap, all miles count and earn points. So the Bob James’ of the world can ride to their heart’s content and still earn points for their team. But only 1 point per mile starting with mile 10.

And yes, I wouldn’t have put this out here for discussion if Richard had said it wasn’t do-able.

Cheers,
Chuck

@Nadine 193818 wrote:

I like the first list better – the increase in points in the 2nd is too steep. Also I like the idea of either no mileage cap* or a higher one, so this is nice for that.

* I like the idea of being able to make up for a day I haven’t ridden. Course that’s way less possible in this system, but it’s worth trying when there’s no mileage cap!

But is the graded points for the first 10 miles / day something Jon and Obscure Richard can do without too much trouble? If it’s just a simple program rewrite, I vote yes.

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[Nadine]

@chuxtr 193820 wrote:

Nadine,

Sorry if I was confusing. The “first list” is how many points you earn for each mile. The “second list” is just an example of the total points you would earn based on how many miles you ride. The thinking is that this system would/should incentivize people to ride because the “big” points are for early miles. In the example shown, a 10 mile ride is worth more than half the points of a 50 mile ride, 65 vs 105. So in some ways, it’s more possible to make up for a day you haven’t ridden.

But since there’s no cap, all miles count and earn points. So the Bob James’ of the world can ride to their heart’s content and still earn points for their team. But only 1 point per mile starting with mile 10.

And yes, I wouldn’t have put this out here for discussion if Richard had said it wasn’t do-able.

Cheers,
Chuck

Ooooh right – I forgot about the initial 10 pt bonus for getting out the door with the bike. Makes sense now.

I like it. We’ll see what the others say. Nice figuring out! Looking forward to it!

Now if there were just a point system for today with the gale wins … [emoji38]

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[ChristoB50]

@chuxtr 193817 wrote:

So some examples of rides and points earned:
1 mile = 20 points
2 miles = 29 points
5 miles – 48 points
10 miles = 65 points
50 miles = 105 points
100 miles = 155 points
THOUGHTS???

Wouldn’t 5 miles ridden, in your 2nd listing, net the rider 50 points? (ie, 10 base day points, plus 10+9+8+7+6 “per mile” points)

I like the plan! I agree that the “front-loading” of higher points on the early miles should help motivate newbies or on-the-fence riders to get a few miles in each day at least. The “sleaze” single-mile ride, worth 20 points alone, would almost become a guaranteed must-do every day!
I don’t currently have Strava — are miles tabulated with decimal places? (So, would you round down, or up, for fractional miles?)

I ran my Feb 2019 rides through the new points calc… I had 18 riding days, each over 10 miles (so, old system points = 360 I think?)
Average ride was 22miles; month total was 402. New points system would value it all at 1,392 points I believe.

PS — is the “daily base points” of 10 useful in this points model? ie, if a 1 mile ride is the minimum ride to get ANY points for a day — and so everyone who rides in BAFS, rides at least 1 mile per ride day to get on the board — then everyone gets that same base 10 points (before tabulating their miles-points) and it seems essentially like an unnecessary constant in every rider’s score…?
{Edit; yeah, I guess it has a usefulness after thinking more on it – ie, for riders who managed to ride say, 100% of days, vs. riders who managed 50% of days…}

[Steve O]

There is a formula that accounts for fractional mileage, so it’s actually a smooth curve (6.5 miles is worth more than 6.3, and that differential is greater than the difference between 8.5 and 8.3, as it should be).
It also counts <1 mile ride days (not enough to qualify for a sleaze), but without the 10-point day bonus. I don't know if these ever happen, though. If someone is playing the game, once they decide to ride they are going to go at least a mile one would think.

[Nadine]

@obscurerichard 193616 wrote:

I’m really excited to see such good ideas being posted. As it will fall to jrenaut and me (and maybe hozn if we are lucky) to implement any rule changes, in the absence of additional volunteers we are going to have to choose carefully what we pick.

My personal bias is to encourage camaraderie over hardcore competition and avoid rules that will drive new riders away or be hard to understand or implement. Giving the people the choice of preferring a local team is appealing. I like the idea of having a much smaller team, raising or changing the point cap for team scoring, or just making the team score based on days ridden.

I really like that last idea, btw, because it would allow a dedicated team that just rides every day to crush a team composed of elite racers and retired people who can ride hundreds of miles in a week.

If we can easily model the effect of a rule change on competitiveness it will have a better chance of becoming official.

I’m going to encourage people to continue to suggest rule ideas in this thread. I’m going to capture all of them and put them into GitHub issues here:

https://github.com/freezingsaddles/freezing-web/issues

(You can see this without a GitHub account but you can’t add an issue or comment until you have a GitHub account)

Please feel free to add new ideas directly to https://github.com/freezingsaddles/freezing-web/issues but also please mention that you have done so here in this thread and post the URL to your issue so people can review it.

Then the team setting the rules and implementing for them will organize and prioritize these on cards in the Icebox column of this Kannan board (GitHub account & freezingsaddles team membership required to see this – PM me for access please):

https://github.com/orgs/freezingsaddles/projects/1

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I just wanna cheer you on, Richard. I love your whole post – though I’m not probably computer savvy enough to make it worth getting a github account (either that or my son who works for Google has, uhm, tainted my view of myself [emoji38]. It would serve me right for teasing my mom about her American accent in Spanish for my entire childhood in PR. Her Spanish was actually good, & she didn’t need to speak it well enough to pass as a local, as I did. Her blue eyes woulda gotten in the way of that anyhow.)

Thanks for everything you’re doing for us, Richard. Breath of fresh air!

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[chuxtr]

My example (actually provided by Steve O) does not include 10 extra ride day points. We could do that or not. Although my opinion is that it’s really no longer necessary since the first mile of the day is already worth 10 points. But one reason to keep it is it would give people even more reason to at least do a sleaze ride (and I’m all for that).

@ChristoB50 193822 wrote:

Wouldn’t 5 miles ridden, in your 2nd listing, net the rider 50 points? (ie, 10 base day points, plus 10+9+8+7+6 “per mile” points)

I like the plan! I agree that the “front-loading” of higher points on the early miles should help motivate newbies or on-the-fence riders to get a few miles in each day at least. The “sleaze” single-mile ride, worth 20 points alone, would almost become a guaranteed must-do every day!
I don’t currently have Strava — are miles tabulated with decimal places? (So, would you round down, or up, for fractional miles?)

I ran my Feb 2019 rides through the new points calc… I had 18 riding days, each over 10 miles (so, old system points = 360 I think?)
Average ride was 22miles; month total was 402. New points system would value it all at 1,392 points I believe.

PS — is the “daily base points” of 10 useful in this points model? ie, if a 1 mile ride is the minimum ride to get ANY points for a day — and so everyone who rides in BAFS, rides at least 1 mile per ride day to get on the board — then everyone gets that same base 10 points (before tabulating their miles-points) and it seems essentially like an unnecessary constant in every rider’s score…?
{Edit; yeah, I guess it has a usefulness after thinking more on it – ie, for riders who managed to ride say, 100% of days, vs. riders who managed 50% of days…}

[ChristoB50]

@chuxtr 193826 wrote:

My example (actually provided by Steve O) does not include 10 extra ride day points. We could do that or not. Although my opinion is that it’s really no longer necessary since the first mile of the day is already worth 10 points. But one reason to keep it is it would give people even more reason to at least do a sleaze ride (and I’m all for that).

Looks like the sample listing from Steve did include the 10 base points — otherwise, a 1-mile ride as shown above won’t tally to “20 points”.

Mile 1 = 10 points
Mile 2 = 9 points
Mile 3 = 8 points, etc.

The pasted sample table showed “a 2 mile ride would be worth 29 points” — which is only achievable by including the 10 “bonus” points for a ride day, on top of +10 for Mile 1, +9 for Mile 2.

Anyway — I tend to agree with your initial opinion that it is no longer necessary — with the “Mile 1” point-value being higher under this new plan, you could eliminate the old concept of “10 points for each day having a ride > 1mile”, but still encourage all those 1-mile sleaze rides on the nastiest days — since a 1-mile sleaze still nets the rider 10 points here (vs. 11 points under the old way.)

[ChristoB50]

hehe – I had to go explore how to make a tidy little table in a forum reply
So below would be the first 11 miles of a single ride, under the proposed scoring (this excludes the 10-point-per-day bonus idea.)

[table=”width: 300, class: grid, align: left”]
[tr]
[td]Mile#[/td]
[td]PointVal[/td]
[td]RunningTtl[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]10[/td]
[td]10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]9[/td]
[td]19[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]8[/td]
[td]27[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]7[/td]
[td]34[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]6[/td]
[td]40[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[td]45[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7[/td]
[td]4[/td]
[td]49[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8[/td]
[td]3[/td]
[td]52[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9[/td]
[td]2[/td]
[td]54[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10[/td]
[td]1[/td]
[td]55[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11[/td]
[td]1[/td]
[td]56[/td]
[/tr]

[/table]

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