Discussion on Team Points Cap and Non-regional Teams

[Mtansill]

Fifth year riding. Here’s what I think of the most significant changes in my book. Oh, this was also the first year that I was a (co-)captain.

1. 100 mile total cap on contributing to the team points – I really liked this. It removed a significant portion of stress from my life and made it possible for me to actually have more hobbies than just riding my bicycle during the winter. Oh, and I got to hang out with my family more. It was still a struggle to reach 100 miles some weeks, but overall this is the level that I liked, personally. I could understand if people want to raise this to 150. But overall, I felt this helped to put more focus on team efforts!

2. Non-regional teams – I didn’t like this as much. Obviously I had a great team (17!), but because of weather and other conflicts I found it difficult to organize rides outside of my local area successfully. Combining this with the team points cap also affected my personal ability to organize group rides with members spanning all three effective regions. I don’t think that the two rule changes mesh very well, and would prefer to get rid of the non-regional teams decision before getting rid of the team points cap decision.

That’s my take on it. I’m curious to hear what others think across the DC metro area. Cheers.

Topic

[Subby]

@musclys 189306 wrote:

Ugh — you obviously don’t get it.

fight me

[sjclaeys]

@Subby 189307 wrote:

fight me

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19875[/ATTACH]

[musclys]

@Subby 189307 wrote:

fight me

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19876[/ATTACH]

[Shepard]

And Feds who get furloughed have an advantage over those who don’t.
Etc.

Steve O’s point a few posts back made me realize there were a number of odd variables this year. My typical commute is 30 or so miles a day. When I was furloughed I lost that base and had to balance biking against a long list of projects at home. The 100 mile cap pushed me to get out and ride during January. Without it I would have done a lot more sleezing.

Also, the snow and furloughed NPS trail crew rendered my usual commute (down the CCT) impassable so on days when I was called back my commutes were much shorter and again the cap became a goal.

All in all, whatever system is used is going to have it’s own set of unintended consequences. I enjoyed this year (and not just because I got to captain team 7) considerably more than previous years because the goals for the teams were achievable. Really (aside from the pointless prizes) FS is two competitions. A team competition, which provides me with a lot of motivation to get out there and ride, and and individual competition, which really does noting for me personally.

The individual competition remained essentially unchanged and those who wanted to spend a lot of winter miles in the saddle were recognized for it.

Regional teams might be nice but my first years in FS I was stuck on a random MD team that was almost as geographically spread out as my team this year which made group rides or get together nearly impossible. So not much changed for me this year.

[Author]

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