Pointless Prize: Ross Hill Loop

[randomduck]

Greetings! I’m sponsoring a Pointless Prize for the rider who does the most laps of the Ross Hill Loop segment in Rock Creek Park. This segment would also count for those approaching from the south – but no double-dipping, please.

This is a 3.6 mile loop that starts and ends at the intersection of Beach Drive and Joyce Road NW. It runs clockwise, so it does the climb up the Ridge Road lacets. Each lap has 264 feet of climbing.

Simply tag your rides with the #rosshillloop hashtag to put the ride in consideration. The prize will be worth the climbing. Photos not necessary but not discouraged, either.

[Serdar]

@randomduck 221286 wrote:

Greetings! I’m sponsoring a Pointless Prize for the rider who does the most laps of the Ross Hill Loop segment in Rock Creek Park.

This is a 3.6 mile loop that starts and ends at the intersection of Beach Drive and Joyce Road NW. It runs clockwise, so it does the climb up the Ridge Road lacets. Each lap has 264 feet of climbing.

Simply tag your rides with the #rosshillloop hashtag to put the ride in consideration. The prize will be worth the climbing. Photos not necessary but not discouraged, either.

Thank you for sponsoring this prize! I added it to the list.

[merlin]

Oh, it’s on.

https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/hashtag/rosshillloop

[randomduck]

@merlin 221416 wrote:

Oh, it’s on.

https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/hashtag/rosshillloop

Woot!

[DCAKen]

@randomduck 221286 wrote:

Greetings! I’m sponsoring a Pointless Prize for the rider who does the most laps of the Ross Hill Loop segment in Rock Creek Park.

This is a 3.6 mile loop that starts and ends at the intersection of Beach Drive and Joyce Road NW. It runs clockwise, so it does the climb up the Ridge Road lacets. Each lap has 264 feet of climbing.

Simply tag your rides with the #rosshillloop hashtag to put the ride in consideration. The prize will be worth the climbing. Photos not necessary but not discouraged, either.

Is there a reason you’re recording this prize by using hashtags instead of using the Strava segments? For example, the Hains Point prize does by segment, as does the Arlington Loop prizes. A few years ago, there was the POGGIO competition, riding up Ross Drive, that didn’t require a hashtag.

The big drawback of using a hashtag is that multiple loops in a single ride would only count once. There were a few of using doing the POGGIO many times in a single ride for a spirited competition. The IT geniuses behind the FS back-end should be able to help set this up using the segment.

[randomduck]

@DCAKen 221618 wrote:

Is there a reason you’re recording this prize by using hashtags instead of using the Strava segments? For example, the Hains Point prize does by segment, as does the Arlington Loop prizes. A few years ago, there was the POGGIO competition, riding up Ross Drive, that didn’t require a hashtag.

The big drawback of using a hashtag is that multiple loops in a single ride would only count once. There were a few of using doing the POGGIO many times in a single ride for a spirited competition. The IT geniuses behind the FS back-end should be able to help set this up using the segment.

I have no problem with that becoming the standard if the IT wizards can get it sorted out. It’s my first Pointless Prize and I’m a sometimes participant in BAFS (yay, ski coaching career) and never having been in the running for a Pointless Prize I’ve never taken a deep dive into how the ones using Strava segments are tallied.

[Meh]

Is this now Strava’ ed (there is obviously a segment already) or is it still run by hashtags?

#confusednow

[merlin]

@Meh 222021 wrote:

Is this now Strava’ ed (there is obviously a segment already) or is it still run by hashtags?

Code is done, it is in a queue to hopefully get pushed up to the site so should be safe to ride without tags. If not, we can always pull results from the database at the end.

[randomduck]

@merlin 222038 wrote:

Code is done, it is in a queue to hopefully get pushed up to the site so should be safe to ride without tags. If not, we can always pull results from the database at the end.

Many thanks! 😎

[Steve O]

I wanted to ask the prize host if a loop that starts at the south end would also count? Just a suggestion. This is helpful for those coming from points south of the loop.

If so, then someone will need to create a segment (easy for anyone who has looped around two or more times in a row).

Then the IT magicians will need to include both segments.

[randomduck]

Steve O: I included a south starting version in an edit of the intro post.

That said: there’s a kind of poetry to having it start at the north. Who says these loops need to be convenient? :p

[DCAKen]

To prevent double-dipping, you could modify this to count the number of times a participant does both the Ross Drive Up and Over and the Beach Dr. – Police Station to Broad Branch segments, similar to how the Loopy for Arlington competition works.

[Serdar]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]29663[/ATTACH]
I rode Ross Hill Loop today. Too bad I can’t catch up with Merlin, who accomplished 12 loops so far.
https://www.strava.com/activities/8391750755

[randomduck]

@DCAKen 222330 wrote:

To prevent double-dipping, you could modify this to count the number of times a participant does both the Ross Drive Up and Over and the Beach Dr. – Police Station to Broad Branch segments, similar to how the Loopy for Arlington competition works.

Suuuuure: try and make it easier for those Virginia folk to take the southern approach. :rolleyes:

That’s certainly an option, but it’s a little tougher to figure out a pure loop as a RCP ride could do the Ridge-Ross ascent, then continue up Beach Drive for a while, turn around, descend Beach and technically complete the loop, albeit not in a contiguous motion. That complicates scoring the loop I intended to have for the competition. I’m fine with folks approaching it from the north (as originally intended) or the south (as Virginia asked for), but it should be a contiguous loop – and linking the two sections might not work in this way.

[merlin]

My plan is to count the max of the true north start loops and imposter south start loops for each ride. This will solve for double dipping, but if someone does a ride that starts with a south start loop and later has a north start loop they’ll lose, but that’s okay, such a person doesn’t deserve to be counted.

[Author]

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