National Bike Challenge 2014

[PotomacCyclist]

@DCLiz 87725 wrote:

I guess that’s why Wisconsin is always the state leader. I really love the challenge. It definitely motivates me to ride more often than I would otherwise.

I see that Kimberly-Clark was founded in Neenah, Wisconsin and it continues to have facilities there. But the headquarters moved to Irving, TX, a few decades ago. The fact that the bike challenge started in Wisconsin instead of Texas is interesting. Maybe there are more cyclists in WI. Trek is based in Waterloo, WI.

Scott Naturals Brand is the lead sponsor, a brand of Kimberly-Clark. But the Challenge is now organized and presented by The League of American Bicyclists, which is located at 1612 K Street NW, Suite 308, here in DC.

Why hasn’t this fact led to a predominance of DC-area cyclists winning the year’s supply of toilet paper prizes? I don’t know. Sounds like a big conspiracy to me…

NOTE: The LAB is still officially known as League of American Wheelmen, Inc., dba League of American Bicyclists.

http://bikeleague.org/content/about-league

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[dasgeh]

I so wish they had kept the name. Nothing like scheduling a meeting with LAW.

[PotomacCyclist]

The long arm of the LAW

Laying down the LAW

I fought the LAW and the LAW won

There oughta be a LAW

OK, I’ll stop now.

[cephas]

@PotomacCyclist 87748 wrote:

Why hasn’t this fact led to a predominance of DC-area cyclists winning the year’s supply of toilet paper prizes? I don’t know. Sounds like a big conspiracy to me…

In fact, I believe last year most of the toilet paper winners were from the DC area.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PotomacCyclist]

@cephas 87762 wrote:

In fact, I believe last year most of the toilet paper winners were from the DC area.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hmm, so it might be a LAW, I mean, LAB conspiracy.

[Vicegrip]

@cephas 87762 wrote:

In fact, I believe last year most of the toilet paper winners were from the DC area.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No shi…..?

Um don’t mind me I am at the pool enjoying an adult beverage.

[Rod Smith]

@Rod Smith 87435 wrote:

Does anyone here know Andrea Matney? I noticed some of my Facebook friends like Toole Design Group’s Facebook page. Can we get their DC area members on our team? I’m riding so slow now, I can’t recruit riders on the commute. They just blow by me. I did bring in the top rider in Maryland (before Andrea Matney moved ahead of him) and the top rider in DC, among others.

I rode about 600 miles less in May 2014 than I did in May 2013. Sorry.

I’m logging the top DC rider’s miles for him because thats the only way he would agreed to participate. I’m willing to do the same for hozn.

I’ll give a roll of toilet paper to every All-Star who logs a ride of over 200 miles next weekend.

I got Andrea Matney to join our team! I’m so happy. She is second on the team behind SteveE! OK, I’m offering one free roll of toilet paper for every ride of 200+ miles by any teammate. Andrea has earned three rolls so far. It’s not about epic rando feats though. We need more members and we need to ride everyday if possible. We have twice as many on our team as last year which is great. But that puts us in the large team category this year so we won’t get an award unless we win the overall. I’ve removed myself as an administrator for a variety of reasons one of which is because I’d probably kick everyone who isn’t in the top 99 off the team at the end of the challenge period so we can win medium sized team again. Haha. :rolleyes:

The team captains are CarolC, DanaB, and SteveE.

[cvcalhoun]

Yay! I’d sent a Facebook message inviting her to join. But Facebook messages from nonfriends get dumped into an “Other messages” tab that few people ever read, so I don’t know that she even got it. I’m really glad someone managed to find a way to get her onto the team!

@Rod Smith 88338 wrote:

I got Andrea Matney to join our team!

[Rod Smith]

Hmm, I couldn’t find her on FB. I’ve tweeted a total of three times, twice to her. I know Twitter is cool but I can’t figure it out. :p

[PotomacCyclist]

@Rod Smith 88338 wrote:

I got Andrea Matney to join our team! I’m so happy. She is second on the team behind SteveE! OK, I’m offering one free roll of toilet paper for every ride of 200+ miles by any teammate. Andrea has earned three rolls so far. It’s not about epic rando feats though. We need more members and we need to ride everyday if possible. We have twice as many on our team as last year which is great. But that puts us in the large team category this year so we won’t get an award unless we win the overall. I’ve removed myself as an administrator for a variety of reasons one of which is because I’d probably kick everyone who isn’t in the top 99 off the team at the end of the challenge period so we can win medium sized team again. Haha. :rolleyes:

The team captains are CarolC, DanaB, and SteveE.

Where is Sheila E.? Or Kenny G?

[Rod Smith]

@PotomacCyclist 88350 wrote:

Where is Sheila E.? Or Kenny G?

Locals only.

[PotomacCyclist]

I think I’ve been undercounting my miles on most trips. I usually ride CaBi. I’m familiar with the routes and I’ve tracked them many times before with the Garmin. But this year, I don’t always feel like wearing the Garmin on CaBi so I estimate the distance, based on all of those former Garmin downloads. Then I decided to wear the Garmin a few times this week. I’ve been undercounting the miles slightly, by about 0.3 to 0.5 mile per trip.

I don’t know how many times I’ve taken that exact trip. Maybe not too many, so the total undercount may not be too significant. Probably less than 5 miles total. But I’m a bit disappointed that I’m ripping myself off of those hard-earned miles. Who knows if that extra 0.5 mile would have been the lucky charm that could have won me a year’s supply of toilet paper?

[cvcalhoun]

What’s bizarre is that if I upload miles to Garmin, and upload the same miles (from the same Garmin) to Strava, it always shows more miles on Strava. I’m not sure how the same file can be parsed so as to result in two different mileage counts, but it’s happened many times. This does not give me great confidence that either service is accurate down to 0.3 to 0.5 miles.

@PotomacCyclist 88380 wrote:

I think I’ve been undercounting my miles on most trips. I usually ride CaBi. I’m familiar with the routes and I’ve tracked them many times before with the Garmin. But this year, I don’t always feel like wearing the Garmin on CaBi so I estimate the distance, based on all of those former Garmin downloads. Then I decided to wear the Garmin a few times this week. I’ve been undercounting the miles slightly, by about 0.3 to 0.5 mile per trip.

I don’t know how many times I’ve taken that exact trip. Maybe not too many, so the total undercount may not be too significant. Probably less than 5 miles total. But I’m a bit disappointed that I’m ripping myself off of those hard-earned miles. Who knows if that extra 0.5 mile would have been the lucky charm that could have won me a year’s supply of toilet paper?

[Rod Smith]

I think underestimating to avoid inadvertently claiming more than you actually rode is going to improve your chances of winning toilet paper. Good karma.

[hozn]

@cvcalhoun 88385 wrote:

What’s bizarre is that if I upload miles to Garmin, and upload the same miles (from the same Garmin) to Strava, it always shows more miles on Strava. I’m not sure how the same file can be parsed so as to result in two different mileage counts, but it’s happened many times. This does not give me great confidence that either service is accurate down to 0.3 to 0.5 miles.

Do you use “smart” recording on the Garmin or “every second”? Try the latter, if you aren’t and see if that improves things. I am guessing Garmin and Strava just have different smoothing algorithms to connect the dots recorded by the device. I typically found Strava to show *lower* numbers than the Garmin, though it seems like lately they line up pretty close. Strava is constantly tweaking their calculations and they likely do different things for different models of cycling computers.

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