Pointless Prizes 2015

[Steve O]

As with FS2013 and FS2014, I again volunteer to be Unassailable Czar of Creative Ride Titles. Give your Strava ride a creative title, and if I’m paying attention and it’s good in some inscrutable way, you may win a pointless prize at the final happy hour.

Here are the winners from last year if you are looking for inspiration.

I’ll dig around for the 2013 winners and when I find them, I’ll put those up, too.

[Mikey]

There will be between 4 and 5 awards for the various side bets. I will present each of them at the finale.

[Steve O]

If you think you would like to award a Pointless Prize but aren’t sure exactly what one might do to earn one, here’s the list from last year. Some of these might be worth repeating, but feel free to imagine something new.

The name associated with each PP was the person who awarded it–not the winner. I don’t believe I have a list of the winners, but you know who you are!

2014 Pointless Prizes:

• 11th most miles ridden (a cornucopia of alcohol to the winner!) – GB (GregBain)
• King/Queen of the world – KayakCyndi
• Ride titles (multiple winners) – Steve O
• Single digit riders (multiple awardees) – Steve O
• Liar,Liar Pants on Fire (sandbagger award) – Justin Antos
• Every day points (10 awarded; tie-breaker least sleaze) – Dickie
• GPS Art – vvill
• Team Billy Goat. Team that climbs the most: Elevation Gain (feet) / Distance traveled (miles). – Rob-O
• Hains Point laps – Arlington Rider
• Seventh lowest for the average number of miles per ride – CPTJohnC
• Maryland Rail Trail Mixed Use Trail Pointless Prize – eminva
• Volunteer award – rcannon
• WWW (Weekend Woman Warrior) – Rod Smith
• Wonder Woman (5 awarded) – Fast Friendly Dave
• Nostradamus Prize – consularrider
• #Kidical – dasgeh
• Most consistent (boring) rider – oldbikechick

• Mileage first day (already awarded to vicegrip) – Arlington Rider
• Team Turtle. Team with lowest average speed (mph). – Rob-O (scrapped due to conflict of interest)

2014 Side bets (Mikey – I’m going to assume that these will be at least announced and recognized, even if they have already been awarded. Let me know otherwise if not.):

• FSSB #1 – Greatest Loser
• FSSB #2 – Birdges of Arlington County
• FSSB #3 – Find the Founding Fathers
• FSSB #4 – Super Team Challenge (busted – no award)
• FSSB #5 – Winter Wonderland photos
• February side contest (Strava art bicycle – already awarded) – BikeArlington

Question marks:

• Sleaze pointless prize of some kind (did someone volunteer to do this? I could not find a reference)
• Post-contest inter-team photos (couldn’t find the thread this was in. Who is in charge of this one?)
• Other

[Steve O]

I dug deep into my archive and found the list of Creative Ride Titles winners and Honorable Mentions from 2013, in case you are looking for inspiration.

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]One word title
[/TD]
[TD]Honorable Mentions:

• COLD! – Kel Moore
• Wet. – Justin Antos
• CustissssitsuS – Kurt Mickelwaite
• Beerrandonnee – Christopher Niebylski

Winner

• uncle – Peter Kong

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Title most likely to make you go, “aaaahhhh.”
[/TD]
[TD]Runner up:

• commute via downtown with my best bud – Jeff Lemieux

Winner

• Commute in – Home repair, now I’ve done it, I guess I’ll ride my wife’s bike to work -Thanks Sweetheart – Mike Essig

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Special Recognition to Kel Moore for her physiologically themed ride titles. No prize, just pride
[/TD]
[TD]

• Rice and Eggs Are Good For Legs
• Wind: 1 Legs: 0
• Legs are GO! Lungs are GOO!
• Friday’s Legs Are Full Of Woe

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Alliterative Ride title[/TD]
[TD]Honorable Mentions

• Frosty Friday, No Fenders From FedEx? Furious! – Kel Moore
• bonk bonk bonkyity bonk bonk – Peter Kong (might’ve had a shot at winning the 1-word if it had all been one word)

Winner

• finally flipping freezing!
• pathetic points pursuit
• minuscule morning motivation miles mostly meandering mindlessly – Laurie Lemieux

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] The Prize for Laurie![/TD]
[TD]Perfectly prickly porcupine plush pet pointless prize[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[Alcova cyclist]

For my pointless prize (“stout for the stout”) I would like to award it based on the following criteria (This seems like it should be easy to figure, but I will need help from the data wizards):

1. Take the five days with the lowest total daily mileage from all BAFS participants (This seems to be as good a way as any to determine the worst of the worst riding days & doesn’t require tying into any new data sources)
2. Find the high mileage rider for each day of those five days –> winners!
2.a. If the same 1-2 people win all five days using the first method, I might award a prize or two to the #2 or #3 riders on the worst day or two to spread the wealth

So basically, you win by following rules 5 and 9 when the rest of are sitting by the fire or sleazing out 1.1 mile loops in our neighborhood.

Prizes will be 22-oz bottles of the very limited edition “Solstice Stout” (only 5 gallons of which exist in the whole world).

[Anonymous]

@Steve O 104259 wrote:

If you think you would like to award a Pointless Prize but aren’t sure exactly what one might do to earn one, here’s the list from last year. Some of these might be worth repeating, but feel free to imagine something new.

The name associated with each PP was the person who awarded it–not the winner. I don’t believe I have a list of the winners, but you know who you are!

And here is the working list from the first year; not all of them were awarded, and some additional ones not on the list were awarded, but as that year’s pointless prize coordinator, I was keeping a running tab of ideas people were throwing out.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZJGzd8HcdTur5LSxEtBQeeD-ruXUW3MiDcp4OEYnFGs/edit#gid=0

[rcannon100]

The problem with the first years list is that lots and lots of people were coming up with “creative” ideas – but few people were saying “I will do the work for this prize.” It is important to understand when volunteering to do pointless prizing that you are volunteering to do all work or all data munching that may be required to implement that prize. In other words, design prizes that are implementable (some are cool and easy to do the data munching – others would require a lot of analysis).

[Anonymous]

This should be incredibly easy to award. Just hand over all the booze directly to Rod Smith. :rolleyes:

@Alcova cyclist 104327 wrote:

For my pointless prize (“stout for the stout”) I would like to award it based on the following criteria (This seems like it should be easy to figure, but I will need help from the data wizards):

1. Take the five days with the lowest total daily mileage from all BAFS participants (This seems to be as good a way as any to determine the worst of the worst riding days & doesn’t require tying into any new data sources)
2. Find the high mileage rider for each day of those five days –> winners!
2.a. If the same 1-2 people win all five days using the first method, I might award a prize or two to the #2 or #3 riders on the worst day or two to spread the wealth

So basically, you win by following rules 5 and 9 when the rest of are sitting by the fire or sleazing out 1.1 mile loops in our neighborhood.

Prizes will be 22-oz bottles of the very limited edition “Solstice Stout” (only 5 gallons of which exist in the whole world).

[CPTJohnC]

I plan to reprise my x lowest average miles PP, and add a new one, also probably low miles related. The x is because I don’t promise to repeat the number 7 this year. I will ensure simplicity of data munching and/or be prepared to do any work involved in figuring out the award. The prize itself will almost certainly be baked goods or other sweet treats, with or without alcohol in them.

[Sunyata]

I was thinking about sponsoring a “sloth of the mountain” award for the individual with the slowest average speed with at least 40 days of riding (at least 50% of contest days).

[cyclingfool]

@Sunyata 104415 wrote:

I was thinking about sponsoring a “sloth of the mountain” award for the individual with the slowest average speed with at least 40 days of riding (at least 50% of contest days).

Now there’s a prize I might just win… LOL

[consularrider]

I’ll be happy to award the Hamster Wheel Prize for the most Hains Point laps.

[dasgeh]

I think it would be fun to do some sort of group ride bingo Pointless Prize. Any ideas on how to structure it?

[Mikey]

We could add that as a side bet when these are done, similar to a bingo board put out by the league of American bicyclists a couple of years back. Pm me to discuss further.

[Harry Meatmotor]

Can I propose a Pointless Prize for the team with the longest thread on BAF to determine it’s own team name? The BAFS Team Internal Strife Award?

Shheeeeeesh…

[Author]

Posts