Pointless Prizes

For the first-year participants who wonder what Pointless Prizes are, or anyone who is interested in sponsoring a Pointless Prize, we are happy to share that Pointless Prizes (AKA Reindeer Games) are entertaining activities the Freezing Saddlers enjoy in and out of a saddle. Below are the answers to some questions you might have. If you have questions not answered here, you can use our contact form and select “I have a question about Pointless Prizes” as the subject from the drop-down menu in order to contact Serdar.

Question
Who can participate in Pointless Prizes?
Answer
Any participant of Freezing Saddles, including Friends of Freezing Saddles, is eligible to participate in Pointless Prizes unless otherwise specified by the sponsor of the specific prize.

Question
Who can sponsor a Pointless Prize?
Answer
Anyone can sponsor a prize. This includes participants and non-participants of Freezing Saddles 2026.

Question
What are Pointless Prizes about?
Answer
Pointless Prizes can be about anything! They can range from serious topics like Immigrant Heritage to fun ones like Daily Photo Scavenger Hunt. What unites all topics is that every pointless prize is educational. So rest assured that you will learn, share your knowledge, and have fun by playing along.

Question
How do I sponsor a Pointless Prize?
Answer
To let people know there is a competition and announce the rules, you’d want to post on the forum. Serdar has made a post listing all the prizes, with links to the post announcing each prize, and will add your prize to it once you post. If you want to keep track of participants in your contest in the Pointless Prizes tab of the Freezing Saddles website, you can have participants tag their rides with a tag of their choosing, and they will automatically show up. For example, if you wanted to have a contest called “kittens,” and you told everyone to tag their rides with #kittens, the rides would automatically show up at https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/hashtag/kittens. Once you have posted to announce your prize and Serdar has listed it, Obscurerichard and Merlin will be adding it to the prizes listed under that tab.

If you want people to take a picture of something, you would typically ask them to post it on our Discord server. (This is a change from last year, when they were normally posted on the forum itself.) See last year’s Photo Scavenger Hunt for an example.

If you’re concerned about the expense of giving out prizes, don’t be. Prizes can be as small as just a certificate, or as large as you want.

Question
I’d like to sponsor a Pointless Prize, but need some ideas.
Answer
As mentioned, you can have a prize for absolutely anything you want. However, the following are some ideas to get you started. You could sponsor one of these or come up with your own. I have not included last year’s prizes, except when I know last year’s sponsor will not be giving the prize again, so as to avoid duplication of efforts.

Note that the sponsors of last year’s very popular Photo Scavenger Hunt will not be continuing it this year, so we’d be particularly happy if someone else decided to sponsor it.

  • Biathlon – No, not skiing plus target shooting – let’s do a different kind of sports duo. Ride your bike to a WINTER sport – post the story. Whoever has the best story of riding to ice skating or skiing or whatever will win some kind of prize.
  • Calvinball – There will be multiple Calvinballs thrown out into the wild for folks to find and hide.
  • Climbing per mile (individual)
  • Climbing per mile (team)
  • Deflated – Pointless prize is easy, you get a flat, hashtag the ride #Deflated, the person with the most flats wins! Well, loses.
  • Doughnut rides – Eat doughnuts, tag #donut, intrinsically win?
  • Errandeering – Pointless prize for doing stuff on your bike you might be tempted to do in your car. Grocery store, post office, pharmacy dentist, manicurist, gym, farmers market, dry cleaning, bike shop, library, etc. Commutes, coffee rides, kid pick up / drop off do not count.
  • Expand your horizons – Ride to a cannabis dispensary and take a picture of it. Limit one dispensary per day. All participants must be 21 years old or older!
  • Fire – Ride your bike and take photo of the fire stations.
  • First Time Riders – Ride your bike outside at least 5 miles every day from February 1 to the end of Freezing Saddles.
  • Flag – Take a photo of a flag on your ride.
  • Golden Spike – Ride your bike to a metro or train station and post a photo.
  • Lake Finder – Ride your bike a least a mile to any lake, pond or massive impounded body of water (loosely defined) that is freely accessible to the public.
  • Least Daily Variance – This prize was given to the player with the lowest average variance in miles per day.
  • Little Free Libraries – Visit a Little Free Library and either donate a book or make a suggestion as to the kind of book that would be appropriate.
  • London Bridge – Number of rides where you fell 😨🚲😱
  • Meh-diocrity – Awarded to the team and rider(s) ending up exactly in the middle.
  • Michigander – You call THAT a snow day?! – Riders who have ridden on the most official OPM snow days, or if no snow days are declared, on Michigan Day (Monday, January 18th). Ties to be broken by total mileage.
  • Monuments and Memorials – Ride to a monument or memorial, and take a picture.
  • Old Georgetown Bike Lane – Ride some or all part from Cedar Lane to Pike & Rose in Bethesda
  • Photo Scavenger Hunt – Ride your bike to find the Wordle word of the day and post its photo on the forum. Main competition involved points granted each day for the best photo. There was also a participation prize for most days of participation. This one was very popular, and last year’s sponsor won’t be sponsoring it, so we hope someone will!
  • Phone ride – Most miles clocked with Strava on your phone, as opposed to a bike computer.
  • Pizzaneuring – Ride for pizza, eat pizza, and post a photo.
  • POGGIO – Number of team rides of the POGGIO segment.
  • Points per Mile – Most points per mile, minimum 40 ride days (by the end of the competition)
  • Post Office – Ride to a Post Office and take a picture of it.
  • Ross Hill Loop Rides – Number of Ross Hill Loop or RCP Loop rides, ignoring double dips.
  • Shortest Rides) – Rider average distance per ride, minimum ten days with a ride.
  • Socks – Show off your socks!
  • STEM – Ride your bike, at least a mile, to any site related to Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) and take a picture with your bike.
  • Street Treats – Find a street treat out in the wild while riding your bike.
  • Supple Ride – Number of miles multiplied by tyre width
  • Taco Ride – For this pointless prize, simply ride your bike at least 5 miles round trip and snap a pic of your bike in front of the establishment, along with a pic of your meal.
  • Tortoise and Hare – Fastest and slowest average rides for all of Freezing Saddles.
  • Vehicle ABCs – find and photograph the vehicles with each letter of the alphabet on their plates while on a bike ride.
  • Wandrer’ About – Most new miles ridden, as measured by the Wandrer site.
  • Weekend Warrior – Points on the weekend vs points during the week
  • Wormholes – Find clever connections between places or tears in spacetime