Pointless Prize Thread 2021

[rumipumi]

POINTLESS PRIZE: QUAXAPALOOZA

As the wife of a local small business owner (Maryland Meadworks), I am sponsoring a pointless prize to encourage supporting your local small businesses on your bikes (aka Quaxing).

How to play:

1. Go for a Quax — support a local small business by buying something (any amount) and picking it up via bike. One point per business, and yes, you can do more than one per day, but need to log separate Strava rides to each stop. You only get one point per distinct local biz (so yes, you can come 100 times to Maryland Meadworks, as well you should, but you will only get 1 point for the first visit…)

2. Take a picture of you (wearing a mask), your bike, and your purchase (or if it was a service, perhaps the signage or some such that represents that service) outside as many different small businesses as possible.

3. For your ride to count, use #BAFS2021SmallBiz in your Strava ride title AND include the name of the place you visited, e.g., #BAFS2021SmallBiz Maryland Meadworks (shameless plug, right?) And upload the related photo to the same ride.

4. Please play safely: For example, picking up your takeout / growlers (of mead, or even things… that are not mead) curbside (on your bike!)! Again, please take your selfie OUTSIDE the establishment, masked, to set a good example for how COVID-safe cyclists are!

5. What constitutes a local small business? I’ll give broad leeway on this. Frankly most every business (esp restaurants) is in such pain right now, I’m likely to give a lot of slack. I just want you to go out for a ride, stimulate the economy and help keep your neighbors employed. And yes, I’ll allow you to more than one of a local chain if you differentiate the tags — i.e. “#BAFS2021SmallBiz Vigilante Hyattsville” AND “#BAFS2021SmallBiz Vigilante College Park” would each count for a point.

6. Prizes? I’ll buy the top 3 winners a giftcard ($75, $50, $25) to their favorite local business. (Even if it’s not Maryland Meadworks!)

Forum post: http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?18120-Pointless-prize-Quaxapalooza
Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497564127026657/permalink/3534812539968472/
Leaderboard https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/hashtag/BAFS2021SmallBiz
Quaxing: https://momentummag.com/quaxing/

[rcannon100]

We now have a plethora of pointless games. Many are photo scavenger hunts. And Ricky’s in particular looks outrageous. At this point Notorious appears repetitive and derivative.

“From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require. Therefore, I shall abandon the Notorious Game effective at noon tomorrow. “

I am not a crook!

[bentbike33]

I will once again be awarding the Loopy for Arlington Pointless Prizes for completing the most Arlington Loops (for the uninitiated: the Arlington Loop consists of the W&OD Trail from the Custis intersection to its eastern terminus at Shirlington Rd., 4-Mile Run Trail from Shirlington Rd. to its eastern terminus, the MVT from DCA to its northern terminus at Roosevelt Island, and the whole Custis trail).

There will be 3 prizes: Most Clockwise Loops (for those who need to unwind), Most Counter-Clockwise Loops (for those who need to get wound up), and Most Matching Loops (for those seeking balance in life, or who simply like to go both ways).

How do you play?

Unlike Hains Point laps, the Arlington Loop can actually get you to useful places, therefor the game is designed so you don’t have to literally ride the entire trail route to count a completed loop, and you don’t have to do a complete loop in a single ride, or even a single day, either (for example, you can do half the loop on your morning commute, and the other half on your evening commute the next day). A loop is counted each time you collect all of the short segments located near the trail intersection points. So collect loops while coffeeneuring, beerneuring, doughneuring, errendneuring, quaxaneuring, or Calvinballing. For those who played last year, there are no changes to any segments. The segments on the MVT are configured so that if the north end becomes prohibitively icy, you can cross over to DC and back via the TR and 14th St. (or Memorial) bridges and still complete loops.

For a clockwise loop, collect these Strava segments:

ArLoopCW1
ArLoopCW2
ArLoopCW3
ArLoopCW4
ArLoopCW5
ArLoopCW6
ArLoopCW7
ArLoopCW8

For a counterclockwise loop, collect these Strava segments:

ArLoopCCW1
ArLoopCCW2
ArLoopCCW3
ArLoopCCW4
ArLoopCCW5
ArLoopCCW6
ArLoopCCW7
ArLoopCCW8

Note that many of the segments have been flagged as hazardous in Strava by people wishing to protect their KOMs, I assume. If you don’t see a segment you expect on your ride, click the button to “show hidden efforts”. Also, a segment will NOT be counted if it is in your Strava “privacy zone”.

The prizes will be, of course, specially inscribed commemorative boxes of Froot Loops (TM).

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The FS Web Gurus successfully programmed a leaderboard for these prizes last year. So, no hashtags needed.

Will CBGAnimal continue her utter dominance of the Counter-Clockwise Loop competition?!? Not if she doesn’t come back from Spain soon!

[CBGanimal]

@bentbike33 203392 wrote:

Will CBGAnimal continue her utter dominance of the Counter-Clockwise Loop competition?!? Not if she doesn’t come back from Spain soon!

I will be back….

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Fast Friendly Guy]

POINTLESS PRIZE TO TOP 3 WOMEN RIDERS (BAFS miles)

I’m offering my usual pointless prize to the top three (in BAFS miles ridden) women riders! (as determined by the BAFS leaderboard)
No hash tags needed, nor photos…all it takes is plenty of fun winter riding miles (relative to everyone else, that is.) Top 3 riders in this category are individually awarded a bike-link key chain customized with each rider’s winning mileage on an identifying silver tag.

Dave

[NoVaNoobGA]

I find hundreds in the neighborhood around the Fairfax Walmart.

[camiller]

PARKFINDER Pointless Prize

Back by popular demand, I will sponsor a ParkFinder Pointless Prize. There will be at least two categories:

– Person that visits the most parks
– Person with the most average miles per park

Per Dictionary.com a Park is defined as “an area of land, usually in a largely natural state, for the enjoyment of the public, having facilities for rest and recreation, often owned, set apart, and managed by a city, state, or nation”.

Therefore, it must be a public park. It can be a local, state or national park. The word Park must be in the sign (last year I came upon a few parks that did not have a sign) and it must be the kind of park used for recreation. (for example, no cemeteries, parking lots, businesses with park in their name, or neighborhood names unless it is a park in the neighborhood with the same name.) You all know the kind of park I am looking for for the game.

You can only get credit for one park per ride and you cannot repeat any park during the game. You must take a picture of your bike with the park sign and then post it in your Strava feed. Be sure tag your ride with #Parkfinder in the title so it can be counted the computer wizards.

Last year’s winners were Matt W, Kilgore T, and Alan A. Since we did not have an ending Happy Hour we still need to find each other so I can give you your prize. You can also send me a private message with your address and I can mail it to you.

[chuxtr]

I will once again sponsor the Coffee Ride pointless prize, but this year I’m calling it the Coffee Snob Ride pointless prize. For your ride to count towards the prize, hashtag your ride name on Strava with #FS2021coffeesnobride (case sensitive) and where you went for coffee (not part of the hashtag). New rule for this year is that you need to include photographic evidence on Strava that you were where you said you went for coffee. The winner (or winners if I feel like having more than one prize) is the person with the most coffee rides.

RULES:

1. Only one visit to a coffee shop counts. Meaning you can’t keep going back to the same coffee shop multiple times.
2. Starbucks is verboten! Yes, I’m a coffee snob.
3. Other chains, e.g., Peete’s, are OK but once you visit one outlet of a chain, that’s it. See #1 above.
4. Same for establishments that have more than one location, e.g., Northside Social. See #3 and #1 above.
5. No “swamp coffee,” e.g., 7-Eleven, Wawa, etc., this year. Yes, I’m a coffee snob.

You can visit as many coffee shops in a day as your body will tolerate caffeine, but for each shop to count they have to be separate rides. That means if you want to ride from shop to shop to shop on a single ride, you’ll need to end your ride, make sure it logs on Strava, and start a new ride at each shop.

Previous winners of this prize (you know who you are) are welcome to participate but can’t win.

In the event of a tie, the tiebreaker is who rode the least miles.

[bikesnick]

FS2021 Pointless Prize: STEM

Ride your bike, at least a mile, to any site that can be considered related to Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) and take a picture with your bike.

1) submissions must occur during FS2021
2) hashtag your Strava ride title with #STEM
3) photos must be your own and include your bike.
4) photos must be posted to the “FS2021 Pointless Prize: STEM” forum thread. Post should describe why it is STEM-related.
5) Please, only one (1) entry per day.

There are two non-pointless prizes:

For for greatest number of entries, a copy of BikeSnobNYC’s book “Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling”.

For the best photo entry, subjectively selected by the judge, a set of four bicycle-printed short tumbler glasses (3.5 inch tall, 8 ounce).
* Please note: The judge is known to be partial to uniqueness, creativity, composition, and mathematics.

[Jessica Hirschhorn]

SOCKS. Jessica Hirschhorn (posted separate thread). No hashtags. Trying to wean myself off of Social Media. Except The Forum.

Regards, Jessica

[Jessica Hirschhorn]

Okay I have been crowd shamed into sponsoring this pointless prize again. Last year we had over 150 entries. I made it much more complicated that it needed to be, so will simplify it this year.

1. Take a photo of your socks. Preferably with cycling shoes but whatever.

2. Post on this thread.

3. On the first day of Spring, I will choose my 10 favorites. I will randomly choose ONE and that ONE is the winner. Prize to be determined by me but certainly sock or sock related.

4. And 3-2-1… GO.

5. BOOMER you are limited to ONE ENTRY per WEEK. The Queen has spoken.

Regards, Jessica

[Jessica Hirschhorn]

Post on the SOCK THREAD only. Thanks.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AlanA]

@camiller 203467 wrote:

PARKFINDER Pointless Prize

Back by popular demand, I will sponsor a ParkFinder Pointless Prize. There will be at least two categories:

– Person that visits the most parks
– Person with the most average miles per park

Per Dictionary.com a Park is defined as “an area of land, usually in a largely natural state, for the enjoyment of the public, having facilities for rest and recreation, often owned, set apart, and managed by a city, state, or nation”.

Therefore, it must be a public park. It can be a local, state or national park. The word Park must be in the sign (last year I came upon a few parks that did not have a sign) and it must be the kind of park used for recreation. (for example, no cemeteries, parking lots, businesses with park in their name, or neighborhood names unless it is a park in the neighborhood with the same name.) You all know the kind of park I am looking for for the game.

You can only get credit for one park per ride and you cannot repeat any park during the game. You must take a picture of your bike with the park sign and then post it in your Strava feed. Be sure tag your ride with #Parkfinder in the title so it can be counted the computer wizards.

Last year’s winners were Matt W, Kilgore T, and Alan A. Since we did not have an ending Happy Hour we still need to find each other so I can give you your prize. You can also send me a private message with your address and I can mail it to you.

Will you be allowing multiple parks per day like last year? Personally, I like the idea of only one per day to avoid the spamming of rides. It’s just a bit annoying when someone posts 20 rides in one day.
One of these days we’ll have another happy hour. I can wait for my prize! And plus, the postal service would probably lose it.

[rumipumi]

Newbie pointless prize sponsor q

How do i get my quaxapalooza hashtag #BAFS2021SmallBiz added to the forum website so it creates a leaderboard?

[LuisFilipe]

Chad, did you create a separate thread where folks can post their photos?

Collected the Northern Stone.

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[Author]

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