Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Keep it going

Hey Everybody--
I was thinking yesterday that it would be fun to do this every month, or as long as we can keep it going.  Plenty of us would be riding every day anyway, but there are some people I have spoken to about this who probably didn't find out about it until a week or two into October and so they didn't participate.  And I personally like knowing that there is a group of people out there who out of competitive spirit and love of biking, and maybe even environmental responsibility are planning trips and days with the idea of "that should get me a few more points!''.

I don't know how much work it takes to make this happen, but a revolving cast could take care of the blog results end of things if it's a chore.  And I imagine that there are a few more businesses out there who might be willing to contribute (5 free cups of coffee somewhere, $25 bar tab, etc...).  Even if sponsors are hard to come by, it's easy to be creative.  5 bux from each rider? (Not trying to make this cost anything- just throwing out ideas.)

It could go all over the place.  Ultimately, it's nice to have this to think about while riding.  It made uphill cold rain more rewarding last friday.

What do you think?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I'd be up for it for sure - a little competition is always fun.

Anybody have any idea what happened to the stats for week three that should have been posted yesterday?

-Mallfellow

Butch said...

There is no competition for you, Mallfellow. I'm goona move to Gordonsville next month.

Unknown said...

Just like this competition spiced up your rainy Friday morning commute - and it sure was a nice rain, wait till it's 35 degrees and raining! - it's fun for me too as I've been doing basically the same commute day in and day out (more or less) for the past four years. Anything to keep the motivation up (for anyone riding any length commute) is a great thing especially as we move into the colder darker months!

-Mallfellow

James G. said...

I'll get the results posted ASAP. Just lazyness on my part. Probably tomorrow AM.

-j said...

I like the idea of keeping it going, as long as there's interest (and it appears there is.)

I'd like to see some "categories" to spice up the competition a bit. Perhaps a virtual colored jersey for each category. Yellow jersey for most miles on the bike, Green (environmentally friendly) jersey for fewest miles in your car(s), polka dot jersey for hilliest ride of the week (I think g-maps can do elevation.) Anyone have any other ideas for easy-to-tabulate categories?

-j

James G. said...

Updated points should be posted.

I would totally be up for keeping it goingbut it's going to have to simplify quite a bit. I like the idea of additional points for the different categories but the easiest thing to do is just report mileage once a week and update the scores every monday.

Be on the lookout in a week or so for the November setup.

-j said...

James,

Maybe to keep it simple we could do one category a month on some rotating schedule. This month we do miles on a bike, next month we do fewest miles by car, the month after the most trips taken by bike (but the mileage doesn't matter), etc.

-j

Unknown said...

If you guys need some help keeping everything tabulated, I'd be willing to lend a hand.

It should be faily simple to set up an excel spreadsheet that will do all the calculations. All that would need to be done is to enter the reported mileage figures and any multipliers.

Anyway, let me know if I can help out.

-Mallfellow