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National Bike Challenge 2014

It's that time of year again! https://nationalbikechallenge.org However, it appears Pittsburgh is not yet set up for May 1. "Your area does not yet have a Local Challenge. Locate an Advocacy Group to host your Local Challenge."
mpm
2014-04-09 11:46:37
Drewbecca is right... the bad news is that the League is taking a much longer-than-expected time to give local advocacy organizations the permission to start their local challenges! The good news is that the new website looks like it will be pretty sweet, though building a platform from scratch is a huge undertaking, and I'm sure this year's challenge will not be without its share of extremely frustrating bugs.... I'm looking forward to it. Best news of all is that OTB is continuing the Pedal for Pints n'Pop promo!
iamdan901
2014-04-10 10:54:11
Is there an opportunity in the midst of startup chaos to consider the definition of "Pittsburgh" and embrace the metro area? Just wondering. Regionalism n'at.
vannever
2014-04-10 10:57:58
The League gave local advocacy organizations the opportunity to define our "territory" by county. So our local challenge will include everyone who registers with an Allegheny County zip code.
iamdan901
2014-04-10 11:06:00
I started getting a little heads-up message a couple months ago from the endomondo.com site saying it would not be used for this year's challenge. That message got stronger on April 1, saying I should now go to nationalbikechallenge.org OK, so here's what I had to do. The nationalbikechallenge site allows for import and synchronization of data from Endomondo, MapMyRide and I think one other. There is a one-time setup process that lets n-b-c get at the Endomondo data. From there on, if you log your miles in Endomondo (or MapMyRide), n-b-c will automatically synchronize the data, and count your numbers. As of this morning, I was #498 nationally on the n-b-c site, and I don't have to do anything different from what I've been doing, logging everything on Endomondo.
stuinmccandless
2014-04-10 11:13:59
New site is a p.i.t.a. but, a lot of it is working out the bugs. Personally, I liked it better when it was hosted by Endomondo as I think people are more likely to post rides/mileage in that format. I suppose the RustCup is incentive enough for the participating parties, but how many riders without a competition will be bothered to go to the NBT challenge site just to log a number. Personally, I'd rather just log at Endomondo and be done with it. Hopefully things sync up a little better down the road. Ideally, I wouldn't even have to log into NBC, just Endomondo. Not really complaining, as the time for feedback comes in October and we'll see what works and what doesn't. But them's the big changes. It's still early for NBT, they just hosted a webinar for setting up a challenge on Tuesday. On the plus side, all of the bugs I've noticed have been corrected by this point. You can watch it if you like... www.youtube.com/watch?v=vim6jhhTszk
headloss
2014-04-10 22:09:30
It appears that the sync is one-way, miles logged in endomondo reach NBC, but miles logged on the NBC page using the handy saved-routes dropdown do not go back to endomondo. Or is it just very slow?
naomi
2014-04-24 10:44:24
The first part is right. This is fine by me. I keep on logging on Endomondo like I always have, and every couple of hours, NBC syncs up with that data.
stuinmccandless
2014-04-24 12:08:34
Three days left to sign up for the National Bike Challenge!
mrdestructicity
2014-04-28 09:31:34
Naaa, registration is open all through the challenge, until it ends on September 31st (at which case I'm sure you can register for the 2015 NBC)! We're making our announcement this week, and we're shooting for registering 1,750 people this year!
iamdan901
2014-04-28 15:53:43
I took a quick look at the Nat'l Challenge website. They will handle 3 different logging schemes: Endomondo, MapMyRide, or Moves. You will have to log in to the NBC site and manually initiate a sync. By 11:59pm of the last day of the month if you want to win one of the valuable monthly prizes. You will need to log into your National Bike Challenge account at least every six days to have your miles count towards the Challenge. Logging into your account will automatically sync the miles you tracked through your Endomondo, MapMyRide, or Moves app. All miles ridden throughout the month must be synch'd by the last day of the month. Maybe they're trying to weed out the non-OCD types. Or maybe they're losing sight of their whole mission, which (I think) was to draw more and more casual riders into this whole biking-as-a-lifestyle thing. Maybe you can use an assortment of apps to track your progress, but I haven't as yet registered so I don't know. Anyway, is anyone out there fluent enough in web scripting to put something together can will trigger a sync, that we could run as a daily cron-job or equivalent? Though you would think that Endomondo etc would have these already, to get or keep your custom...
ahlir
2014-04-28 19:25:29
I finally got registered, and it did sync my last weeks endomondo miles, but did not take all of them. I am assuming I will be able to go back and do this manually? Now that my bike commute is over 30 miles per day, I have great incentive to ride that more frequently.
helen-s
2014-04-29 07:27:02
I haven't tried to back log any miles, but looking at Ahlir's post above, the sync will only go back six days.
headloss
2014-04-29 09:48:10
What teams are our there? I need to attach myself to one.
smarti6
2014-04-29 15:54:45
Shawn wrote:What teams are our there? I need to attach myself to one.
You can go to https://nationalbikechallenge.org/local/leaderboards/teams to see what teams are currently in the lead. There is a link at the bottom "search for a team to join" although it's not available today due to some technical problems on the site today. I was on the Flock team last year, but I'm on another team in Illinois for now trying to help get the N.B.C. going out there. I'm moving back to PA in a couple of months and probably signing up with the Flock team then. Top teams from last year were (in order of points) Thick, Tag-o-rama-2013, Tooters United, Bam! pittsburgh and Flock of Cycles. There were a total of 84 teams that logged miles for Pittsburgh last year.
headloss
2014-04-29 16:47:17
ok, I finally registered. Less hassle than I though (other that a really slow website). Some notes: 1) The "you gotta update every 6 days" thing is actually about automatic uploads from (e.g.) Endomondo. You can manually input stuff whenever. 2) Yow. All the usual suspects are already in there, pumpin' away. 3) I was on the Tag-o-Rama team last year. I don't see one for this year. Did somebody already plan to put one up? If not, I could do it.
ahlir
2014-04-29 21:40:57
@Ahlir, Since I didnt pick up a single tag last year - I hereby pass the torch of the NBC T-O-R group to you.
marko82
2014-04-30 06:54:10
I set up a "Tag-O-Rama" team. You can register by going to your profile page on the NBC site. Along the left side, lower down, will be a Team signup section. This is open to everyone, of course. You don't need to be a player or even a lurker, just a rider. I even gave us a logo: This has not been a tag as yet, though the building has appeared. One that even mighty Samson would have found challenging.
ahlir
2014-04-30 09:40:22
This is in regard to logging miles: I just tried to manually log my last few days of miles. For each day I had multiple trips, so I logged each trip separately (instead of totaling the miles on my calculator and entering total miles for the day). I discovered that only the last trip I entered for the day is what actually shows up for my day total. Does anyone know if there is a way to enter separate trips? If there isn't, just wanted to let folks know that some of your miles may not have been saved if you entered it the way I did...
rachel_ding
2014-05-07 13:05:31
Not through the NBchallenge site. As I said in an earlier post, I use Endomondo's campaign/national/ page, just as I did last year, and log each separate trip, and the NBC site syncs it fine.
stuinmccandless
2014-05-07 13:28:20
Gotcha, thanks Stu.
rachel_ding
2014-05-07 14:13:23
On Sat I did a ride that I tracked on Endo as 2 separate "workouts" because I wanted to record one specific 1 way route, NBC picked up the total mileage for the day with no fuss.
edmonds59
2014-05-07 14:24:44
It was not obvious to me how I could log miles directly onto the NBC site, so I have been using Endomondo. Any clues on where to go to log directly to NBC?
helen-s
2014-05-07 15:57:19
On the main screen you should see something this: Click on the "log miles"... I would recommend sticking to Endomondo; all-around nicer interface, and you can keep logging even after the NBC is over. If you do the same (e.g. commute) route every day you can save the details and just click it in. And while I have y'all's attention at the moment, here's Tag-O-Rama's new cooler, edgier, logo: Doesn't that just make you want to be, like, a part of it? Like they (don't) say in the pizza shop window "riders wanted". T-o-R is currently a comfortable 3rd in the rankings (and only 4 riders), but with *you* we can do better!
ahlir
2014-05-07 17:08:22