Freezing Saddles 2018

[Emm]

@jrenaut 167370 wrote:

As I said in my original post:

How do you propose to handle injuries, illnesses or family emergencies? I think if someone got hurt, sick, or a close relative died, notifying the freezing saddles people wouldn’t be a top priority, and shouldn’t be something a person going through that needs to worry about. I honestly don’t like this rule at all, but I think if you felt you had to have it, it should be more than 1 week before you get moved off a team. 2-3 at least. We need to give people flexibility in case the unexpected pops up.

[jrenaut]

@lordofthemark 167373 wrote:

I would still be inclined to a more lenient participation rule, (1 day a week? 10 miles?) to see how it works out. [/quote]
I wouldn’t consider that level of riding to be “participation”. What I suggested is already lower than what I would choose if I were Supreme Dictator of BAFS.

@lordofthemark 167373 wrote:

Also if we do have a participation rule like that, and expect others to be slackers, we need a different attitude towards slackers. In the past I was told that slackers was for experienced FS participants, not for newbies – that newbies should dive in head first, so that team pressure would get them riding more. With a participation rule like this, we should expect many newbies to choose to become slackers, and enable that.

Agreed, see my post regarding getting rid of the Slackers.

[Tania]

I’m suddenly remembering why at the end of FS2017 I thought maybe I should sit out 2018.

[jrenaut]

@Emm 167374 wrote:

How do you propose to handle injuries, illnesses or family emergencies? I think if someone got hurt, sick, or a close relative died, notifying the freezing saddles people wouldn’t be a top priority, and shouldn’t be something a person going through that needs to worry about. I honestly don’t like this rule at all, but I think if you felt you had to have it, it should be more than 1 week before you get moved off a team. 2-3 at least. We need to give people flexibility in case the unexpected pops up.

Agreed that no one will notify anyone in situations like that, but I also think it’s rare enough that it shouldn’t be a big deal. We can handle those situations as they come up.

[Judd]

I vote same teams as last year.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jrenaut]

@Tania 167376 wrote:

I’m suddenly remembering why at the end of FS2017 I thought maybe I should sit out 2018.

I had that same thought, which is why I’m so eager to improve the way things work.

[Emm]

@jrenaut 167377 wrote:

Agreed that no one will notify anyone in situations like that, but I also think it’s rare enough that it shouldn’t be a big deal. We can handle those situations as they come up.

I have some concern about that approach though. It would be pretty disheartening to get back online only to get an email saying you’d been kicked off your team after only 1 week off. It might lead to someone being less interested in rejoining, or (more importantly IMHO) participating in the community we have here. We should give people enough slack up front to deal with unexpected life events.

[jrenaut]

@Judd 167380 wrote:

I vote same teams as last year.

I vote Hains Point miles count as negative

[jrenaut]

@Emm 167382 wrote:

I have some concern about that approach though. It would be pretty disheartening to get back online only to get an email saying you’d been kicked off your team after only 1 week off. It might lead to someone being less interested in rejoining, or (more importantly IMHO) participating in the community we have here. We should give people enough slack up front to deal with unexpected life events.

I think when this initially started rolling around in my head, I was thinking one week “probation”, then gone. This was just simpler administratively. But I am swayed by your argument.

[lordofthemark]

@jrenaut 167375 wrote:

I wouldn’t consider that level of riding to be “participation”. What I suggested is already lower than what I would choose if I were Supreme Dictator of BAFS.

3 days and 13 miles was all I did the first week of January 2015, my first BAFS. With no particular excuse other than “I can’t believe I commuted in January” and “I can’t believe I rode a ‘sleaze’ ride” and “oh, thats how Strava works” At that time some people in BAFS were very encouraging of the riding I was doing (not only teammates). I went on to participate more, to look at gear with BAFS in mind, etc.

I think this gets back to (as many BAFS discussions do) what is the purpose of BAFS? Is it for people who would be riding all winter anyway to compete with each other as to who can actually ride more? Or is it to get people who normally don’t ride/commute in the winter at all, to start to do so? Because if its the latter, a strict participation minimum is going to keep out the very people we are trying to encourage. Again I recognize that the growth in the number of would be participants has made it harder for BAFS to be both of the above things. But I wonder if a lenient participation minimum would be enough to pare the numbers down sufficiently.

[Steve O]

My position continues to be no slackers. If you want to play the game, play the game. If you want to come to coffee club, come to coffee club. If you want to come along on a brewery ride, come along on the brewery ride.
Creating some sort of non-player player just complicates things and provides no value that I can discern. If we truly have more people interested than we have space, then why are we making this harder on ourselves by attempting to accommodate people who don’t really want to play.*

Second point (resuscitated from previous year’s discussions): I would love if the scoring system incorporated the “games” part of Freezing Saddles and not just miles and days.

Third point: Agree to kick out those who don’t show up. Instead of weekly, though, perhaps a deadline or two, like Jan 31 and Feb 20, when a wholesale “repeal and replace” occurs.

I will coordinate Pointless Prizes again.

*(Fine – if you want your name on a list of “Friends of Freezing Saddles” then we can make a list. If you want to track your miles and days, well, you use Strava already, don’t you?)

[jrenaut]

@lordofthemark 167386 wrote:

3 days and 13 miles was all I did the first week of January 2015, my first BAFS. With no particular excuse other than “I can’t believe I commuted in January” and “I can’t believe I rode a ‘sleaze’ ride” and “oh, thats how Strava works” At that time some people in BAFS were very encouraging of the riding I was doing (not only teammates). I went on to participate more, to look at gear with BAFS in mind, etc.

Ok, this sways my thinking too. I’m not a monster.

I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from. A few years back, I had a teammate who never answered an email, never posted to the forum, never came to a group ride. All he did was go on 35 mile Hains Point group rides when the weather was in the 50’s. I’ve also seen people who sign up and ride three times for 6 miles.

I realize that I take this more seriously than many, and often advocate more extreme positions than are strictly necessary, but you’ve already seen I can be talked down by the more rational members of the community.

I want BAFS to make people 1) Ride more in the winter and 2) Ride with other people. While I understand and appreciate the physical and mental difficulty of riding centuries in freezing rain, I would rather see people ride 3 miles to get coffee with their team, or bike to the grocery store when it’s 15 degrees and realize that it’s totally something you can do whenever you want. My cycling advocacy is focused on cycling for transportation. I’m totally in favor of recreational rides and good infrastructure for those rides, but what I REALLY WANT is more people to have the opportunity to get around safely by bike. Encouraging more people to get around by bike works towards that goal. Just getting my wife to sign up and then introducing her to #beerneuring has changed our family’s transportation choices year round. I want that for more people.

[jrenaut]

Maybe one could earn a Get out of Jail Free card if one attends two BAFS sanctioned events per month?

[lordofthemark]

@jrenaut 167391 wrote:

I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from. A few years back, I had a teammate who never answered an email, never posted to the forum, never came to a group ride. All he did was go on 35 mile Hains Point group rides when the weather was in the 50’s. I’ve also seen people who sign up and ride three times for 6 miles.

I hear you. And that was a problem last year in particular, IIRC – some of us have become VERY eager recruiters for BAFS. And folks did only a few miles squatted on limited spots. That is why I like the participation requirement, in principle. I see its necessity. Not sure what level of minimum would exclude the guy who does 35 miles once in a while, but keep a newbie. Maybe instead of 1 day a week, 2 days a week, and ten miles? (It would be nice if we could count emails and forum posts and other forms of participation, but I suspect that is not practical.) That plus Emm’s emendation (emmendation?) would work I think.

[secstate]

I get the sense that a few current and former participants have been down on BAFS the past couple of years, perhaps in part due to the increase in numbers and in part due to a sense that it’s become too competitive. I gather that some have even stopped participating. So, I just want to put in a good word for the event.

Last year was my first FS and, along with SafeTrack, it was instrumental in making the bike my default mode of transportation. I rode as much during the competition as I had ridden the entire previous year. I met great people, explored new routes that I still frequent, finally went clipless, and generally had a great time. Racking up points for a team was just the motivation I needed. (SteveO’s Freeze Points were fantastic, too).

I’ll be in northern India for most of this year’s competition and am not sure I want to commit to regular riding there. We’ll see.

[Author]

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