Missing Team Members and Substitutions

[Vicegrip]

@vvill 132207 wrote:

A little competitive would be nice!

One has no rides yet and one is out with a broken thumb. Just sayin’.

Easy fix. Youz mention da broken thumb to the guy that is a no riding.
😡

[vvill]

@cvcalhoun 132233 wrote:

You’re still ahead of us (Team 4), even with the new person’s miles counted! We have one who has no rides, and another who has one. We started out with only 12 people rather than 13. And I’m barely managing perfect attendance, with much reduced mileage, after mishaps that included developing a kidney stone on one ride (yes, really!) and developing a bent wheel rim on another that took me three days to get fixed (and involved my riding on a flat tire with no rear brake in between).

Rear brakes are overrated! But yeah I know a whole bunch of teams have issues with points. They’re not my team though :rolleyes:

I do wish there was more parity across the competition – I don’t get the motivation from it when my team is fighting for 13th, or whatever. I guess that’s what pointless prizes are for.

[cvcalhoun]

@vvill 132254 wrote:

Rear brakes are overrated! But yeah I know a whole bunch of teams have issues with points. They’re not my team though :rolleyes:

I do wish there was more parity across the competition – I don’t get the motivation from it when my team is fighting for 13th, or whatever. I guess that’s what pointless prizes are for.

Yeah, aside from the first year, I think it’s always been pretty obvious which team would win–or at least that it would be one of two teams–early on. And the more teams there are, the more people are going to be on one that doesn’t win. But there are meet-ups and group rides, so people get a chance to meet new people. And there are pointless prizes, so everyone can be in competition for at least something. And there is the motivating effect of just seeing from others how much riding is possible, even in adverse weather conditions. So the competition serves a number of useful functions, even if the winner is not in doubt for long.

[vern]

@vvill 132254 wrote:

Rear brakes are overrated! But yeah I know a whole bunch of teams have issues with points. They’re not my team though :rolleyes:

I do wish there was more parity across the competition – I don’t get the motivation from it when my team is fighting for 13th, or whatever. I guess that’s what pointless prizes are for.

Last year the team I was on – Bipolar Bears – was in last and next to last place at the beginning of the competition – the first couple weeks. In the end we finished in second place. What is true now doesn’t have to be so in March, and won’t be. Lots can happen; people can get motivated; injuries heal, people who are really busy now won’t be so busy later, etc.

[Steve O]

@vvill 132254 wrote:

I do wish there was more parity across the competition

I’m going to once again throw out my suggestion that the last place team get a bench player several times along the way. That probably won’t affect the fight among the top teams, but it will tighten it up overall.

[cvcalhoun]

@Steve O 132268 wrote:

I’m going to once again throw out my suggestion that the last place team get a bench player several times along the way. That probably won’t affect the fight among the top teams, but it will tighten it up overall.

As you say, adding a player to the last place team is unlikely to make that team shoot into first place. And I’m not sure how much people care about whether they are 19th place versus 12th place, for example. But the only way we’re likely to find out is if you volunteer to do team assignments next year. The existing volunteers found balancing the teams to begin with, then rebalancing them when people failed to show up, challenging enough that they were unwilling to add a third layer of complexity.

[Author]

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