2018 National Bike Challenge...anyone?
07-04-18, 01:05 PM
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2018 National Bike Challenge...anyone?
Just curious: is anyone actually participating in the (USA) National Bike Challenge this year?
I did it in 2016 and 2017. I found it to be a fun, low-stakes motivator to get in a few extra miles, and I know that it encouraged some of my riding buddies to do the same. The community leaderboards created some friendly local competition, and it was always interesting to see where our community, state, and club ranked against others. I really did not mind the change to using Strava in 2017; although a few riders dropped out, it got a bunch of our local high-mileage roadie/racer types involved in the challenge.
This year, it appears that all the interesting stats and rankings are gone. My community, as well as the majority of US cities and towns, is not even listed - apparently, local officials need to fill out a form to get communities listed. It's not clear that local rankings are available. The team feature in May was okay, but now that it's done, there seems no point to checking on the Challenge.
So, I'm wondering: does anyone prefer this format to the previous one? Is anyone actually participating or checking in on the Challenge this year, or is it pretty much dead?
I did it in 2016 and 2017. I found it to be a fun, low-stakes motivator to get in a few extra miles, and I know that it encouraged some of my riding buddies to do the same. The community leaderboards created some friendly local competition, and it was always interesting to see where our community, state, and club ranked against others. I really did not mind the change to using Strava in 2017; although a few riders dropped out, it got a bunch of our local high-mileage roadie/racer types involved in the challenge.
This year, it appears that all the interesting stats and rankings are gone. My community, as well as the majority of US cities and towns, is not even listed - apparently, local officials need to fill out a form to get communities listed. It's not clear that local rankings are available. The team feature in May was okay, but now that it's done, there seems no point to checking on the Challenge.
So, I'm wondering: does anyone prefer this format to the previous one? Is anyone actually participating or checking in on the Challenge this year, or is it pretty much dead?
07-04-18, 01:54 PM
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Hadn't heard about it before this. Seems like a reasonable activity designed to promote cycling; however too much like a competition for my taste.
07-04-18, 04:30 PM
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I do the challenge each year. I agree the rankings and stuff are not as clear as previous versions. Looking today I had to go through many pages to find what use to be on one page.
07-04-18, 05:23 PM
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I did it last year and also found it a fun motivator. I would look at it daily. This year, they hacked it so much I gave up after just a few days. I couldn’t find anything of any interest to me. I had an email exchange with somebody on their team about how bad the interface was. I asked him why they changed the interface, had people complained about the old one? Never heard back and I haven’t gone back. It is dead as far as I’m concerned.
07-05-18, 07:51 AM
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I think this year it was only from May 1st to May 31st. At any rate, I didn't like the way they did it this year and likely won't bother with it next year. I don't need it to be motivated to get on my bike.
07-05-18, 11:15 AM
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Been doing the NBC for several years now. Liked it much better under the old format. This year it really sucks, especially the team challenge. Why waste time setting up a team and getting everyone fired up for just one month? Even the individual pages aren't updated regularly. I had 872 points for May and it didn't update for the entire month of June. It finally updated two days ago. Not sure that I'll participate next year if it's under this same format.
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