Freezing Saddles: Winter Bike Challenge (sign up open)

[bikenurse]

@Certifried 39792 wrote:

You have NO idea how hard 17 miles was on that thing. I should get 10x points!

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And this was the celebration at the finish!

[Certifried]

@mllwhnp 39873 wrote:

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And this was the celebration at the finish!

it’s hard to believe I’m single!

[Bilsko]

And Team V takes the –very temporary, I’m sure– lead!

So one thing that I’m noticing is that the 10-points-per day mechanism will certainly benefit larger teams disproportionately. Crit-my-pants has more miles than we do (607 to 561, @9AM jan but the fact that they are a 4-person team means they wont get the extra bump from the 10-point-per-day that a 5-person team would for the extra rider.

I’m not saying we should be changing this: rcannon has already put in *a lot* of work to get us to the great shape we’re in now – but perhaps at the end of the competition we should think of how to award the smaller teams who still managed to compete despite the 10-point-extra-rider handicap.

[Certifried]

@Bilsko 39888 wrote:

And Team V takes the –very temporary, I’m sure– lead!

So one thing that I’m noticing is that the 10-points-per day mechanism will certainly benefit larger teams disproportionately. Crit-my-pants has more miles than we do (607 to 561, @9AM jan but the fact that they are a 4-person team means they wont get the extra bump from the 10-point-per-day that a 5-person team would for the extra rider.

I’m not saying we should be changing this: rcannon has already put in *a lot* of work to get us to the great shape we’re in now – but perhaps at the end of the competition we should think of how to award the smaller teams who still managed to compete despite the 10-point-extra-rider handicap.

Looking at that you’re seeing now shows that 3 of your team already have the 10 points for day 8, that’s 30 points up. None of our team members have day 8 rides posted yet, so just that alone will put us back in to the top. I’m not saying that to brag, I’m trying to illustrate something…. which I hope I eventually get around to doing before you stop reading…..

Team 10 has jumped in to the lead only because we’ve all motivated each other to ride more than, I think, we normally would. If you look back to my Nov-Dec miles, you’ll see that I was no where near riding every single day. So we’ve far exceeded what is our normal “handicap” numbers by far. Unfortunately (for us), that’s about to come to a grinding halt. 2 of our 4 members will be taking some days off, so there goes 1/2 of our daily 40 possible just for riding. While that would normally be a disadvantage, the work horse of the team, Rod, will continue to post his huge courier mileage, and I’ll continue to keep putting up at least a 1 mile ride. I think this is the equalization that will bring the handicap numbers back to reality. The first week was fresh, exciting, motivating. We’ve also had incredibly good weather. As things return to “normal” for all of the team’s riding habits, the points should put us all back in line with each other (and our true handicap numbers), making things a lot closer.

I just hope people don’t over analyze things and try to second guess the handicaps. Everyone was just doing their normal things when the handicaps were taken from. People aren’t so much doing their normal things now, so to try and adjust based on what people are doing now would be wrong. You can’t account for motivation and competitiveness, that’s what puts the leaders in the lead (right Crit My Pants? go team 10!! LOL)

[Bilsko]

@Certifried 39894 wrote:

Looking at that you’re seeing now shows that 3 of your team already have the 10 points for day 8, that’s 30 points up. None of our team members have day 8 rides posted yet, so just that alone will put us back in to the top. I’m not saying that to brag, I’m trying to illustrate something…. which I hope I eventually get around to doing before you stop reading…..

I had noticed that your day 8 rides weren’t posted yet…but my point remains: A 4 person team will need to ride an extra 11 miles just to keep up with a 5 person team with one member riding the de minimus 1mile. Of course when rcannon allocated the riders the formula took into account both # of miles ridden and # of rides per week, but I just wonder if the 4-person teams will be at a slight disadvantage.

I suspect that Team 10 wont be the only one to suffer a mid-January lull in mileage. I’ve certainly been pushing myself to ride *a lot* more than I otherwise would -and I think the excitement of the first week will probably wear a bit thin as we get to Feb.

[crysb]

@Bilsko 39903 wrote:

I had noticed that your day 8 rides weren’t posted yet…but my point remains: A 4 person team will need to ride an extra 11 miles just to keep up with a 5 person team with one member riding the de minimus 1mile. Of course when rcannon allocated the riders the formula took into account both # of miles ridden and # of rides per week, but I just wonder if the 4-person teams will be at a slight disadvantage.

I suspect that Team 10 wont be the only one to suffer a mid-January lull in mileage. I’ve certainly been pushing myself to ride *a lot* more than I otherwise would -and I think the excitement of the first week will probably wear a bit thin as we get to Feb.

I’d like to add that one benefit of the challenge is getting people to ride more through the winter. I’ll praise anyone who is riding more often than they normally do, even if it’s only a mile a day.

Since the handicap calculations took the days per week bonus into account, it should work out to be a fair challenge. If everyone who was only riding once a week starts riding every day, can’t complain! Just getting on the bike on a cold day might be the hardest part anyway.

[Justin Antos]

Good motivation to ride 11 extra miles!

[rcannon100]

@Bilsko 39888 wrote:

I’m not saying we should be changing this: rcannon has already put in *a lot* of work to get us to the great shape we’re in now – but perhaps at the end of the competition we should think ….

I said to Steve A yesterday, most of what I have done comes from old moldy experience of running and participating in ultimate frisbee tournaments – and has been filled with assumptions. Seems like people are very positive about motivation to embrace cold mornings…. so yes, at the end of this, we should think about lessons learned – how to structure the game for next time.

It’s probably true. If you came into the game with a low handicap, the easiest thing you can do to increase your score is bike every day. It’s going to be harder for someone with a high handicap who is already biking every day to increase their score by that much – they have to actually put in the miles. I hear Purceville is nice this time of year.

[ejwillis62]

my competitive nature is surely making me ride more considering the fact that I have NEVER ridden in the winter before but I hate to lose so this whole competition thing has been an awesome thing. I have ridden with a headlight in the dark. Which I love, I never thought I would do that. Now we shall see how whimpy I get when there is wet or snow out there. I am not at all sure about that. But I love a challenge so we shall see and after the marathon training this winter riding is way way easier, evertime I ride and coast past a jogger I grin. I love coasting.

[Certifried]

@ejwillis62 39915 wrote:

I love coasting.

You should go ride with Dirt!

[GuyContinental]

@ejwillis62 39915 wrote:

my competitive nature is surely making me ride more considering the fact that I have NEVER ridden in the winter before but I hate to lose so this whole competition thing has been an awesome thing. I have ridden with a headlight in the dark. Which I love, I never thought I would do that. Now we shall see how whimpy I get when there is wet or snow out there. I am not at all sure about that. But I love a challenge so we shall see and after the marathon training this winter riding is way way easier, evertime I ride and coast past a jogger I grin. I love coasting.

There were a LOT more riders out (in both directions) on the WOD this morning than I’m used to seeing in the dark… at first I thought it was the usual new years resolution crowd, now I think that it was all of YOU (more so because dang near everyone dimmed their lights).

[PeteD]

@rcannon100 39912 wrote:

If you came into the game with a low handicap, the easiest thing you can do to increase your score is bike every day. It’s going to be harder for someone with a high handicap who is already biking every day to increase their score by that much – they have to actually put in the miles.

Another analogy is League Bowling. You get your handicap (usually 90% of the difference between 200 and your average), and that gets added to your score every game. So usually the ringer team (i.e. the team that has no handicap) has to consistently bowl above 200 games to deal with a team with a 40-50 pin handicap. In the leagues I’ve bowled in, the team that usually wins isn’t the ringer team, it’s the team that showed the most consistency and increase in average over the length of the league.

With the Freezing Saddles, it’s a little easier for someone with a handicap to exceed that handicap than in bowling, but it’s also just as easy for the low or no handicap riders to come up with a “900” series than in bowling.

[Bilsko]

@GuyContinental 39920 wrote:

There were a LOT more riders out (in both directions) on the WOD this morning than I’m used to seeing in the dark… at first I thought it was the usual new years resolution crowd, now I think that it was all of YOU (more so because dang near everyone dimmed their lights).

Every time I ride up on someone sporting a BikeArlington ankle-strap, I’m so tempted to ask if they’re logging miles for the competition. I think the only person I’ve met like that out on the trails was Ricky A. while riding down to the HP100. I had meant to make a sign with “Bilsko” on it for that ride to let people know it was me, but forgot at the last minute. Maybe I’ll spray paint it to the back of my bag and/or pannier and/or vest.

Alas, I only know a few forum members by sight so I imagine I’ve ridden by a few people without even knowing it.

[KLizotte]

The 10 pt “bonus” for just getting on a bike has motivated me to bike every day even though I would usually prefer to get the extra 15 minutes of sleep in the morning.

[Certifried]

My Garmin mounted quite easily to this, but I did lose GPS signal on the train. I’ll have to manually edit the ride. This is allowed, right?

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