Freezing Saddles 2015

[Arlingtonrider]

How is the car and bike parking at those places? We used Baileys once but I read that it had closed and that the new owners had eliminated the separate room. Does anyone know?

[dasgeh]

@Arlingtonrider 100372 wrote:

How is the car and bike parking at those places? We used Baileys once but I read that it had closed and that the new owners had eliminated the separate room. Does anyone know?

Free and easy after, I think, 6pm. Many of the places are set up so you can park and get in without going outside, which may be even better, given the timing.

[americancyclo]

@83(b) 100369 wrote:

The Crystal City Sports Pub has several large rooms that they open to groups. And I recall that the BW3 and Bailey’s also will reserve areas for larger groups.

I never understood why people called it BW3 until i read wikipedia

Originally called Buffalo Wild Wings & Weck

[americancyclo]

@dasgeh 100366 wrote:

Might be worth asking the Crystal City BID. They can be super helpful and have connections in their community. Plus, Crystal City is a bit more central…

Joe is on the forums, and I sent him an email, but he might be out of town for a bit, considering the holidays

[83b]

@Arlingtonrider 100372 wrote:

How is the car and bike parking at those places? We used Baileys once but I read that it had closed and that the new owners had eliminated the separate room. Does anyone know?

I think Dasgeh’s right re: the underground decks in Crystal City being free and open after 6:00. And bike parking along Crystal Drive is easy. Parking near 23rd street for the Sports Pub means meandering a bit through the neighborhood for an on-street spot, but it’s not usually very hard. There’s also an easily accessible paid lot right behind the Pub. The sidewalks are a bit narrow though, so bikes would probably be best off parked at the meters along 22nd or thereabouts. Still pretty easy all around.

Re: Bailey’s. I moved out of the neighborhood two years ago, so I’m not sure what the deal is there. Decent beer selection aside, I never really cared for them since they have some exception to allow indoor smoking. I’d only ever go there if I knew what I was wearing needed dry-cleaning!

[Steve O]

@rcannon100 100357 wrote:

Love this.
But…. you are doing this with a known set.

Correct, but unless there is some reason to believe that this year’s riders will differ in some significant way from last year’s, then this should be a representative dataset. Feel free to create your own datasets and run some simulations. I think starting with last year’s is a pretty good place to start.

@rcannon100 100357 wrote:

Take, for example, a fictional rider who has never played Freezing Saddles before: Tim Kellie (no relation to our Tim Kelley). If Tim Kellie were to join and be assigned to one of the teams in the modified random way that you suggested, and if Tim Kellie hypothetically were a top cyclist…

Maybe not; I did this. I included a fictional rider who would have been in the top 10, and another one who would have been in the bottom 15 or so. Those riders were randomly assigned and the results still were better than last year’s in virtually all cases.

Also, this Tim Kellie character (and other newbies) are much more likely to mis-estimate or somehow get their handicap wrong.
For instance, we could end up with someone like Justin Antos from year “The First.” Freezing Saddles Disease infected his brain, and he rode like 4x the number of miles he anticipated (and he was on my team !).
I have no idea what the handicap was for some of the riders on my team from year “The Second,” but they certainly rode a LOT less than their handicap accounted for.
Handicapping the top riders from last year is much more likely to be accurate, because we have performance data. Handicapping new riders is probably not much better than random.

People get injured; unexpected work trips intervene; flu puts someone down for two weeks; flying monkeys steal a team member; good luck; bad luck. If I were rcannon, I’d rather blame any of this on a random number generator than on my clever handicapping scheme.

[Arlingtonrider]

Thanks for the great suggestons and info! I just called Buffalo Wild Wings in Crystal City and it sounds like they can accommodate us well. I agree that this would be a better location (just off the MVT at 2540 Crystal Drive) for the Freezing Saddles kick off, and might be worth considering for the final event too. Would that work well for you all for the kick off? If so, we just need a date.

[GB]

@Steve O 100343 wrote:

There you have it. There’s a 50/50 chance that random selection of teams last year would have been at least as competitive as the actual teams were. A modified randomization scheme would have performed better in virtually all cases.

I’m have to agree with Cannon’s comment that this analysis has the benifit of hindsight. But we are basically all saying the same thing, we need a handicap, it’s just a matter how how precise it is. Personally I think an estimated # of days and miles is better than a hi/avg/low classification, but I don’t really care. People can sand bag with either.

I like the product of our FMCC discussion – 2 layers of teams, like with the NBC. The first layer is pretty much like last year and teams are locked 1/1. The second layer is a 2 team recruiting tool that pits (DC vs VA, or men vs women, or, disc breaks vs other breaks, whatever). This second layer is open all season and half the competition is in recruiting. The teams are not rebalanced, your team gets to keep whoever you recruit and there points.

IT people is this an option?

[vern]

@Arlingtonrider 100396 wrote:

Thanks for the great suggestons and info! I just called Buffalo Wild Wings in Crystal City and it sounds like they can accommodate us well! I agree that that would be a better location (just off the MVT at 2540 Crystal Drive) for the Freezing Saddles kick off, and might be worth considering for the final event too. Would that work well for you all for the kick off? If so, we just need a date!

That’s about a 8 second commute from my office…approved!

[ShawnoftheDread]

Modified random proposal: start with last year’s individual results, crossing out anyone who doesn’t re-up or who opts for slacker team. Top 10 are all separate teams (or 9, depending on number of teams needed). The next 10 are placed on those teams in reverse order (#20 placed with # 1, #11 placed with #10, etc). Then everyone else is drawn out of a hat for placement on a team.

Though personally I prefer our usual handicaps.

[jrenaut]

@GB 100400 wrote:

I’m have to agree with Cannon’s comment that this analysis has the benifit of hindsight. But we are basically all saying the same thing, we need a handicap, it’s just a matter how how precise it is. Personally I think an estimated # of days and miles is better than a hi/avg/low classification, but I don’t really care. People can sand bag with either.

I like the product of our FMCC discussion – 2 layers of teams, like with the NBC. The first layer is pretty much like last year and teams are locked 1/1. The second layer is a 2 team recruiting tool that pits (DC vs VA, or men vs women, or, disc breaks vs other breaks, whatever). This second layer is open all season and half the competition is in recruiting. The teams are not rebalanced, your team gets to keep whoever you recruit and there points.

IT people is this an option?

It’s not a trivial thing to manage. It’s certainly possible, but I’m not sure I can commit a ton of time to working on the website this year, and while I wouldn’t speak for hozn, I get the impression he’s in something of the same boat. It’s an easier option for next year.

[Steve O]

@ShawnoftheDread 100403 wrote:

Modified random proposal: start with last year’s individual results, crossing out anyone who doesn’t re-up or who opts for slacker team. Top 10 are all separate teams (or 9, depending on number of teams needed). The next 10 are placed on those teams in reverse order (#20 placed with # 1, #11 placed with #10, etc). Then everyone else is drawn out of a hat for placement on a team.

This is identical to my proposal, and is what I modeled that resulted in consistently more competitive results than last year’s handicapping system.

[Greenbelt]

Suggest pointless award for in-commute FFWB (fully frozen water bottle). Or maybe just a good slushy, since the physics majors will probably say that most of us aren’t outside long enough to freeze a WB solid, even on longer commutes, with all the shaking motion. To verify, must have post-commute video. -Jeff

[cyclingfool]

@Greenbelt 100425 wrote:

Suggest pointless award for in-commute FFWB (fully frozen water bottle). Or maybe just a good slushy, since the physics majors will probably say that most of us aren’t outside long enough to freeze a WB solid, even on longer commutes, with all the shaking motion. To verify, must have post-commute video. -Jeff

And no sandbagging it by putting the water bottle in the freezer overnight pre-commute.

[dasgeh]

@Steve O 100422 wrote:

This is identical to my proposal, and is what I modeled that resulted in consistently more competitive results than last year’s handicapping system.

Only issue: what if new high-mileage folks join?

How about this: people enter a handicap during registration based on either last year’s FS miles or Oct-Dec miles, or even May-Aug miles (don’t think it’s that big of a deal). We take the number of registrants and figure out how many teams we’ll have (with 10-12 people per team) – say it’s X teams. Then we take the 2*X riders by handicapped, and assign them to teams under the Shawn/Steve O model. Then we take the rest and randomly assign.

*the above ignores those who register for the Slackers team, of course.

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