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@Boomer2U 199370 wrote:

If you are referring to my “Success built upon Failure” ride https://strava.app.link/yb1kz1wdT4 then no, I did not tag “Fallsmead Park” for that very reason. I did however, tag the “Glenora Park” next store that did qualify (see below). I visited both parks on the same logged ride. But perhaps you refer to a different park or posted ride?

My post was an attempt to demonstrate both a failed and successful Park find.

And to the best of my knowledge, my rides are not “private” or else FS2020 would not be able to sweep data nor pics from my Strava account. You should be able to see all of my rides in full if you look at the FS2020 club feed on Strava, FYI.

Sent from Boomer_Cycles via my iPhone using Tapatalk

That works for me; protest retracted!

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@boomer: When a sign says “Residents Only / No Trespassing” I’m pretty sure that disqualifies it from being a “public” park. That’s the first rule in this game:

1. The park must be a national, state, regional, county or local community park that is open to the public at all times during the hours the park is open.

Since your posts are private, I’m only going by what’s on the Photos page; if you didn’t tag this as part of the game, I will withdraw this protest.

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@JoM 199281 wrote:

LOL, get her to join FS next year! Ricky comes along with me on my park finder missions!

lol indeed…we’d have to move to a warmer clime (where FS = Florida Saddles) to get her to ride over the winter!

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@JoM 199264 wrote:

Finding parks has been a fun activity during FS20!

I agree 100%!! It has made FS2020 even more fun and exciting — kudos to camiller for coming up with this pointless prize idea!

If this is a pointless prize next year, I highly recommend those not playing along to participate, it’s gotten me out of the same ol’ route routine, allowed me to rediscover places I had long forgotten and made cycling in NoVA enjoyable again.

That being said, although my wife has been patient as I blow up her phone with Strava notifications that I’m out riding in the wilderness of suburbia looking for parks, I’m pretty sure she’s ready for it to be over. :p

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Question re: Park Names

If someone posts a picture in front of Kings Park Park, do they get double points since Park appears in the name twice? Asking for a friend

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@AlanA 198531 wrote:

I found that Ride with GPS is quite reliable. I don’t use Google since I think they are evil.

I rode with Ride with GPS yesterday and found it somewhat useful (especially the voice navigation) while at the same time useless (especially the voice navigation). When it worked, it worked great, but when it didn’t, you got turned around nine ways til Sunday.

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@consularrider 198512 wrote:

I for one am getting tired of Google Maps adding the word “Park” to green spaces only to find that the sign is “Square,” “Playground,” “Recreations Area,” etc, or worse, no sign at all!

That and then showing up and there’s no sign what-so-ever! (I’m looking at you Potomac River Waterfront Park and a LOT of Fairfax County green spaces labeled “whatever park” on Google Maps!)

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@creadinger 198241 wrote:

I was thinking this morning while riding in the rain about proposing we change this year’s title to Seattle Saddles, since it definitely feels more like Seattle weather than winter.

I’m on the same page with all the rain, but prefer Soggy Saddles.

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I’m out of town that week so will be unable to join in the festivities. Raise a glass for me, will ya?!?

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Not to worry, I didn’t tag this as a #FS2020ParkFinder segment, but thought I’d share here as I found it interesting. It’s also the smallest park I’ve come across so far at about 15’x15′!

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I keep my commutes private for safety reasons, but have visited and obtained photographic evidence of parks during some of these commutes. All the hashtags for competitions do not work with private rides. If I post the photos with dates on this thread, can they be added to my tally manually?

Not sure about the tally, but you can set privacy zones in Strava so that your start/ending location defined in the zone(s) isn’t shared on the map.

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@camiller 196249 wrote:

Here are the rules (snipped for brevity):

• You will only receive credit for one park for each Strava ride. If you go to multiple parks within a day, each park must be accounted for on separate Strava rides.

I hope you can find a few new parks in your travels by bike. If there is something special that you would like to share about the park, especially the smaller, less known parks (has multiple walking trails, great picnic shelters, can rent boats) you can include it in the “description” section so the rest of us can learn more about the park and, perhaps, decide to make that park as destination.

Have fun finding new parks for recreation and relaxation!!

As a park lover, I love this game. I love it so much that I started gaming the system as well by splitting up all my rides between parks so that they’re their own ride on Strava. It might kill my average mile per ride, but it’ll up my park finder count!!!

For clarification, do “Park and Ride”s count as parks? I mean, they’re publicly run, they’re infrastructure and they contribute to the environmental well-being by removing cars from the roads, right?!? :confused: :rolleyes: :p

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Glad to be on an official team vs. just some random guy on the leader board for the past two weeks.

I couldn’t make it to HH last night due to a previous commitment, but am looking forward to another season of sleaze.

I hail from beautiful, downtown Chantilly (well, closer to the outskirts of Fair Lakes) and work from home full-time so my commuting mileage is zippy. That being said, I try and ride at least 100 / week (and for the duration of Freezing Saddles, will get at least a mile in outdoors to get the minimum amount of daily points).

I, too, am up for beer, although coffee and group rides will work as well.

Happy Trails!

-matt

Edited to add:

Real name: Matt Williams…Matt E. Black is my pen name for whenever I get around to writing that book. lol

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http://www.virginiadot.org/projects for those of you even lazier than I am.

As an aside, I really hope this includes fixing the abomination that is the Fairfax County Parkway Bike Trail south of South Run. I was reminded the other day how lucky those of us that live in the northern part of the county are. There are waaaaaay too many crossings, root rumble strips, broken asphalt, sections of MUP path that doubles as sidewalk and one area that takes you through the jankiest basketball court I’ve ever seen. And that’s even before you get to the industrial wasteland along Loisdale Road and through Newington and the Bimbo Bakery.

Edited to point to the actual project page.

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Last year was my first year doing Frozen Saddles (and the reason why I’m here in the first place). As a newbie participant, I would have been eligible for the previously mentioned bonus, but, since I consistently rode over 100 miles per week, getting bonus points as a newbie wouldn’t seem right. But, with that in mind, I wouldn’t mind upping the points cap to 150 — or making a daily cap of 25 points / day? Not sure what this would do to teams or whether it’d be the same, but it might allow teams that have some, ahem, slackers that only ride once or twice every two weeks to compete against other teams. (Or maybe I’m just thinking out loud.)

I like the idea of an individual leader board (no cap on miles) vs. the team leader board (capped miles).

As for the whole commuting thing, I guess that rules me out since I work from home full-time. That being said, I pretty much ride every day (well, 5-6 x week on average) so take that for what it’s worth (or not).

I never joined in social events with my team last year and didn’t go to opening/closing ceremonies (I’m in western Fairfax, I’m not going into DC unless it’s to see the Caps or Nats play or riding my monthly Gravelly Point lollipop). Had the ceremonies been in Arlington (which, based on the name of this forum, I thought they would be), I’d probably make a showing.

Just my 2¢ (and probably not even worth that) :p:D

That all being said, I’m competitive by nature and found that this kept me motivated to ride outside vs in the basement on the trainer. In 2018, I rode 4-5x per week between 1/1 and 3/21, but only twice in that entire span did I ride outside. This year (2019), I rode outside *every* day and only rode on my trainer 3x during that entire period. I can’t wait to do it again in 2020!

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