Pointless Prize Thread 2021

[accordioneur]

Hi all! It’s time for the funnest part of Freezing Saddles, the Pointless Prizes. These are fun activities – both crazy and mundane – that add a little something extra to the winter riding experience.

First of all, anyone can sponsor a prize – you can sponsor a prize, your friend who isn’t playing can sponsor a prize, even your mom can sponsor a prize. Second, Pointless Prizes can be about anything! They can be objective (like most miles ridden on New Years Day), they can be subjective (like Sock Game). They can be embarrassing (like rider with the most falls) and they can be heartwarming (Bike Samaritans, helping others in need). Check out last year’s thread for more examples.

Here is the current list of Pointless Prizes:
Prize Name (Sponsor) – Description #Hashtag
Elevation per mile prize (QuikAF77) – Most elevation per mile on average for the entire competition NA
Public Art Finder (Boomer2U) – Any display of art (graffiti, mural, sculpture or any sort of artistic expression, loosely defined), permanent or temporary installation, that is freely accessible to the public and includes a bicycle somewhere in the picture frame #publicartfinder
CalvinBall (rcannon100) – Calvinball is a hot-potato cycling game that celebrates creativity and stoopidity
Lite Brite Prize (sarahbee) – Ten categories of cool photo prizes #LiteBrite
Photo Caption Competition (SteveO) –
Civil War History Prize (BicycleBeth) – #CivilWarMarker #CivilWarStreet.
LakeFinder (Boomer2U) – #lakefinder
Wormhole (LuisFilipe) – Ride using “Wormholes” – unexpected connections from Point A to Point B #fswormhole
Daily Photo Scavenger Hunt (drevil) – Find and photograph the object/concept of the days
4 Point Pointless Prize (Char Miller) – Visit the four corners of the DC boundary
Quaxapalooza (rumipumi) – Supporting your local small businesses on your bikes (aka Quaxing) #BAFS2021SmallBiz
Bike Infrastructure (smb9600) – Share info about the cool bike infrastructure being built to make our cycling lives easier. #BikeInfrastructure
TandemStyle (elizsnyder) – Spot tandems in the wild #tandemstyle
New Deal Landmarks (historygeek) – Find New Deal related sites
Extra Mile (epilsk) – Overcome obstacles to ride
Deflated (LuisFilipe) – Most flats during FS #Deflated
Loopy for Arlington (bentbike33) – Most Arlington Loops
Top 3 Women Riders (Fast Friendly Guy) – Most BAFS miles, pronoun “she”
Slowest Mile (Bort McFly) – Slowest average speed – 1-2 mile rides #slowmile
Parkfinder (camiller) – Discover and visit local parks #Parkfinder
Coffee Snob (Chuxtr) – Ride and drink froufrou java #FS2021coffeesnobride
STEM (bikesnick) – Show your bike at a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) site
Sock Game (Jessica Hirschhorn) – Best socks
Errandeering (BeeTinDC) – Use your bike to run errands – not commuting, not fun stuff. Sometimes pronounced Errandaneuring. #freezingerrands2021
Drop the Pandemic Pudge (Cwaggon) – Ride your bike to burn off those extra pounds you may have accumulated during the pandemic #DropThePandemicPudge
Team that rides the most days (SteveO) – Team that rides the most days, regardless of miles
Meh-diocrity (SteveO) – Prize for the individual/team who ends up exactly in the middle of the pack
Mailbox Collection (bigredboiler) – Find interesting mailboxes #Mailbox
Heroes Work Here (bikedavid) – Ride to a spot with a “Heroes work here” sign #HeroesWorkHere
Honoring MLK (tomacsh) – Ride your bike to volunteer service (thorugh 1/31)
Wikipedia 20th (snugglefestival) – One day only – ride to a site with a Wikipedia page #Wikipedia20

Topic

[rcannon100]

@SarahBee 202774 wrote:

@rcannon100, can I count you in on participating in this PP if I add a category for “Most Lit Doggo”?

I think the only way I can respond to that is, “Challenge Accepted.“

(Note my comment was a general comment re pointless games. Hidden Agenda – many of these games are fantastic – but they are sort of hard to play the winner-take-all games if I have no chance at beating ConsularRider )

[Boomer Cycles]

@rcannon100 202692 wrote:

I’m confused. Why do we want to find Public Carts??

Try spelling it with one “c” and see if that helps … or substitute a “c” with another constant of your choice;-)

Sent from Boomer_Cycles via my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rcannon100]

@Boomer2U 202776 wrote:

Try spelling it with one “c” and see if that helps … or substitute a “c” with another constant of your choice;-)

Sent from Boomer_Cycles via my iPhone using Tapatalk

Public Farts?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[rcannon100]

Now Playing: Calvinball: The Revenge of Santabot – during the holidaze season

One ball is hidden in Lake Fairfax and the other is hidden at the East Falls Church metro bike prison

Game is on FB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21787[/ATTACH]

[tomacsh]

Can you advise on winning one of last year’s prizes but never being recognized or awarded anything? Least Daily Variance…I posted on the thread but never got a response. Thanks, Shannon (ST)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rcannon100]

@tomacsh 202798 wrote:

Can you advise …

Yes. Volunteer to run the prize this year (everything is done by volunteers).

[cvcalhoun]

@tomacsh 202798 wrote:

Can you advise on winning one of last year’s prizes but never being recognized or awarded anything? Least Daily Variance…I posted on the thread but never got a response. Thanks, Shannon (ST)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Unfortunately, a lot of the prize winners last year never got recognized or awarded anything. Normally, prizes are awarded at the final happy hour, and that never took place due to the pandemic. And because no one anticipated the pandemic when the competition began, we didn’t have an alternative way planned to award prizes.

At least this year, we’ve got advance notice of the fact that there may well not be a final happy hour, and an opportunity to figure things out in the event it can’t happen. But I would still expect that many of the prizes this year may be only the honor of the thing rather than physical prizes, because it would be up to each person who awarded a prize to figure out how to get it to the recipient.

[accordioneur]

Hey, all! I’ve started the list of Prizes – see the first post in this thread. Remember, if your prize is something that would benefit from its own thread (such as a place to post pictures for a photo contest), the prize sponsor should create the thread. I’ll link to it from the master list. Likewise, if tracking for your prize needs a hashtag, when you specify the hashtag I’ll add it to the list.

[rcannon100]

Notorious Bingo

A scavenger hunt of ill-repute, in which cyclists hunt for depravity, debauchery, and repression – open to Freezers anywhere.

D.C. is a town of scandal. While Arlingtonians pine for the “good old days,” Rosslyn used to have a neighborhood known as “Dead Mans Hollow” where farmers returning from the Georgetown Market would get mugged. The Lee Harrison shopping mall was the site of the famous gang fight between the Pagans and Avengers. And then there is Monkey Business (because what would politics be without a sex scandal).

You get a bingo-card of ill-repute. You go out and capture ill-repute. You post it on any social media (with a hashtag to be negotiated). You send in your accomplishments for valuable prizes. So basically its Coffeeneuring except for Bordellos.

Each bingo square will be a category, based on something about D.C.. You can bike to and capture that category in any way you want – you just have to give a good explanation how that captures that category.

Example: Category: Salad Days. That means of course (you know this) punk rock. If you are in D.C., you could for example satisfy this by going and taking a picture in front of Hagen Daz in DC (oh someone PLEASE know why Hagen Daz is a punk rock holy site in D.C.). If you were perhaps in…. oh I dont know…. Manhattan…. you could go take a picture in front of OMFUG. So anyone anywhere can play.

Circle gets the Square. Now fill out the rest of the bingo card.

Bingo cards are being produced by the French Knights at the Doune Castle.

The winner of the game will be hired as a summer tour guide. The second place winner will be arrested and required to serve 6 months in Lorton Prison. (Everyone who completes the bingo card is a winner. I’ll think of something. Probably like Coffeeneuring, only this is Notorious, so I will probably make a profit off of it).

[Steve O]

I will once again sponsor the Photo Caption competition. A new thread will be created when the contest begins.

[BicycleBeth]

Civil War History Pointless Prize

I’d like to sponsor a Civil War History pointless prize. We have so much Civil War history in the DC Metro area, and I’d love for us to explore more of our nation’s heritage. I’ve had a great time cycling to Civil War sites this year including circle forts, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Maryland Campaign of 1862. I’ve even designed and rode bicycle routes to follow troop movements leading up to the Battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Gettysburg.

The Rules

For this contest, there are two ways to earn points, each of which will have a hashtag on Strava. You can earn a maximum of 7 points per day. That is, your ride can have both hashtags: #CivilWarMarker #CivilWarStreet. If you have multiple rides in one day and both rides are hashtagged for this prize, only the first ride of the day counts.

1. #CivilWarMarker +5 points
-Find Civil War Markers like monuments, historic signs with descriptions, circle forts, battle sites, and similar. Take a photo of the historic marker with your bicycle. Write a short description of the marker on Strava. This could be as simple as retyping the text of the marker or talking about where you found the marker or why it caught your eye.
-Hashtag the ride on Strava as #CivilWarMarker.
-One Civil War Marker counts PER DAY.
-Don’t repeat the same exact historic marker for the duration of Freezing Saddles. You’re on the honor system here.

2. #CivilWarStreet +2 points
-Find streets named after Civil War generals, key figures, and streets that were critical to the Civil War. Take a picture of your bike with the street sign. Write a short description of who this general/key figure was or why this street/street name was critical in the Civil War in the comment section on Strava.
-Examples for streets critical to the Civil War:
*”Military Road” in Arlington and in DC was designed to connect the circle forts defending the perimeter of Washington.
*Roads that were critical in battle movements also count as long as you annotate why they were important. For example, “Bolivar Road” is the approach that Union troops used to to engaged with Confederate troops at Fox’s Gap (on Reno Monument Road) at the Battle of South Mountain in September of 1862.
-Hashtag the ride on Strava as #CivilWarStreet.
-One Civil War Street counts PER DAY.
-Do not repeat the same street in the same city/town but you could find the same street name in a different city. For example, “Lee” Street appears in multiple cities in the region. You could ride “Lee” Street in 5 different cities on 5 different days and have them all count. But don’t just ride another block down the same street and count that as a new sign (unless it’s in a different city). You’re on the honor system here.

Prizes for the Top 3 Winners!!!
The top 3 winners will be honored on the Freezing Saddles forum and receive their choice of the following Audible audio books delivered electronically. If there is a tie for more than 3 top place finishers, then I will go through a subset of the hashtagged Strava posts, view the photos, and read the descriptions posted to Strava and subjectively decide who was more thorough in documenting civil war history.

1. The Great Courses: The American Civil War
2. The Great Courses: The History of the United States, 2nd Edition
3. Another Great Course on American history of your choice by one of these professors: Allen C. Guelzo, Gary W. Gallagher, or Patrick N. Allitt

Thread on this Forum
I will create a Civil War History thread on this forum so that we can share our finds and discuss them. This won’t be for the points though. This part is just for fun.

[SarahBee]

@rcannon100 202781 wrote:

Public Farts?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Do audio submissions count for the Public Pharts Pointless Prize or PPPP or Px4?

[Boomer Cycles]

#LakeFinder

I’d like to sponsor a new prize category for FS2021 #lakefinder

Ride your bike a least a mile to any lake, pond or massive pool of impounded water (loosely defined) that is freely accessible to the public and take a picture of said body of water with a bicycle somewhere in the frame.

See here for rules, definition and to submit your entries FS2021 #LakeFinder
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/topic?share_fid=27249&share_tid=18069&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ewashingtonareabikeforum%2Ecom%2Fshowthread%2Ephp%3Ft%3D18069&share_type=t&link_source=app

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[Mtansill]

I will sponsor, once again, the Freezing Saddles photography contest.

The ultimate in more-than-one-person can win.

Unless drevil enters it again.

Deets tbd.

[rcannon100]

Soooo question. There is a fraction of the energy on the forum as there has been previous years. These posts are getting “liked” by only a few old boring usual suspects. Many people have apparently signed up for FS – come to the forum to do their one mandatory post – and fled this telegraph era bulletin board.

Will there be sufficient energy to do the reindeer games? Or have we entered the diaspora, with children in far off lands? It takes a village to play a pointless game…. otherwise its pointless.

[Author]

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