Freezing Saddles 2018

[jrenaut]

I really do like Steve O’s idea of incorporating participation in games into the scoring, but it’s technically difficult and probably not possible without at least a couple volunteers to record who came to what. And that doesn’t even get into figuring out how to translate participation into points. That could get bloody.

[cvcalhoun]

@jrenaut 167391 wrote:

I want BAFS to make people 1) Ride more in the winter and 2) Ride with other people.

I would just point out that for some of us, riding with other people is painful both for us and for the other people. I was very active last year — team captain, riding a lot, and organizing and participating in social events — in addition to my work on registration and recruiting volunteers. But I only get up to 10 mph on an extraordinarily good day. I slow down the whole party on group rides, feel self-conscious, and don’t enjoy myself at all. If that becomes a requirement for Freezing Saddles, I’m out of here.

[jrenaut]

@cvcalhoun 167397 wrote:

I would just point out that for some of us, riding with other people is painful both for us and for the other people. I was very active last year — team captain, riding a lot, and organizing and participating in social events — in addition to my work on registration and recruiting volunteers. But I only get up to 10 mph on an extraordinarily good day. I slow down the whole party on group rides, feel self-conscious, and don’t enjoy myself at all. If that becomes a requirement for Freezing Saddles, I’m out of here.

No, not a requirement, just encouraged. And by “riding with” I don’t just mean in a big group all together. For BAFS I would consider it “riding with” if you met some teammates for coffee or beer or capture the flag or even just a quick fist bump before going your separate ways. And one team member could get there by taking a mile long sleaze ride on Bikeshare while another gets there at the tail end of a fixed gear double century.

The way you play BAFS is great. You’re active, you participate, you have fun. This is perfect. It is in no way my intention to discourage anyone who is actively participating.

[bentbike33]

@cvcalhoun 167397 wrote:

I would just point out that for some of us, riding with other people is painful both for us and for the other people. I was very active last year — team captain, riding a lot, and organizing and participating in social events — in addition to my work on registration and recruiting volunteers. But I only get up to 10 mph on an extraordinarily good day. I slow down the whole party on group rides, feel self-conscious, and don’t enjoy myself at all. If that becomes a requirement for Freezing Saddles, I’m out of here.

Ebike rides/miles allowed for FS group rides only.

[streetsmarts]

@jrenaut 167354 wrote:

I think we should institute a participation minimum. Every Monday morning, if you’re not averaging 4 ride days or 3 ride days and at least 25 miles per week, you lose your spot..

If it’s 20 degrees for a week and there is snow and /or ice, I might ride 3 days, 1 mile per day. But not 25 miles. Can we make it just ride 3 days a week, at least a mile? Isn’t that one of the goals /fun of FS – to get us out there even when it’s terrible, even for a short ride?!

[TwoWheelsDC]

Rather than having some sort of arbitrary lower limit on riding, why not just leave it to the team captains? If a team captain believes a team member has effectively left the competition, they can contact the referee (Sunyata) with a request/justification for removing/replacing the rider. If the referee deems a removal request is justified, she makes it happen. If not, she either says “wait a few more days” or “your request is dumb” or whatever and her decision stands.

[jrenaut]

@streetsmarts 167414 wrote:

If it’s 20 degrees for a week and there is snow and /or ice, I might ride 3 days, 1 mile per day. But not 25 miles. Can we make it just ride 3 days a week, at least a mile? Isn’t that one of the goals /fun of FS – to get us out there even when it’s terrible, even for a short ride?!

Eh, maybe. Three sleaze rides in a week seems like a pretty minimal effort. If we get a huge snow or ice storm that lasts for a couple days maybe we could make an exception, but how often does that really happen? If your neighborhood is really unsafe to the point you can’t make the minimum, you can always get in touch and make your case.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

[Subby]

Instead of having to track minimum participation, would it be easier if scores where just comprised of the points from the top X number of riders on each team? As an example, each team has 10 riders, you only take the top 8 scores, so teams that lost a rider or had someone flake out wouldn’t be penalized.

[dkel]

I’m really struggling with this topic. Year two of BAFS was my first year, and it worked for me in all the ways it was supposed to: it got me to ride through winter for the first time, it introduced me to cycling friends I still meet up with, and it was competitive in a really great way. Lately, it just seems like half the people who sign up just want to be able to talk about being in this crazy competition when they’re standing around the water cooler at work, but they don’t really want to participate. The game seems to work well when the players are invested and feel at least somewhat responsible for contributing to the team effort. If we will literally take anybody and not have any standard for participation, it’s not a game worth playing. I’m all for advocacy, but I don’t think BAFS was conceived as an advocacy initiative.

[FFX_Hinterlands]

OK, I rode nearly every day last year, but not very far. I didn’t participate in any events, group rides, happy hours and the like. The scoring rules are set up so my short frequent rides put me as far ahead as someone who rode 2x week for 10+ miles. This should be about getting people out in the cold using their bike for transportation. I reject the idea of making it more dependent on long miles or events. I’d rather see more rain/snow/temperature-driven points to entice people to get out there every day.

[ginacico]

@Tania 167376 wrote:

I’m suddenly remembering why at the end of FS2017 I decided to sit out 2018.

ftfy

[jrenaut]

@dkel 167420 wrote:

I’m all for advocacy, but I don’t think BAFS was conceived as an advocacy initiative.

Agree with most of your post, but I think it’s less important what it was at conception and more what those who continue to make it happen year after year want it to be.

[dkel]

@jrenaut 167424 wrote:

Agree with most of your post, but I think it’s less important what it was at conception and more what those who continue to make it happen year after year want it to be.

Fair enough. But the advocacy angle may be at the root of some of the disillusionment expressed by many old-timers, and the reason why a minimum participation standard is being proposed. I do think clarity of purpose would make the path a little clearer in planning and executing; it would also help people decide whether they should play the game or not.

[jrenaut]

I have no interest in pushing out or discouraging anyone who will be a good participant. But given that we have a limited number of spaces available, it is better for everyone if those spaces go to people who want to participate. We can (and will, for pages) quibble over the definition of “participate”.

But this gets back to why I want to get rid of the Slackers Team and move more towards a non-competitive participant group. I want people to come out and ride and join groups and do what makes them happy. My first BAFS event was a final happy hour before I had ever participated. I came to hang out with forum friends and thought it was awesome and have played every year since.

I’m open to TwoWheels idea that kicking off non-participants falls to the captains. It doesn’t really satisfy my bloodlust, but it’s probably a better solution in the long run.

[cvcalhoun]

@Subby 167419 wrote:

Instead of having to track minimum participation, would it be easier if scores where just comprised of the points from the top X number of riders on each team? As an example, each team has 10 riders, you only take the top 8 scores, so teams that lost a rider or had someone flake out wouldn’t be penalized.

I would hate to see this, because it would mean the bottom two people would have no incentive to ride at all. If Freezing Saddles gets some guy to figure out that he really can ride every day all winter, I see that as a positive, even if every ride is a sleaze ride. But that guy might well be at the bottom of his team, and therefore lose motivation under this system.

[Author]

Posts