The National Bike Challenge is on!

[ronwalf]

@eminva 16954 wrote:

I also signed up. Does anyone know how the points are calculated?

From the prize page:

Challenge Points accumulate based upon miles ridden with an additional 20 bonus points for each day that you ride.
Scoring: 1 mile = 1 challenge point
20 bonus points for each day that you ride

The warmup period started Feb 1st, and points will reset at the start of the challenge. Prizes are by drawing, so all you need to do is ride enough miles to qualify:

As you accumulate Challenge Points, you will achieve prize levels. This will automatically enter you in the
prize drawing at that level.

Prize Level, Challenge Points to Achieve Level, Prize Drawing to be held
Bronze, 50, At end of each month
Silver, 150, At end of each month
Gold, 500, At end of each month
Platinum, 1500, At end of Challenge

So, if you want to optimize your chances for winning the prizes with almost no miles, all you need to do is to bike 25 days in May (25*20 = 500), then bike 50 days in the remaining three months. If, instead you bike 10 miles a day, you need 17 days of riding in May and 33 in the remaining three months.

[elcee]

@PotomacCyclist 16947 wrote:

We now have Capital Bikeshare. That levels the playing field against the Dutch.

That might be wishful thinking! (Current population of the Netherlands is around 16.7 million.) I tried to find primary sources for statistics but there’s very little that’s in English.

Among the snippets of data cited in the article:

• The Dutch cycled 14.9 billion kilometres in 2009 …
• The Netherlands has around eight deaths per 100 million km cycled …
• The typical Dutch person cycles 800 km per year …

Update: found a primary source.

[americancyclo]

write up of the BikeArlington team in GGW
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/14349/gear-up-for-the-national-bike-challenge/

[Dirt]

Just out of curiosity… I’m late getting to this thread and to the National Bike Challenge. Do we need a 2nd Bike Arlington team? if so, what do we call it? BikeArlington B-team?

[DaveK]

@Dirt 18104 wrote:

Just out of curiosity… I’m late getting to this thread and to the National Bike Challenge. Do we need a 2nd Bike Arlington team? if so, what do we call it? BikeArlington B-team?

If I can use my phone to run 2 GPS apps at once I’d be in. I’m already putting my miles on Strava for the year though so I don’t think I can do that. Unless I start carrying my Garmin everywhere…

[eminva]

Dave, I have an iPhone and have been running both cyclemeter and endomondo, the application used for the challenge. It works fine, though the battery seems to be running down a bit faster.

As an alternative, you can manually enter your mileage, and there is a way to designate your commute it you do the same mileage each day. They’ve made it pretty easy, so that the contest appeals both to the super enthusiast and the casual cyclist alike.

Please sign up, everyone who’s not already in! Bike Arlington can support multiple teams. We may be #1 in the team category, but look at the state and municipality leader boards. I mean, Kalispell, MT is ahead of us! We can and do do better than that.

Liz

—
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?5k3zgo

[Arlingtonrider]

Glad to hear that it’s possible to participate in this without any apps. Arlington area has a deep field, with the talents of CCrew, RestontoDC, Dirt, One Eighth, DaveK and many, many others as yet untapped. If there’s a Team B with space on it after the heavy hitters sign on, I might be interested too.

p.s. When you look at the leaderboard under communities, our area is listed as “Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV”. With that entire area to draw on, we should be able to do very well as a community if we can get lots of people to participate. Come on, all! Signing up and entering milege is easy – you sign on as an individual, then can join a team later if you want to.

[consularrider]

I use a Garmin Edge 500, so I am not tracked while I ride, but download every evening when I finish my evening commute. There is also nothing that keeps you from manually entering information if you don’t use a GPS.

We definitely need to get some more teams from the area, there’s still room for seven more on the Bike Arlington B Team. I tried to open the Crystal City team to see who is on it, but get an error message.

And Tim needs to start downloading his rides!

[Dirt]

Arlington B Team definitely needs some folks. There’s only three of us right now and we’re still top 20. 7 more riders and we’ll definitely move up in the standings. This is a fun challenge! We don’t care how much you ride… join in! Use it as a motivation to ride a little more.

[Tim Kelley]

@consularrider 18168 wrote:

And Tim needs to start downloading his rides!

I’ll start when the actual contest kicks off. I have two issues with the upload system: as far as I can tell there is no bulk upload, so I’d have to do each ride one by one. The other issues is that the file size limit is 6mbs. With my powertap collecting power data, most of my long rides end up being 10-20mbs.

Anyone got any ideas? I’ll probably just manually enter the distances.

[Dirt]

@Tim Kelley 18172 wrote:

I’ll start when the actual contest kicks off. I have two issues with the upload system: as far as I can tell there is no bulk upload, so I’d have to do each ride one by one. The other issues is that the file size limit is 6mbs. With my powertap collecting power data, most of my long rides end up being 10-20mbs.

Anyone got any ideas? I’ll probably just manually enter the distances.

There’s bulk uploade. From the Endomondo site, click on “Workouts” and then “Import Workouts” from the web site. It pulls up a window that lets you pull stuff directly from your Garmin using the Garmin Link plug in. Just gotta be careful that it doesn’t duplicate rides. I got errors a few times, but eventually everything uploaded.

[consularrider]

@Tim Kelley 18172 wrote:

I’ll start when the actual contest kicks off. I have two issues with the upload system: as far as I can tell there is no bulk upload, so I’d have to do each ride one by one. The other issues is that the file size limit is 6mbs. With my powertap collecting power data, most of my long rides end up being 10-20mbs.

Anyone got any ideas? I’ll probably just manually enter the distances.

When I started this, I still had all of my March rides still in my Garmin and it took the download just fine, and I manually entered my February rides. Of course, my info isn’t so fancy schmancy. I do have to open most rides to correct the type of riding since it defaults to “cycling, sport” and I can’t find a way to change that to “cycling, transport.”

[Tim Kelley]

@Dirt 18173 wrote:

There’s bulk uploade. From the Endomondo site, click on “Workouts” and then “Import Workouts” from the web site. It pulls up a window that lets you pull stuff directly from your Garmin using the Garmin Link plug in. Just gotta be careful that it doesn’t duplicate rides. I got errors a few times, but eventually everything uploaded.

That only works if you still have the files saved on the Garmin. Having already downloaded them as .tcx files onto my computer and then clearing the Garmin means I have to do them one by one.

Sad panda.

[americancyclo]

@consularrider 18174 wrote:

When I started this, I still had all of my March rides still in my Garmin and it took the download just fine, and I manually entered my February rides. Of course, my info isn’t so fancy schmancy. I do have to open most rides to correct the type of riding since it defaults to “cycling, sport” and I can’t find a way to change that to “cycling, transport.”

There’s no way to bulk change those activity types. one of the major downfalls of this challenge in my opinion. do we need to change the activity type? if we do, I might boycott this challenge. I think the B team might quickly become the A team. I vote Dirt be cast as Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith.

[americancyclo]

@Tim Kelley 18175 wrote:

That only works if you still have the files saved on the Garmin. Having already downloaded them as .tcx files onto my computer and then clearing the Garmin means I have to do them one by one.

Sad panda.

Don’t frown sad panda! you can try copying the tcx files from your computer to the Garmin>History folder and then have endomondo try to read them from there. Dunno if it will work, but it’s worth a shot!

[Author]

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