CycleBlaze and the open and welcoming community that’s developed around it is such an excellent resource.  We really owe a big debt of gratitude (and a donation from time to time) to the webmaster for envisioning and creating it for us.

And it’s surprising once you’ve built a field of dreams like this to see what people will bring to it when they come.  Here’s a new one that just dropped in the mail: a complete jigsaw puzzle, with all of the pieces arrayed and facing upright.  The puzzle is partially completed, to the extent that the border has been completed but no other piece has been attached to it.

Here is an example, submitted to me by a personal friend in a private email, in response to a comment submitted on one of our recent posts:

 
The email was sent to thank me for providing fodder for her and a long-time friend for their morning routine of completing a jigsaw puzzle together remotely using the application virtual jigsaw puzzles.  This member follows Team Anderson’s journals and from time to time imports one of our photos into the application to convert it into their puzzle for the day.

So I’m announcing a new contest here in the Forum, open to any CycleBlaze member who chooses to participate: Name that Frame!  The contest is to be the first to correctly identify the photo included in a new photo posted on Cycle/Blaze.  It’s a contest, with each photo having at most one winner.  Score will be kept, winners announced, prizes awarded.

And, to keep things orderly and fair to participants, I’m proposing a set of rules participants and submitters are encouraged to follow.  Rules will be stored separately in Team Anderson’s methodology library, Team Anderson’s Rules, and a current copy maintained as a convenience in a separate post to this forum thread.   The rule set is still under development, but here is the vision:

Rules about the Forum moderator:

• There is only one currently active moderator at a time.  It is currently Team Anderson and we expect to maintain this role indefinitely, but welcome other ideas and will want a plan for temporary or permanent succession at some point if there is enough interest to make this an ongoing contest.

• It is the responsibility of the moderator to maintain and publish the current ruleset and to announce changes to it.

• It is the responsibility of the moderator to announce winners and award prizes.

• It is the responsibility of the moderator to accept submissions and validate that they comply with all currently publshed rules before posting them.
• It is the responsibility of the moderator to comply with the rules of the Forum itself, and to be open and inclusive in the role by accepting or giving due consideration to suggestions for improvement, ideas for prizes, offers to assume the role of moderator themselves, and so on.
• It is likely that progressively more revealing hints will be offered for puzzles that remain unclaimed after a period of time - say every other day, with the hint being posted at a standard time of day.  For example, after two days had lapsed I might add as a hint on this example that there appears to be a great amount of blue in the top of the frame.  Probably not a shot taken inppby the Grampies on Vancouver Idland in zjsnuary, for example.

Rules about the puzzle

• The puzzle must be displayed completely, all pieces face up, fully exposed, and non-overlapping. No tricks or gimmicks!

• The puzzle must be completed to the extent shown in this example - the competed frame, and nothing but the frame!

• The puzzle must be of a complete photograph that was posted on CycleBlaze in a post with an effective date rangeto be specified in the caption of the submission, so that contestants know what universe to search in.

• The puzzle frame must exactly match the frame of the posted photograph.

• It is not necessary to use the application that was used in this example to generate the puzzle.  

Rules about the submissions:

• The puzzle must be of a photograph from a post published by the submitter (don’t steal other hooks’ photos!).
• The submitter must remain anonymous. They cannot identify either the themselves or the journal the photo was taken from in their submission.
• The submitter must agree that they will be identified at the time a winner is declared, to the extent that it will link back to the original photograph.
• The submitter cannot themselves identify the photo and declare themselves the winner (you can’t vote for your own photo!’j.
• The submitter does not need to themselves submit the photo to the contest.  As an alternative they can ask another CycleBlaze member to submit it on their behalf.
• The caption of the submission will include the dat of the submission as well as the dates wirhi which the photo was taken.  For example:

Rules about the winner:

• Every submitted puzzle will have at most one winner: the CycleBlaze member (or membership team ) that first correctly identifies the photograph and links to it in a response to the one posted here.

• Unidentified puzzles will remain open indefinitely.

• Winners will be announced in the forum in an ongoing list.
• Score will be kept, prizes will be awarded.

Go!  Be the first!  Special prizes are anticipated for the first winner, which could be you!

Really confused here. How do we go about solving the puzzle? Thanks, by the way, for the link to the puzzle site. Dodie loves it and has it bookmarked.

I’ll reword it.  The puzzle is to identify the picture the jigsaw puzzle was created from, not to complete the jigsaw puzzle itself.  For example, someone could submit a puzzle created from one of your recent pictures, but only completed as shown in the example.  The goal is to search through recent posts on currently active tours and figure out which photograph it matches.

"Unidentified puzzles will remain open indefinitely."
Perhaps if no one is able to identify it after a set period of time, say, a week or two, you could fill in one or more pieces of the puzzle and post another picture. Repeat as many times as needed until someone wins.

That’s an good idea.  It would be a shame to have such a great prize left unclaimed!

I probably wouldn’t add pieces though, because I don’t actually have a puzzle, or even the puzzle generating app.  I could offer hints though to make it easier for people to get their heads in the game.  Here’s the first hint: look at the top half of the puzzle, and the predominance of blue pieces all around.  Given that the puzzle is time boxed (posted within ten days of submission, on a currently active tour at the time of posting): there actually aren’t too many candidate posts to consider.  It’s not likely to be from the Grampies for example, up in grey and wet Vancouver Island.

Also though, I think ten days is too wide a filter, and too undefined.  I have updated the rules by narrowing the window and explicitly stating the posting window in the caption.  Starting over, I’d caption this one: 

Puzzle #1, submitted on February 12, 2025 and posted between January 12 and January 14. Find that Frame!

Also though, look at those posting dates!   I was really surprised to see how far this photo was taken.  Even though I knew what the photo was and where it was taken, I was surprised by how far back it was.  I’ll have to tighten up the definition of what a valid sumission can be, better define what ‘posting date’ means, and so on.  And I’ll definitely include the time box in the caption itself so that folks really only even have a few pages of a few blogs as a candidate search space.

So actually there are three pretty powerful clues on this one:

• It was posted (meaning the date listed as the effective date of the post) between 1/12;25 and 1/14/25. (And in the future, this won’t even be a hint.  It will be explicitly stated as part of the caption.
• Look at all that blue!
• Note that I knew about this photo, and the submitter thanked me personally for posting it.  Hmm.  i wonder who’s blog it might be found on?

And I think I’ll retitle the contest.  Find that Frame!