Freezing Saddles: Winter Bike Challenge (sign up open)

[Steve O]

Strava question:
This Strava thing is good. Now I can make better use of the Garmin doohickey I got for my birthday last summer

Question though. I use two bikes: one is a road/commuter bike for my commutes and trips >3-4 miles. The other is a 1961 Western Flyer 3-speed, toodler bike I use to run errands and toodle around town. Strava only offers 4 choices of bike types in the system: Road, Mountain, TT and Cross. This bike doesn’t really fit any of those categories.
Advice?

[DismalScientist]

@Steve O 39405 wrote:

Strava question:
This Strava thing is good. Now I can make better use of the Garmin doohickey I got for my birthday last summer

Question though. I use two bikes: one is a road/commuter bike for my commutes and trips >3-4 miles. The other is a 1961 Western Flyer 3-speed, toodler bike I use to run errands and toodle around town. Strava only offers 4 choices of bike types in the system: Road, Mountain, TT and Cross. This bike doesn’t really fit any of those categories.
Advice?

Just like Grant Petersen says… Too much influence by racers in the biking community.

If it matters, your choice of bike type doesn’t affect anything, so you can call it whatever you like.

[consularrider]

@Steve O 39405 wrote:

Strava question:
This Strava thing is good. Now I can make better use of the Garmin doohickey I got for my birthday last summer

Question though. I use two bikes: one is a road/commuter bike for my commutes and trips >3-4 miles. The other is a 1961 Western Flyer 3-speed, toodler bike I use to run errands and toodle around town. Strava only offers 4 choices of bike types in the system: Road, Mountain, TT and Cross. This bike doesn’t really fit any of those categories.
Advice?

I just listed my hybrids as Mountain since that’s about their weight class.

[birddog]

How often does it update?

[ronwalf]

@birddog 39423 wrote:

How often does it update?

Every 15 minutes or so (every once and a while it’ll miss an update).

It’s current saying: Jason Kyzer: 37 points (2 days, 17 miles)
That looks right to me?

[birddog]

Cached pages in ie – sorry!

I see that now too – apologies…

[Justin Antos]

@rcannon100 39394 wrote:

What I propose is that each team come up with an official Pointless Prize, to be awarded – presented – imposed – inflicted – at the final happy hour. The Pointless Prizes should be for various massive achievements as creatively concocted as possible.

This is brilliant. Some ideas to get started, some more pointless than others…

Most Gratuitously Circuitous Commute: to the rider with the biggest difference between miles the trip would take if you went directly, vs. what you actually rode. Applies only to one-way rides.

The Waco Kid: the rider who rediscovers their youth and increases their riding the most as a result of this competition (vs. what they put down for Nov-Dec)

Earliest Bird: most miles/rides ridden before dawn (after midnight)

Latest Owl: most miles/rides ridden after sunset (before midnight)

Drowned Rat: most miles/rides ridden while it was raining

Most Trivial Objective at the End of a Ride (“I’m just headed from Takoma to Old Town to pick up a pack of jelly beans!”)

Lili von Shtupp’s Wed Wose: most creative and/or loudest song sung while riding. Cold bike singing staves off the cold, I think. Bonus points for changing Rs to Ws.

Christmas-iest Tree: the brightest, most reflective, and most ludicrous bike lights and reflective gear. (To be dimmed and/or pointed away from oncoming cyclists on trails, of course)

Weekday Warrior: most miles/rides on weekdays

Weekend Warrior: most miles/rides on weekends

Mongo: most bulky/heavy/ridiculous thing carried by bike. (Dirt would need his own category here)

[JoeB]

Hello everyone – so I was moving right along last week, getting myself signed up for the forum and for Freezing Saddles but somewhere along the line I must have messed up. I’m listed on the scoreboard (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ronwalf/2013/freezing-saddles/) but not on a team.

(I think the problem most likely popped up when I strangely ran into a *tollbooth* in the middle of the Le Petomane Information Superhighway. Might not have finished the online signup process correctly, since it turned out I had to send somebody back to get a whole sh!tload of dimes…)

So if it’s not too late to get assigned to a team, great, just let me know what I need to do on my end; but if not, no worries, I’m happy to just follow along informally. I’m pretty new to cycling, and trying to make the leap to bike commuting, so I’m mostly just looking for any added motivation I can get to get on the bike instead of getting in the car. Many thanks!

[ejwillis62]

okay Team Six, I am getting ready to head out for my commute home. i need to see some numbers up there for our team, get out there. Even if it is a ride around the block. My seat is HORRIBLE and I WILL be buying a new one this weekend but I refuse to not get my points for the day. Come on team we have this get out there and get our points.

[Mikey]

@essigmw 39384 wrote:

I took a long ride this mornign which gave me more time to think. I came up with a proposal for the end of winter 10-team tournament and thought I would post to start the discussion since this contest was built around consensis:

Proposed rules for 10-team March Madness Tournament (version 1)

1. 10 teams – all teams get to participate, i.e. no teams on the bubble.
2. modified 8-team single elimination tourney. Each “game” in the tournament will be a head to head match up of two seeded teams (1 to 10) or 3 seeded teams (for first round only) each team recording miles over a weeks’s time and battle head to head. Winner of head-to head (or head-to-head-to-head) matchups advances to next round. Losers are out of the tournament and commense trash talking other losers.
3. Seeding as follows: positions 1 through 10 according to total points at 6:00pm Sunday March 17th.
First Round: (March 18th-24th)
1 vs 8 vs 10
4 vs 5
3 vs 6
2 vs 7 vs 9

Final Four: (March 25th – 31st)
Winner [1-8-10] vs Winner [4-5]
Winner [3-6] vs Winner [2-7-9]

Championship Round: (April 1st – 7th)
Winner [1-8-10-4-5] vs Winner [3-6-2-7-9]

Overall champion announced 6:00 pm April 7th.

4. Matches. Same points scored as now (10 for each day, and 1 pt per mile each day). Total points from 12:01 am Monday morning through 6:00 pm Sunday evening will be counted for a team’s score. This will allow the computer or scoring folks to tally results and post winners and new brackets. All rides must be entered by 6:00pm Sunday evening to be counted for the match score.

These times are proposed and arguements could be made to make them later or earlier.
I am not a computer guy but I figured some of you may have fun writing the code to put this thing together.
Any thoughts?

Just moving this up since I think it was lost on a page flip today and would like to spark a discussion.

Also – team Liebe Zu Dritt moved up from 9th to 6th place. We are staring you down team FourQuatroPho. Whop Whop my Liebe-ies

[consularrider]

Henning, where are you?????????????

[Mark Blacknell]

@Greenbelt 39350 wrote:

Awesome — Will Lynn has three days on Jan. 2. However, he’s riding in Australia, so it’s already Jan 3 there! Plus it’s summer!

Point of order. This, as the Despot Cannon says, is FREEZING Saddles. I move to strike all miles until VVill is as miserable as the rest of us.

[ejwillis62]

This evening was especially cold for me tonight when the sun went down. I was feeling
A bit cold but I do love riding with the headlight. Very cool.

[JoeB]

Hi group – I think I must have messed something up when I tried to sign up for Freezing Saddles a couple weeks ago. (I’m listed on the contest results page with the right Strava account: Joe Birkenstock, http://app.strava.com/athletes/1154396, but I’m not assigned to a team.)

My signup process seemed to be going along just fine until strangely I ran into a *tollbooth* right in the middle of the Le Petomane Information Superhighway. Guess I must have fouled things up when I had to send somebody back to go get a sh!tload of dimes.

But if it’s not too late, I’d still love to get involved – I’m pretty new to cycling (four months or so) and just starting to dip my toe into bike commuting, and this contest looks like a great way to help motivate me away from the car and onto the bike. So let me know what I need to do differently on my end to get signed up if there’s still time – but no worries if it’s too late, I’m still happy to follow along informally. And to randomly quote Mel Brooks movies (great call on that name, btw)!!

He rode a Freezing Saddle, he wore lycra from head to toe
He commuted on the bike paths, in temps down to ten be-low…

[Mikey]

@Mark Blacknell 39496 wrote:

Point of order. This, as the Despot Cannon says, is FREEZING Saddles. I move to strike all miles until VVill is as miserable as the rest of us.

Sorry Captain, Rule #5.

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