When will planning for Freezing Saddles start?

[Mikey]

@cvcalhoun 128821 wrote:

Some people like being on a slacker team. It enables them to keep track of their points. It enables us to have a record of their points for next year’s handicapping. It keeps the last place regular team motivated. (We can’t fall behind the Slackers!) It keeps them involved socially. Yes, the scores are meaningless. But I see several advantages and no disadvantages to having them around, so long as the “team” is limited to veterans.

Yes, this. For my wife, who lives and works out in Fairfax, the social aspect of FS is kind of moot. The tracking of miles an days is a great motivator. But again in suburban Fairfax 6 inches of snow plowed onto shoulders and sidewalks can mean weeks that the bike is not an option. Just my $0.02

[dkel]

@Steve O 128921 wrote:

So if teams were randomly assigned or another system were used that didn’t put you in this position, would you play on a team?

Maybe. I wouldn’t want someone to be glad I was randomly assigned to their team, thinking I’m definitely going to pull off the mileage I did last year. It’s all about managing expectations, I suppose.

@Steve O 128921 wrote:

I, for one, think dkel is exactly the kind of person who should be on a team–not just for his miles, but for his whole person. Having awesome participants like dkel opting off a team is a problem, and we should find a solution that will encourage everyone to play and not have a system that disincentivizes full participation for any reason.

Thanks for this kind compliment, especially after I called you a robot yesterday. :rolleyes:

[Steve O]

@Amalitza 128923 wrote:

1) People who want to play the game sign up via the registration form. There is no option for “slacker team.”

I like this.

@Amalitza 128923 wrote:

2) The “small number of former players who just don’t want to fully play the game but want to be involved” don’t need to sign the registration form and won’t be fully playing the game. Because they will be “vets [who are] already part of the community”, they will have other means of knowing how to join the slackers on strava and can do so if they choose.

Sure, this would work. One of my main issues with the Bunch O’ Slackers is that our beloved vets are the very people who we want on teams (see dkel’s note). Most of those who say they want to be a slacker are also active here, in the bike community, and/or ambassadors for cycling in general. It’s a loss to both the game and building our community to have them opt off of being on a team. Personally I think it’s sad that rcannon and hozn and the others aren’t going to be on a team, cheering on their newcomer teammates who have never bike commuted in the winter before.

[Mikey]

One way to ensure competitiveness is checked is to have larger teams. The first year we did this we had 5 on a team. A daily ride made a huge difference, and a weekend century by a teammate would cause your team to jump, even late in the season. With 10-11 players last year it takes about a month and then a few groups of teams emerged, and each team was just trying to beat the one right in front of it, and not be beat by the one behind it. If we get too large (like the NBC) one day doesn’t move the needle very much at all. It all depends on how many people we get. I will say though that at least one of the side bets will be intended to build team camaraderie, and getting people out riding together. That will occur again this year.

[Steve O]

@dkel 128928 wrote:

Thanks for this kind compliment, especially after I called you a robot yesterday. :rolleyes:

No worries. I actually am a robot.

[ian74]

@Steve O 128920 wrote:

I think it would be good to remind ourselves why we do this crazy Freezing Saddles game every year. Here are my thoughts, and I welcome others’ perspectives as well:

1 – To have fun!
2 – To bring new bicyclists into our welcoming and friendly community
3 – To provide a little motivation to ride our bikes more during the dark, cold winter
4 – To have fun!
5 – To create excuses for doing fun things, like rides, and wacky side bets, and happy hours, and last night parties
6 – To build the community on this Forum, which supports cycling and all it entails in the DC region
7 – To have fun!

…

Agreed. Which is why I don’t think there should be a Slackers “team,” but rather a small number of former players who just don’t want to fully play the game but want to be involved. Everyone else needs to register and play on a team. That’s what makes it fun (see #’s 1, 4 & 7 above)

I have to say, all of the things in Steve O’s list will happen. I joined this forum and didn’t know really anyone. I was pretty much a lurker. I hesitantly signed up and was put on a team, I didn’t know a single person on it. Of course I was worried about pulling my weight, but in the end it didn’t matter. It got me outside in weather I would never have considered riding in. I learned more about cold weather riding, and accomplished more than I ever thought I could. I made great friends (including Steve O!) and met lots of new people!

I still see these people out and about, I met people at happy hours, started going to Coffee clubs and now I feel part of a solid, welcoming, community. There is some good natured ribbing and trash talking (Raymo…), but I never saw anyone really getting abused if they weren’t riding.

I say, if your considering the slacker team, consider carefully! Honestly, I’ll miss my teammates from last year. We had a lot of fun. We didn’t do any group rides, since people have a lot of outside commitments, but we chatted here, on Strava and at happy hour. There was lots of encouragement and support.

We even got some awards at the end, a neat scarf. I say just do it. It can be as competitive as you want it to be, but it WILL BE fun. I promise.

I can’t wait to sign up, I’ve been waiting since last year’s ended.

I will beat last year’s miles too. I got knobby tires and fenders on my hybrid, now Freezing saddles bike.

[hozn]

@Amalitza 128923 wrote:

And this is why I think people should be allowed to be slackers. Freezing Saddles, the game with real teams, is a competition. Sure, it is a friendly competition which has a primary goal of being fun and socially inclusive, but we add up points and announce a winning team. Being a slacker allows you to do that so much more without competing. You can argue all you want to that people shouldn’t be overly competitive and shouldn’t worry about how many points they are scoring for their team, but that is ignoring human nature. You can’t create a competition and then tell competitive people to not worry about competing.

This strikes a chord with me. I’m fairly competitive – at least with myself, but even more than that, I’m from the midwest/Lutheran stock and we don’t like to let people down. Freezing Saddles 1st edition (with the small teams) was brutal. OTOH, I did awesome on my first endurance MTB race of the season. But I’m not going to do that to myself again. Human nature.

The only thing I would say is that there may be some value in providing a registration process in order to allow non-team folks onto the leaderboard. I.e. we may still wish to ensure that these people are forum members, live in the region (if people in charge decide that is a requirement), etc.

Also, if we do move forward with the idea of inserting folks from non-team pool (slackers and latecomers) into the mix later in the game — retroactively — then there would be value in having their rides/points already in the system.

[Anonymous]

@hozn 128937 wrote:

The only thing I would say is that there may be some value in providing a registration process in order to allow non-team folks onto the leaderboard. I.e. we may still wish to ensure that these people are forum members, live in the region (if people in charge decide that is a requirement), etc.

I was thinking the Strava club admin could function as gatekeeper. Last year I let vvill in the strava slackers’ club after the fact, but wouldn’t have if he’d been some random stranger.

fwiw, I don’t personally have an objection to slackers signing up via registration form, just suggesting the option in case it might ease concerns about confusing new players.

[Alcova cyclist]

I too would encourage would-be slackers to consider staying on a team. With SteveO’s balancing idea using late registrants, the teams should be able to stay more balanced anyway so you might feel less pressure.

I really liked the team competitiveness aspect of it, but as someone said upthread, it was really mostly about catching the next team up and keeping the next team back at bay. If I recall last year, it was pretty clear about half way that everyone else was playing for 2nd at best anyway, and that didn’t detract from BAFS for me at all. What would have detracted was if some of my stalwart teammates had been on the slackers team and not mighty team 5 (who shall not be named) because they were only going to ride 800 miles instead of the 1500 they did the year before or whatever. If the point is to build community, then having appreciable numbers of vets on the sidelines detracts from that.

I suppose there’s always those who know they can’t help themselves and ride way more than they really want to if they’re on a team, but if the issue is more like “I don’t want to hurt my team because I am going to do less than last year” then there ought to be a way around that.

[DrP]

I have kind of like the idea of the winter riding I do anyway “counting” towards something. So, it looks like I could sign up for BAFS and continue doing the riding I regularly do – commuting and one weekly fun ride – and perhaps not join in on other rides (although the occasional happy hour) because I already ride about as often as I can now. However, I have a dumb phone and no GPS device nor really want them (yes, I know I sound like a curmudgeonly Luddite). Can I enter the rides in strava manually and still do this? (which I think means I cannot do any of the time or location challenges since it looks like the strava manual entry is simply length of ride and comments (no real start and stop time or location, unless in comments)). Does it make sense for me to join in under these conditions?

[ian74]

@DrP 128941 wrote:

I have kind of like the idea of the winter riding I do anyway “counting” towards something. So, it looks like I could sign up for BAFS and continue doing the riding I regularly do – commuting and one weekly fun ride – and perhaps not join in on other rides (although the occasional happy hour) because I already ride about as often as I can now. However, I have a dumb phone and no GPS device nor really want them (yes, I know I sound like a curmudgeonly Luddite). Can I enter the rides in strava manually and still do this? (which I think means I cannot do any of the time or location challenges since it looks like the strava manual entry is simply length of ride and comments (no real start and stop time or location, unless in comments)). Does it make sense for me to join in under these conditions?

Yes! You can enter the rides manually in Strava. I believe you can also enter ride duration. One of my teammates last year, wheels&wings, did just that. I say join!

[jrenaut]

@DrP 128941 wrote:

Does it make sense for me to join in under these conditions?

Yes. I don’t do any of the time/location challenges even though I do have both a smartphone and a bike GPS. While many enjoy them, many others get a lot out of BAFS while totally ignoring them.

[lordofthemark]

I am so impressed with the folks who do the coding and related organizing, whatever everyone else wants to do about slackers, geographic teams, etc is fine with me.

My goals for FS this year are to get more points than last year, do some beerneuring, and maybe contribute a pointless prize. And have fun and meet people. And of course to impress all the people I know who do not think it is possible to ride a bike in the winter. And to convince my family that I am, indeed, insane.

[cvcalhoun]

Okay, I’m prepared to concede defeat on the issue of local teams. I’ve put the question back into the registration form. I’m not sure it’s necessary, given that the form already has Zip Code information, but I’ll include it anyway.

The other controversial question has to do with what we do with Slackers. I’ve put up a poll at this link. Again, I’m going to be finalizing the registration form late tonight, so please vote early (but not often).

[cvcalhoun]

Thanks! Mine involved limited coding, although I did use a WordPress site rather than Google forms. (That allowed me to refuse registration to people who chose certain wrong options, provide a bit neater compilation of the answers, and put the nice header image at the top.) But I’m really excited about the competition. And having participated without volunteering much (other than setting up the team’s first get-together, and creating a Facebook group for the team) in prior years, I figured I’d try to make myself useful this year.

@lordofthemark 128945 wrote:

I am so impressed with the folks who do the coding and related organizing, whatever everyone else wants to do about slackers, geographic teams, etc is fine with me.

My goals for FS this year are to get more points than last year, do some beerneuring, and maybe contribute a pointless prize. And have fun and meet people. And of course to impress all the people I know who do not think it is possible to ride a bike in the winter. And to convince my family that I am, indeed, insane.

[Author]

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