Freezing Saddles 2014 Discussion Draft

[Rod Smith]

For the record, the NBC did ‘not go the other way’. They gave twenty points (free miles) for every day last year too. As someone who pretty much has to ride every day, I’m fine with the 10 pts per day. 20 would be better. Double points for third axle? Just a thought.

My sleaze rides were 10 mile rides, but 1 mile rides should count too.

I didn’t know the handicap last year was based on Nov, Dec mileage. If that was clear to me, I would have given a lower number than I did when asked for a number.

I thought we were asked how much we typically ride during this calendar period. I don’t remember. The suggestion that we base the handicap on our September 2013 mileage is repugnant to me. I think we should use last year’s Freezing Saddles mileage as a baseline for those willing to sign up again, and let newcomers reckon how much they expect to ride as best they can.

@KayakCyndi 67829 wrote:

And make those of us with mandated international work travel in the Jan – March time frame feel a little less bad. That said, it is doubtful I would have ridden on three continents last winter without Freezing Saddles. Maybe pressure isn’t such a bad thing.

I second that the competition worked fabulously last year. I LOVED it and somehow haven’t managed to cut back my mileage since!

You have nothing to feel bad about! You rock!

[vvill]

I think the 10 pts/day is fine and I’d also second that last year everything ran very well. If there were any modifications to be made to the 10 pts/day rule I would propose something like: Less than 2 miles (or perhaps 3 miles) would be only 5 pts. Any more gets the full 10pts. I wouldn’t like to discourage even a 1 mile ride, but this would maybe encourage you to stay out and do maybe just a couple more. For some people with short commutes or simple bikeable errands, penalizing their daily mile bonus isn’t in the spirit of winter bicycling.

Slightly larger teams wouldn’t hurt I think. It would be easier that way to make up for an absentee rider, and maybe could keep the top teams in the competition closer? If there are more riders signing up this year, it might be necessary anyway (more than 10/11 teams seems excessive).

I’m not sure about the best way to do drafts/mile estimates. I don’t plan to do the same amount of winter riding I did last year!

I think the lack of a public Strava API is going to be an issue though.

[KLizotte]

@Rod Smith 67838 wrote:

I think we should use last year’s Freezing Saddles mileage as a baseline for those willing to sign up again, and let newcomers reckon how much they expect to ride as best they can.

I concur that we should ask people for their same time period estimates (Jan-Mar or whatever it is) using last year’s totals or people’s best estimates to balance the teams. I find Nov-Dec riding to be much different than Jan-Feb riding (and not in a good way).

[hozn]

Yeah, I would concur that the competition went really smoothly last year.

A few general observations/comments:
– 12 people (of 40-something?) had perfect attendance last year. That seems rather high, percentage wise. Maybe that should be a little harder to achieve?

– (Relatedly) I know one of the points is to encourage bike usage. The 10 points to reward getting on the bike makes sense, just feels like sleaze rides were way too easy (and don’t contribute to fitness or transportation goals). Maybe I am worrying too much about that.

– I think the graduated pints system would work against the goal to get people on the bike for more trips. Certainly, it would have favored people like me who got miles by stretching commutes. I think the pinnacle of that silliness for me was getting up to leave at 3am so I could ride 100 miles and still be at my desk by 9am

– One thing that was clear when looking at the team point trends ( http://freezing.hozn.net/explore/team_cumul) was that the competition was basically decided from the beginning. There was a little shuffling early on but other than some jockeying between the top 2 teams (and other adjacent teams) the lines had clearly different slopes. I don’t know how one adds more dynamics there without overcomplicating the rules — shuffle teams during the competition? — but it might be nice to make outcome less predictable.

– I think the small teams put a lot of social pressure on folks to ride. I realize this is part of the “team” aspect but think that this makes it hard if/when people get sick, etc. I don’t know if larger teams help solve that — or other more radical approaches like shuffling teams — but it might be useful.

– I think it is perfectly reasonable to require contact info for participants and require membership in whatever backend is used.

– Basing on NBC mileage might make sense — or last year BAFS, if applicable. There should be a stronger penalty for sandbagging, though, as that really skews the team placing/composition algorithm. Not sure how you do that without discouraging people from pushing their limits, though.

– the “pointless prizes” were one of the best aspects of the competition. Maybe there could be more of these established up front (and some for teams?) which would make emphasis on mileage-based points less important (and give a mechanism for teams that might have a lower slope on that points line ways of remaining competitive).

I will email Strava to see if we can get an API license for this activity/group. I am not holding out much hope, but I think the story is a compelling one.

Finally, take my suggestions with a grain of salt, since I won’t be participating this year. I enjoyed BAFS as an introduction the BA group last year, but in truth I love cycling because it is *not* a team sport. Of course I do plan to ride regularly (every day, during the work week, anyway) and really don’t need the extra motivation / competition. It makes me a little obsessive. I can’t afford the time this year (bigger family), in any event, and want to make sure I am having as much fun on the bike as possible (e.g. choosing to mountain bike even if that means less mileage). Maybe I will be back for the 2014 edition.

Depending on platform, etc. I *am* interested in participating with the software development effort.

[CPTJohnC]

As one of the ‘hard to contact’ set who wound up on Team 11, I still had a good time, and it definitely motivated me to ride more than I probably would have, esp. near the end. It didn’t matter that my team was essentially ‘out of it’. Obviously others might have a different POV. One of the problems with the ‘contact’ was my relative newness to the forum when FS began, and my failure to know ‘where to look’ for such contact. I was used to ‘push’ communications from other forums for private messages.

I don’t have any great suggestions for handicapping, except to say that whatever system is used has to be simple/straightforward and work equally well for ‘old hands’ and ‘new folks’ — I would probably have been a bit put off if the handicapping had tried to look back to the previous year’s Jan-Mar mileage, or looked only at previous FS miles. Likewise, though, looking at my summer mileage (much, much higher) would give a really poor picture of my expected participation.

I like the 10 Pt per day, but I also like the graduated points/mile idea; that would balance the value of my ‘sleaze’ rides (grabbing a CaBi at lunch time just to slide in 2-3 miles) with my full commutes (19-20 miles each way). And I love the idea for bonus points for pictures — perhaps there could be some bonus destinations? Places that almost no one would ‘need’ to go to, but that might be fun rides? Only one bonus per participant, per destination for the competition, to avoid someone who happens to be close by racking up bonus points for little/no effort?

[eminva]

Thanks for the excellent and thoughtful analysis, Hans. I agree with everything, although I’m not sure how you would discourage sandbagging but encourage people to push their limits. And Mother Nature may have some influence on whether it is harder to achieve perfect attendance.:rolleyes:

I would be happy to help with Pointless Prizes again, that was fun.

I did enjoy working with my great teammates Subby, KelonWheels and crysb last year. But like Hans, I plan to sit 2014 out. My only cycling goal for the year so far is to ride less miles than in 2013. I have some other things I need to accomplish in the year. Of course I will continue with my bike commute, the occasional crazy stunt with acc, another scout trip, etc. But I just want to do it for fun, not competition.

Liz

[TwoWheelsDC]

I think the rules/points system worked well. It was a little frustrating that the winners seemed to have been determined so early, but rather than messing with the points, I’d say split up the prizes, kinda like Hans saying, but rather than “prizes” make them each their own sub-competition, like pro races… So I’d propose a points competition, a mileage competition, an average (low) temperature competition, etc… We covered most of those categories in the pointless prizes (and had the relevant data) , but I think making them all parts of the competition from the outset could mix things up a lot. For example, I couldn’t compete in mileage or points, but I could compete in low temps or after dark rides, so I could focus on those rides.

And to mix up the team standings, teams could get bonuses for those members of the team leading one of the sub-competitions. This would keep the team standings in flux as well, maybe adding some mystery as we near the end of the competition.

[Jason B]

Did not play last year, but intend to join the reindeer games this year. In an attempt to be hip and learn the lingo, what is a “Sleaze ride”?

[rcannon100]

These are all good comments.

Couple of points.

First, the competition was whatever the competition was. I declared that I would take care of first prize (through Phoenix Bikes), but any additional pointless prizes were up to the masses. We can have whatever competitions people want; someone has to volunteer to do it.

10 points: This is a commuter game. The 10 points gears the game towards daily riders. If I ride 15 miles per day, 4 days per week, that is 60 miles. But then some ELITE rider goes out and rides once a week 100 miles. The weekend ELITE rider wins that competition just on miles. The reason for the daily points is to change the math so that the game is about daily riding, not weekend ELITE riding. In the above example, both of us would have 100 points at the end of the week, and all I would have to do is go get some coffee on the weekend to get ahead.

And I had some other brilliant comment that I now forget. I think it has to do with backend. If not STRAVA, then the next choice on deck is doing this through Google Docs and a Google form – manually entering your miles. While I can build it probably, it will be tedious and imperfect.

Team formation. The design was a hat tournament; you are randomly assigned team mates. The team assignment was weighted, calculated on the average miles and days you rode during Nov and Dec. Teams were composed of riders whose average points for an average week would add up to something like 570 points. I actually thought this worked rather well. And actually, I thought the competition was much closer than other people are saying. For a long time, the teams were grouped, in my recollection, pretty close together. It was anyone’s game and anyone could have pulled ahead. In the end, it became a slug match between two teams. To me, that suggests the weighting worked pretty well.

[KayakCyndi]

A “Sleaze ride” is getting on your bike and riding the minimum 1 mile just to get the 10 points for getting on the bike.

The 10 points just to “get on the bike” did definitely motivate. I got on the bike to pick up dinner after a 20+ hour flight from Kathmandu.

[GB]

I like the idea of have a prize category for miles, and different one for points.

I like getting points for a destination. – I’m thinking each team captain gets to pick 1 destination during the competition and it’s active for 1 week.

For points not automatically calculated using based on mileage & days, I think everyone can track their own. Then if your points put you in a position for a prize they can be verified.

[DismalScientist]

As an inveterate limit pusher/sandbagger, I would like to point out that my average daily mileage during Freezing Saddles was 93% higher than during the rest of 2013. Furthermore, the average daily mileage for the rest of 2013 is very close to the mileage I submitted to get my handicap. So, no, I do not think you should base handicaps on last years Freezing Saddles mileage.

[dasgeh]

Missing BAFS was one of the (only) downsides to having maternity leave last winter. (Awwwwwww)

Here are my thoughts:
– 1 mile is transportation where I live (grocery store, church, coffee shop, bar, takeout, etc). Unless you change it to total miles per day (or adopt the next suggestion), I think you should count 1 mile rides for “riding” on a day.
– Bonus points for kids on the bike? Double the miles for 2 kids, triple for 3, etc. I will let people borrow kids for rides if they don’t have any of their own.
– I love the destination idea. We could add a scavenger hunt aspect: each member (or one / team) submits a photo of themselves + bike somewhere within the Beltway (may need more rules than just “somewhere”). Others get points for photos at the same spot. If no one else gets a photo, that member/team gets points.
– A google form isn’t horrible if Strava doesn’t work.

[hozn]

I really like TwoWheels’ idea of making what would have been pointless prizes part of the competition. Like the grand tour jerseys. The idea of giving overall (GC) bonus points from achievements in other categories is brilliant too if we (well, you) wanted to mix up the overall lead.

Since it is freezing saddles, I think making one of those categories having to do with dark or cold rides makes sense. Even if we can’t use Strava, we could get the weather data as before. Probably don’t want too many competition “jerseys” — leas 3-5?

I will look at the Tapiriik-supported sync options to see if any provide good API support. (And I still want to talk to Strava.)

Speaking of BAFS jerseys, is this something people would be interested in? Assuming costs were in the $50-60 range? I am not volunteering (yet), but if there were significant interest this is probably something to be considered. I can help with logistics, but would need help on the design front.

[Justin Antos]

*Freezing Saddles last year was great. Kudos to all who made it happen. I’ve really enjoyed interacting with people I met on Strava all year.

*I liked the 10 points per ride, 1 point per mile – that way, teammates can contribute points without having to put in big mileage. It encourages you to get out and ride every day, to make riding part of your daily life.

*I like the idea of slightly bigger teams.

*If Strava isn’t an option, it’d be great to run it using or some backend where we can share maps. I LOVED seeing the maps of everyone’s rides, it was totally inspirational.

*As a winner of the “Pants on Fire” prize last year, I’d say: base the handicap in reality as much as possible, but don’t penalize people for riding more than their normal. Deliberately low-balling the handicap isn’t in the spirit of things, but riding more is the fun of the game!

*Looking forward to it this year! Although my mileage won’t be as crazy this year with a 6-month old .

[Author]

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