Freezing Saddles: Winter Bike Challenge (sign up open)

[rcannon100]

Freezing Saddles: Winter Bike Challenge
Never Give an ELITE Cyclist an Even Break

Official Frozen Scoreboard

NOTE: Excluded activities: If you post an activity to Strava during the competition period which is not an outdoor bike ride, then it should have the string “#NoBAFS” in the activity name.

Freezing Saddles! The Epic Adventure of a band of ELITE Cyclists, facing the challenges of the wild wild wild bike paths. Confronting the darkest of evenings, the coldest of mornings, and the stupidest of Ninjas – these brave cyclists challenge each other because, if they didnt, they might have to actually do some work during the day.

The saga runs January 1 until the last day of Winter, March 20. It will conclude with a March Madness Playoff that someone will probably design. There will be a Happy Hour at the end with many pointless trophies.

Tribes (teams):

• Composed of ~5 riders or less
• For riders from the #bikedc, Washington DC Bike Forum general community (Washington DC greater metropolitan area)
• Volunteer Captains (captains will address any data problems, negotiate or cause confusion, and provide motivational seminars);
• This is a ten-gallon hat tournament. Riders will be randomly assigned to tribes based on self declared average weekly mileage and days cycled. Tribes will be created so that each tribes’s average weekly point score is roughly equal to everyone else’s. To achieve this, tribes may be composed of differing numbers of riders.
• No late sign ups.
• Interested cyclists must sign up by December 25 Midnight – Tribes will be announced within a couple days.

Scoring: Riders will receive 10 points for each day and 1 point for each mile ridden. Minimum ride is 1 mile. The tribe’s score will be the sum of the tribe members (indoor trainers do not count- you must be freezing in the saddle outside).

Backend: STRAVA (please sign up for an account, and join the “Bike Arlington” club on STRAVA – you should be able to enter data manually or automatically. Additional information will be posted here on the forum.)

This is a self organized group activity based on consensus. No one is in charge or running this thing. Participation is voluntary and entirely at your own risk.

Be Brave. Be Bold. Be…. questful! In the words of Hedley Lamarr:

Men, you are about to embark on a great crusade to stamp out runaway decency on the bike paths. Now you men will only be risking your lives, whilst I will be risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Here are the teams with the new subs

Team one
http://app.strava.com/athletes/126281
Matthew Whatley
Shawn Dread
443749
John Fisher – 608636

Team Two
Pete DeNitto – 768183
Steve Appel
James Hoofnagle
Jason Kyzer
Mega Beth – http://app.strava.com/athletes/136523
Joe Birkenstock – 1154396

Team Three
Trish Newberg
randy napiza 313677
Mark Blacknell
essigmw
obenlandk@gmail.com – http://www.strava.com/athletes/1564295

Team Four
EKR
Kel Moore
Chris Shue
Crystal Bae
Elizabeth MacGregor

Team Five
http://app.strava.com/athletes/benbhsu
307483 (Mark Williams)
Christopher Niebylski
vvill
Kevin Ulrich – http://www.strava.com/athletes/kevin_ulrich

Team Six
Arlingtonrider
sjclaeys
ejwillis@yahoo.com
http://app.strava.com/athletes/302448
feomike@gmail.com – http://www.strava.com/athletes/feomike

Team Seven
Henning Schulzrinne
klizotte
Brad Hancock
Ron Alford
Chris Randall

Team Eight
Ken Buja (1224809)
Kevin Williams, Strava # 580756, BA “GuyContinental”
Lena Varuolo
Hans Lellelid

Team Nine
Steve O
jopamora
Justin Antos (Strava 1473093)
http://app.strava.com/athletes/488016

Team Ten
certifried
strava name Karen Smith (forum poster acl)
Cyndi Janetzko
Rod Smith

Team Eleven (Freezing Saddles Team Mongo (11) on Strava)
Greg Ba
cptjohnc
rcannon100
mdevoll
Sarah Dots
Sean Chisham

Team Twelve
Calpike
BonzaiBuckaroo
Daniel Alexander
ochsendorf@gmail.com

Topic

[Bilsko]

@KLizotte 47007 wrote:

I’m surprised no one has brought this up yet but today is the first official day of spring. So….today’s miles didn’t occur in winter!

The snow flurries hitting my face on the commute home beg to differ.

[rcannon100]

@KLizotte 47007 wrote:

I’m surprised no one has brought this up yet but today is the first official day of spring. So….today’s miles didn’t occur in winter!

Spring started I believe at 7:00 am yesterday. I made a judgement calls. Since part of the day was Winter, and a lot of morning commutes would still be in winter, I included it in the challenge.

But if you want, we could recalculate and disqualify all those 50 mile rides that occurred during spring!*

SOOOOOOOO glad its spring.

* (JOKING! JOKING!)

[sjclaeys]

That was fun, let’s do it again!

[Rod Smith]

Congrats to Team V! Also, congrats to consularrider for finishing with the most points. I’m a little embarrassed that I let you slip past me, seeing how I spent 79 hours more than you on my bike, plodding along at 5-10mph while you were at your job. I’d be even more embarrassed if you didn’t pass me, because you’re clearly the stronger rider and deserve the honor.

Kudos to all the riders who participated. I was inspired by so many of you. Thanks to my teammates. I’m sorry I failed to make the mileage I predicted I would ride. The women of Team Ten carried us to a respectable fifth place, in fine style, scoring lots of QOMs along the way, near and far (in three continents), high and low (from sea level to 6000+ feet in the Himalaya)!

[Bilsko]

@sjclaeys 47019 wrote:

That was fun, let’s do it again!

Ah….I believe you are referring to the “Sniffling Saddles” competition that runs from today through May 30. Or perhaps the “Searing Saddles” competition that takes us from June 1 through August 31.

[Amalitza]

@Rod Smith 47022 wrote:

I’m sorry I failed to make the mileage I predicted I would ride.

Actually, you rode above your handicap. I know. Bob gave me the numbers so that I could figure out a couple prizes. Plus provided inspiration for your team. So, nope you’re not allowed to be sorry. 😎

[Rod Smith]

Thanks, Amy. I don’t remember the number. If I made it, just barely.

[vvill]

@Bilsko 47031 wrote:

Ah….I believe you are referring to the “Sniffling Saddles” competition that runs from today through May 30. Or perhaps the “Searing Saddles” competition that takes us from June 1 through August 31.

Last year I wore ski goggles to prevent my eyes being overly pollinated and it worked rather well, doofy as it was.

[TwoWheelsDC]

Also, Sniffling Saddles is appropriate given that our late March temps are the same as January’s averages. It’s too cold! 😡

[Greenbelt]

I’d be up for ronwalf and hozn keeping their pages up and re-activating the updates so we can continue to track our miles throughout the year. It’s just a really cool easy way to see who’s riding where and find new routes, ride ideas etc. -Jeff

[Hancockbs]

I may have been one of the worst sand baggers in this competition, but it wasn’t intentional. I clearly got caught up in the game and rode WAY more than I would have otherwise. I already have 45% of my total milage from last year. For this, I want to thank the organizers and everyone who participated. I won’t be able to make the event tonight, but wanted to offer my congratulations to everyone on an outstanding competition! Looking forward to the next one!

[KelOnWheels]

This was SO MUCH FUN!

Thanks to everybody for all your hard work with websites and planning and stuff, and for riding in the freezing cold and luring unsuspecting folks… err… SUPPORTING your fellow riders in their insanity… um… endeavors!

The amount of awesomeness and knowledge and encouragement and just gosh darn ol’ plain niceness and sharing on this forum is really amazing. I am proud to know you all.

Y’all rock like a bunch of rock stars with rocks on their shoes with a side of rock sauce.

Team FourCuatroPho 4 LYFE!

[vvill]

@Hancockbs 47045 wrote:

I may have been one of the worst sand baggers in this competition, but it wasn’t intentional. I clearly got caught up in the game and rode WAY more than I would have otherwise. I already have 45% of my total milage from last year. For this, I want to thank the organizers and everyone who participated. I won’t be able to make the event tonight, but wanted to offer my congratulations to everyone on an outstanding competition! Looking forward to the next one!

Many of us rode more than we would otherwise, and that’s one of the great outcomes of this challenge. I’ve already doubled my 2011 total mileage this year!

[KayakCyndi]

@KelOnWheels 47047 wrote:

This was SO MUCH FUN!

I totally echo the sentiments of others here. This was AWESOME motivation to ride through winter. I managed to get on a a bike everyday I was in the country and 7 out of the 21 days I was out of it. I rode more miles by mid-March than ever before. But best of all was getting hooked into this forum and great group of people!

Thanks to my fabulous team for the encouragement. Someday we will take that Team 10 ride!

Hope to see many of you at happy hour tonight.

[krazygl00]

Damn. I need to do this next year.

[Author]

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