FS 2018 Pointless Prize Thread

[bentbike33]

Let’s get this started…

I will once again be awarding the Loopy for Arlington Pointless Prizes for completing the most Arlington Loops (for the uninitiated: W&OD Trail from the Custis intersection to its eastern terminus, 4-Mile Run Trail from Shirlington Rd. to its eastern terminus, the MVT from DCA to its northern terminus at Roosevelt Island, and the whole Custis trail). There will be 3 prizes: Most Clockwise Loops (for those who need to unwind), Most Counter-Clockwise Loops (for those who need to get wound up), and Most Matching Loops (for those seeking balance in life, or who simply like to go both ways).

How do you play?

Unlike Hains Point laps, the Arlington Loop can actually get you to useful places, so the game is designed so you don’t have to literally ride the entire trail route to count a completed loop, and you don’t have to do a complete loop in a single ride, or even a single day, either (for example, you can do half the loop on your morning commute, and the other half on your evening commute the next day). A loop is counted each time you collect all 8 short segments located near the trail intersection points. So collect loops while coffeeneuring, beerneuring, doneuring, or errendneuring.

For a clockwise loop, collect these Strava segments:

ArLoopCW1
ArLoopCW2
ArLoopCW3
ArLoopCW4
ArLoopCW5
ArLoopCW6
ArLoopCW7
ArLoopCW8

For a counterclockwise loop, collect these Strava segments:

ArLoopCCW1
ArLoopCCW2
ArLoopCCW3
ArLoopCCW4
ArLoopCCW5
ArLoopCCW6
ArLoopCCW7
ArLoopCCW8

Note that many of the segments have been flagged as hazardous in Strava by people wishing to protect their KOMs, I assume. If you don’t see a segment you expect on your ride, click the button to “show hidden efforts”.

The prizes will be, of course, specially inscribed commemorative boxes of Froot Loops (TM).

Topic

[Judd]

There is a rumor going round that there might be a Pointless Prize related to the second greatest lumberjack to come from the State of Illinois.

[CPTJohnC]

I plan to reprise my “rock steady” Pointless prize (or whatever I called it) from years past (though not the past two years…) but with a new name that’s more… oh, I don’t know… puerile.

I won’t reveal all the rules but: It is designed to reward those who do very regular riding, and aren’t prone to taking too many extra or off route rides. So this is not a prize for folks who, say, decide to ride from DC to Pittsburgh and back for the weekend… unless maybe they do it EVERY weekend.

Think of this as kind of a bike commuter’s prize, but you need not be a commuter to win.

I can assure you that 1) it rewards regularity and 2) it need not be too hard on the butt.

[Allan C]

I will again sponsor the Strava Art pointless prize, which this year has a motto:
“Ars longa, arse frezis”

[bentbike33]

@Allan C 169513 wrote:

I will again sponsor the Strava Art pointless prize, which this year has a motto:
“Ars longa, arse frezis”

So it will be scored by both artistic merit and ambient temperature during the ride?

[Allan C]

@bentbike33 169514 wrote:

So it will be scored by both artistic merit and ambient temperature during the ride?

Stay tuned!

[chuxtr]

@hozn 168804 wrote:

We need a process for tracking pointless prize requests (so I may ask you to post this to our google group or something), but just off the cuff here, I’d propose that you could do:
– The #coffeeride tag, as you note, to identify that the ride includes coffee stop(s)
– Since photos are required, you could add captions to the photos that also include a tag identifying it as coffee-shop photo. Unique per coffee shop. E.g. “#coffee-1” or “#coffee-amouri”. Asssuming that we can process the captions, someone could write some backend code that counts the distinct hashtags in photo captions that start with “#coffee”.
– (Of course you could also just let people put various #coffee-* hashtags on their rides, but if you want to enforce that photos are present that prove the coffee-shop stop, I think doing it on captions makes more sense.)

I’m not sure how much backend work is involved (it’s a bit different than the simple ride counting we do for other hashtags, obviously) or who will do it, but we do have a bunch of volunteers, so hopefully it could get done.

Last year, jrenaut http://bikearlingtonforum.com/member.php?733-jrenaut created the Points Per Mile (PPM) leaderboard so I assume (hope?) it can be recreated this year without too much trouble.

I’m open to suggestions as to how to make my Coffee Ride Pointless Prize as easy as possible. I can drop the photo requirement if that makes it too difficult/involved. It’s more important to be able to keep track of the total number of DIFFERENT coffee rides. Would something like this work? Require the ride to be named on Strava with the following nomenclature: #FS2018coffeeride and then the name/location of the coffee shop. I’m willing to make it an honor system and assume that people aren’t going to Starbucks, going to the same coffee place more than once, or otherwise breaking the rules. If we did that, would it then be just a simple matter of counting the rides?

THANX!

[rcannon100]

@chuxtr 169583 wrote:

I’m willing to make it an honor system

[Steve O]

Since I am opting out of FS2018, someone else will need to take on the task of organizing the Pointless Prizes.

I will, though, administer and adjudicate the photo caption game from the sidelines.

[Birru]

@Steve O 169732 wrote:

Since I am opting out of FS2018, someone else will need to take on the task of organizing the Pointless Prizes.

Wait, WHAT?

[LeprosyStudyGroup]

For the non-steve-o who decides to organize things,
Wiggle Lord pointless prize thread’s here

[accordioneur]

Due to too much overlap with chuxtr’s coffee prize, the “Drink the Swamp” Pointless Prize is hereby cancelled.

SteveO, I might be willing to take over as Pointless Prize Potentate. Would like to speak with you about what’s involved, as well as how best to conceal solicitation and acceptance of bribes.

[chuxtr]

@accordioneur 169779 wrote:

Due to too much overlap with chuxtr’s coffee prize, the “Drink the Swamp” Pointless Prize is hereby cancelled.

SteveO, I might be willing to take over as Pointless Prize Potentate. Would like to speak with you about what’s involved, as well as how best to conceal solicitation and acceptance of bribes.

Say it isn’t so! I was looking forward to following Swamp Coffee devotees!

[cvcalhoun]

@accordioneur 169779 wrote:

Due to too much overlap with chuxtr’s coffee prize, the “Drink the Swamp” Pointless Prize is hereby cancelled.

SteveO, I might be willing to take over as Pointless Prize Potentate. Would like to speak with you about what’s involved, as well as how best to conceal solicitation and acceptance of bribes.

If you do, can you please let me know. I’m trying to maintain an updated list of who has volunteered for what. I won’t mention those bribes, though.

[Steve O]

@accordioneur 169779 wrote:

SteveO, I might be willing to take over as Pointless Prize Potentate. Would like to speak with you about what’s involved, as well as how best to conceal solicitation and acceptance of bribes.

I will be at HDCC on Dec 20 if you can make it. Otherwise it shouldn’t be hard to meet up in or near the ‘hood.

[streetsmarts]

@Steve O 169732 wrote:

Since I am opting out of FS2018, someone else will need to take on the task of organizing the Pointless Prizes.

I will, though, administer and adjudicate the photo caption game from the sidelines.

Oh that’s a bummer for the rest of us. we hope.to see you at coffee clubs/rides /social events in the winter anyhow

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[Author]

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