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

[Kbikeva]

@Sophie CW 208939 wrote:

#ParkFinder – This former golf course is now a recreational park. The Rockville Bike Hub thinks this is a great location for a velodrome! Does anyone know how to get one started/funded?
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https://www.strava.com/activities/4873651856

I think if you get someone like Jeff Bezos to become a bike racer you’d have a really good starting place for it.

[Sophie CW]

@Kbikeva 209489 wrote:

I think if you get someone like Jeff Bezos to become a bike racer you’d have a really good starting place for it.

YES! I know that’s who I need to find. Although I heard there was a DC group at some point wanting to build a velodrome but I can’t find anything active about them now.

[tomacsh]

Sorry, wrong thread…

[consularrider]

One park, two views of its different attributes: Tuckahoe Park on N Sycamore St at US 29 in East Falls church.

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[accordioneur]

To All Pointless Prize Sponsors:

Thanks again for sponsoring a great part of Freezing Saddles! If you’ve read the comments you know that for many riders, prizes rather than points are what kept them out riding through the cold and inclement weather. Since we won’t be having a final happy hour, please post your results in the forum thread for your prize, or in this thread if you don’t have a thread for your prize.

It’s up to you to coordinate distribution of any physical prize. There are riders who regularly visit coffee clubs and such across the area, so you may be able to enlist distribution help through the forum..

Spring is Here! Happy Riding!

[Steve O]

Be sure to vote for your favorite clever caption: http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?18424-VOTE!!-Clever-caption-finalists

[Fast Friendly Guy]

ANNOUNCING THE 2021 WINNERS:

POINTLESS PRIZES TOP 5 WOMEN RIDERS BY BAFS MILES
The winners of this BAFS challenge all have some things in common: Superb athletic ability, dogged determination, stamina, ability to overcome setbacks, and a commitment to being the best!
It is my pleasure to acknowledge the outstanding achievement and effort by each rider with the traditional pointless prize for this challenge: a bicycle chain key chain, personalized with a silver tag showing the rider’s miles ridden BAFS 2021. Chris, Lynn, and Robyne are past winners and already have the key chain, so they will received this year’s mileage tag to add to their key chain. Kristen and Kevne are first time winners, and though they are on different BAFS Teams, they’re in the same family and each will receive key chain and mileage tag.

POINTLESS PRIZES to:
1. Chris Watson, 4,025 miles
2. Lynn Schoenfelder, 3,409 miles
3. Kristen H 3,001, miles
4, Robyne McRey, 2,465 miles
5. Kevne Hull, 2,354 miles

Prize distribution.
Chris: Is postal mail the best? If so, text me your exact address
Robyne: HDCC?
Lynn: Call and stop by Arlington or see you at the next group ride (like last spring)
Kristen, Kevne: How about a Picnic Ride to Old Angler’s (Tajr, too)

Again congratulations!

Fast Friendly Guy
Dave Pomeroy

[tomacsh]

Pointless Prize WiNNers—#AnyoneCanServe

In honor of MLK, Jr., and his legacy of service, I’d like to award prizes to three FS2021 participants:
[mention]komorebi [/mention], [mention]Judd [/mention] and [mention]Steve O [/mention]for their volunteer commitment to providing safe, clean and comfortable trails for our riders and the community at large.
THANK YOU!!! I will DM you each about sending your prizes [emoji966][emoji399]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jessica Hirschhorn]

Help! I cannot access the Forum
on my desktop (MAC) to announce the winner of the sock
Prize! Can someone send me a link?
Thanks. hirhoward@yahoo.com

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Steve O]

Traditionally I award a Pointless Prize to the team that collectively rides the most days.
However, I maintain a mental caveat that the winning team for this prize cannot also be the team that wins the overall points prize. Spread the love.

That said, it is worth noting that Team 8, which, like the Washington Football Team, has no name, had the maximum possible Ride Days: 624. 624 is 78 days per rider; there are 78 days in Freezing Saddles.

The top 5 teams are shown below. The fifth place team, with 570 rides, averaged 71 ride days (out of 78) per team member. Nothing to sneeze at.

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[AlanA]

@Steve O 210233 wrote:

Traditionally I award a Pointless Prize to the team that collectively rides the most days.
However, I maintain a mental caveat that the winning team for this prize cannot also be the team that wins the overall points prize. Spread the love.

That said, it is worth noting that Team 8, which, like the Washington Football Team, has no name, had the maximum possible Ride Days: 624. 624 is 78 days per rider; there are 78 days in Freezing Saddles.

The top 5 teams are shown below. The fifth place team, with 570 rides, averaged 71 ride days (out of 78) per team member. Nothing to sneeze at.

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The no named Team 8 was most impressive. Has any team done that before? Granted, the weather wasn’t awful this year, but we had plenty of days that kept me off the bike. Which, leads me into my 2nd discussion. I can’t believe our team (Club 27 below) was in the top 5. I was sure that I had missed enough days just by myself!!

It was also a fun back and forth battle between Team 26 and us (Team 27) for 2nd place. We flip flopped a few times during the year. Yet, no one really had a chance at topping no named Team 8.

[Steve O]

@AlanA 210238 wrote:

The no named Team 8 was most impressive.

No, no team has ever had a perfect ride day record before.
The number of everyday riders continues to rise each year. There were 88 this year, which is more than 1/3 of everyone.

The median ride days was 69, also a record high, which means half of the riders missed no more than 9 days out of 78.

[Michaelsalsgiver]

re: Club 27 Below, there were surely some days I did not want to be out there.

[Thor]

@Michaelsalsgiver 210251 wrote:

re: Club 27 Below, there were surely some days I did not want to be out there.

I second that Mike as another person on Club 27 Below. There were more than a handful of days where cycling conditions were not the most enjoyable!

[accordioneur]

I would like to give a special shout-out to all the cyclists who competed for Pointless Prizes that didn’t even exist. These stalwarts logged rides against prizes which had been offered in previous years, but which weren’t sponsored this year. Assuming the stats on freezingsaddles.com are correct, this year’s non-winners include:

Winner of the Alexandria Infrastructure Non-Prize: “Making the Push”, who logged 17 rides and was the only competitor. This prize had been offered last year by lordofthemark. I wonder if “Making the Push” meant to log these as Bike Infrastructure rides?

Winner of the London Bridge Non-Prize: “Will Stringer”, with 11 falls (ouch!), with Nadine in second place with 5. This prize, previously offered by Wheels & Wings, was given for falling down while riding. Amazingly, 26 people logged London Bridge rides this year. That’s a lot of falling – and that’s not including the people who choose not to reveal their embarrassing mistakes (let’s not mention the unclipping fail I had right in front of my house a couple of weeks ago).

Winner of the Supple Ride Non-Prize: “Laurie E”. This prize had been sponsored last year by drevil to recognize people who ride on fatter tires. Thirteen people competed for this Non-Prize.

Congratulations to all the Winners of these Non-Existent Prizes! Since the prizes didn’t exist, you win your own sense of accomplishment and maybe our admiration – but nothing else.

[Author]

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