Rouleur Award (mostly) via Permanents?

[Iwan Barankay]

Hi,

the title says it all: what do you think of the idea of making it possible of obtaining the Rouleur Award (mostly) via permanents.

Status Quo:

Currently to get the Rouleur award requires riding three permanents of various distance >=100 and <200, a 200 brevet, and a Dart https://rusa.org/pages/award-rouleur

Rationale for my question: 

The Rouleur Award is a great way to encourage new riders to get started in our hobby, or those recovering from life events to get back into randonneuring. The problem is that not all regions offer it for logistical or ideological reasons. Those who offer it do so only once a year. So if you can't make the date of the events (or the Rouleur weekend), you lose your chance of getting the Rouleur award.

Why not make it possible to collect at least some of the events via permanents? E.g., one could allow people to substitute any of the populaire distances (100-124, 125-149, 150-199) with a permanent.

What do you think?

Iwan

[Dan Driscoll]

Iwan, 

The reason that the perms were not allowed for the RUSA Rouleur Award, is that this would allow every member of RUSA to create their own personal 100km,125km, 150km, and 200km permanent, completely over loading the perms committee. Not a great idea. 

For our Lone Star Randonneurs, we offer many chances at each of the 5 required rides, and if those don’t work, we will work to add whatever route is needed for a rider, either visiting or local. 

I’d like to think that if you offered to Host the event you need, to a local RBA, that they’d be willing to add it for you. 

I for one, as a very willing and enabling RBA, like the idea of accommodating, and growing the club with group rides, rather than have everyone riding their own personal perms out of their house alone. 

DanD 

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[Iwan Barankay]

Yes, Lonestar is a very nice and accommodating region. Thank you for all that you do. Not all RUSA regions are that way, effectively cutting them off from this entry-level award.

[Bill Bryant]

Yes, as Dan says, allowing permanents for the Rouleur would likely overload the permanents committee. FWIW, when I proposed the award, it had permanents included as counting events. The Board, however, changed that to only calendared populaires and team rides, and I think they made the correct choice.

Bill Bryant

RUSA #7

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[Bill Bryant]

Iwan,

Some “Rouleur Weeks” are popping up lately, is there any way to attend one of those? They look like a great week of randonneuring.

Bill Bryant

From: 'Iwan Barankay' via Randonneurs USA <randonn...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, November 2, 2025 at 9:04 AM
To: Randonneurs USA <randonn...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [RUSA] Rouleur Award (mostly) via Permanents?

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[Iwan Barankay]

Excellent suggestions. Just to be clear I am not talking about my goals but about how to make this award more accessible to novice awards.

If the goal of the award is to entice new riders to join, it is rather unusual that they were knowledgeable enough to ask for rouleur events. Even then I wonder which RBA would offer a rouleur event just to accomodate a new rider who has never ridden with the club before.  

I checked and these are the only regions so far offering a Dart next year: 

AK: Anchorage

AZ: Phoenix

CA: Davis

CA: Los Angeles

CA: San Luis Obispo

IL: Quad Cities

MI: Detroit

MN: Twin Cities

NJ: NYC and Princeton

OR: Portland

TX: Central Texas

UT: Salt Lake City

WA: Seattle

WI: Western

As of today very few regions offer a rouleur weekend. None of them on the East Coast. PA Eastern will *not* offer it.

[Charlie Martin]

I too am excited to see these rouleur weeks, and I'm looking forward to participating in them. However "travel across the country, take a week off of work, spend $$$ on hotels and transportation, and bike 700 km in a week" is a tall ask for new randos that this award is supposedly targeted towards, and that falls short of the goal of gradually building riders up to brevet distances. I agree with Iwan that this award is not currently accessible to everyone.

Note that RUSA events often get added throughout the year, so most likely there will be more opportunities in 2026 than what we see at the moment. However with an award that has 5 separate calendared-event qualifiers, it's demotivating not to have some assurances that you will actually find all 5 qualifiers. If a rider has a conflict with the only calendared 125 or 150 km event, or if they DNF one of those events, the Rouleur award will no longer be a motivator to complete the other rides.

- Charlie

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[Dan Driscoll]

Iwan, 

The nice thing about a Dart Pop, is that it can be added to the RUSA calendar with less than a weeks notice. 

In that way, we can look at the 10 day weather forecast and calendar appropriately for a nice weekend weather wise.  

Although LSR does not currently have a Dart Pop on its 2026 calendar we usually host 3 a year. 

DanD 

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[Rob Hawks]

Iwan,

Your list appears incomplete. For example, SFR is offering 2 Dart Populaires and one DART. Those don't show on your list.

Also, keep in mind that RBAs can schedule *RUSA* events as little as 7 days in advance and at this time of year many clubs have not listed *all* of the events they will eventually host.

Note also that permanents are not part of the Region's or RBAs purview.  RUSA perms are owned and managed by RUSA.

rob

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[Bill Bryant]

Iwan,

I like your idea to get some entry-level rando-rides going in your region.

Remember that only the ACP events must be calendared in the September of the preceding year of them being ridden.

RBAs can schedule RUSA brevets, popualires, and team events with just a short time wait. So, looking at the 2026  calendar today won’t show all the populaires that will be ridden next season.

Even if your local club isn’t too interested in hosting a Rouleur series, perhaps there is one not too far away that would? Or, since most clubs are already offering 200k distances, perhaps one club** could host two Rouleur populaire distances and a neighboring club** could offer the third distance + a Dart? Or some sort of “sharing” the work approach? 

​**This is often seen in French clubs — hosting an entire Super Randonneur series is a lot of work, but one will often see two or three neighboring clubs host the various distances and so regional riders don’t have too far to travel to find their SR brevets.) 

So, perhaps if a few riders ask their local(ish) RBAs about this, maybe something will take place next season? There is plenty of time to get the events on the schedule(s) for the clubs and hopefully some local riders will recruit cycling buddies to join them?

Bill Bryant

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[Gardner Duvall]

Iwan, I'm not privy to 2026 plans for the MD:Capital region/DC Randonneurs, but I assume we will continue the pattern of a few years now of offering all the events for a Roleur, over a period in September and October.  We are close by!  These are all well attended rides, which double down on after-ride socializing by finishing at various breweries.  In fact, I see a newly minted Rouleur award in my trophy case.  Come on by, G

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[Dave Thompson]

As I recall, part of the rationale of making the Rouleur events-only vs including perms was that we were trying to encourage the camaraderie that comes from riding events with the regions.  Another basic premise of the Rouleur was that it would help older riders stay engaged, vs Rouleur being a tool to bring in new members.

None of this is cast in stone, I'm simply mentioning this to add the historical rationale. 

The Awards Review Committee would be the place to start for any proposals to revise the award.

Dave.

On Sun, Nov 2, 2025 at 12:36 PM Bill Bryant <bi...@bryant-springsteen.net> wrote:

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[Bill Gobie]

Regarding the point about the award not being equally accessible, this is not unique to the Rouleur. P-12 and R-12 awards are unobtainable for many who live in frigid northern states. The "big tent" is larger (or warmer) for some than others.

Bill

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[Dan Driscoll]

Bill, not all Awards are equally accessible to all, and that’s never been a mandatory criteria. If you can’t ride a 1,200km, you’ll never earn a RUSA Cup. We’ve worked hard for years to build an Awards arena that has something for everyone, which is how it should be. Some Awards may appeal to a newbie other Awards may require much more fitness. Not every Award was ever meant to work easily for every RUSA member. 

I’m excited about the new Ultra Distance Awards, which should have much  more of a universal appeal.  

I know a lady in Alaska that’s earned an R-12, just depends on how bad you want it.  

You can submit a proposal for a new Award. 

DanD

On Nov 2, 2025, at 18:57, Bill Gobie <gobie...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Jeff Lippincott]

Interesting string. It has been a long time since I read through a string on this group. Many of you know me and know that I am not a fan of the Big Tent philosophy RUSA claims to have adopted. Accordingly, I have never been a fan of either the P-12 or Rouleur awards. I even have a little trouble with the R-12 award since it is the bare minimum distance required to be considered a "randonneur." But a week or two ago I finished planning out my 2026 riding calendar and one of my goals is to rack up a maximum number of RUSA trophy awards. I plan to aim for the P-12 and Rouleur awards in 2026 since avoiding them would make it impossible to earn 14 trophies.

During my research of available rides in 2026 I noticed a bottleneck when it came to finding RUSA route committee approved populaires with a distance between 125k and 149k. Apparently RBA's are good at creating simple 100k routes and routes being 150k or something a little less than 200k. But that sweet spot of somewhere between 125 and 149, not so much. I've got just one such ride built into my  2026 schedule. As I recall it will be offered in Ohio.

During my planning I questioned two things about the Rouleur award. One had to do with the three distinct populaire distance requirements. I would be surprised if even half the RUSA regions have populaires of all three distances approved by the RUSA Route Committee. So even if an RBA were asked to throw a pop on the RUSA calendar it probably would be a major undertaking. The commenters in this string seem to think it is easy to get an RBA to throw a ride on the RUSA calendar. If this were the case I would ask an RBA to throw a pop on the calender to be held the day before every weekend brevet I signed up for. That would make it easy to earn more and more Rando Scout awards. But no, it's not easy. And some RBA's would want you to host the event. I assume that would require a pre-ride. What a hassle. But another problem with the three distinct distances is why even have distinct distances at all? What is the reason for three distinct distances? I cannot imagine one. This is especially true since there is no chronological order required. If you do a 180k pop first, then why are you required to do the whimpy 100k pop to get credit? Quite frankly, earning the award with regard to the three individual pops should have no distance requirement except that they should be pops, i.e., 100k to 199k. Maybe the requirement could be a little more restrictive by stipulating that they have to be three DIFFERENT pops.

I have always had a problem with the Rouleur award because of the Dart Pop requirement. I actually like the concept of the Dart Pop. It reminds me of the years of training as a high level competitive cyclist and leading B+ rides for various local bike clubs after "retiring" from competitive cycling. But RUSA currently does not mandate to its RBA's that they offer at least one Dart Pop per year. Without such a mandate the Rouleur is not a legitimate award in my mind. And I don't think RUSA should continue to offer it without instituting the mandate. When someone "volunteers" to work for a nonprofit organization there need to be certain expectations. And offering at least one Dart Pop should be one of those expectations that must be fulfilled. Ideally they should have to offer a minimum of five dart pops a year. Such a requirement would more than likely go a long way to transitioning local bike club members to RUSA membership. Most local bike clubs have riders that make it a point to do at least one 100 mile ride a year. Those riders would be likely candidates to do the Dart Pops.

I noticed time and time again in this string that the ride requirements for the Rouleur award have to be RUSA events. And the lame reason given is the Perm Program would potentially get inundated if perms were allowed. I am pretty familiar with the Perm Program having gotten more than just a few perms approved through it. I would not be surprised if I was told that I am among the top ten most prolific perm authors in RUSA history. I am also aware that the vast majority of perms that have been approved over the years are either pops or 200k brevets. Most states already of a plethora of perm pops that could be ridden for Rouleur credit. This is especially true if the three pop requirement is changed so no specific distance ranges are rquired. Riders wanting to earn the Rouleur award will more than likely ride existing perms rather than try to build a new one, two, or three of their own.

There were a few comments in this string regarding "Rouleur Weeks." I am not a fan of them. They create too much emphasis on earning an award. Especially an award that has little to do with randonneuring. What would be nice, however, is if RBA's would pair a populaire event with a brevet event. For example, offer the pop on a Friday and the brevet on a Saturday. Or a pop on a Saturday and the brevet on a Sunday. The rides would have to be paired. Offering them at the same time on the same day would be unacceptable.

[Richard Stum]

Jeff & others, 

All along I thought permanents did qualify for the rouler award...until now.

Not allowing perms to qualify for the rouler award (which I am also not a fan of, as it requires us to administrate many rides of such very similar distances) now puts an additional burden on our RBAs. In the case of my region, our RBA is having to go back to the drawing board and create new distances on routes that are most likely "perfectly good routes," just to appease one or two members seeking after this quirky award.

Cheers,
Richard Stum
Living & Working in the Mountains of Central Utah
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[Iwan Barankay]

Thank you for all the thoughtful feedback and background on the Rouleur Award.

. 

I spoke to many novice randonneurs, and they all liked the Rouleur Award and were in favor of allowing populaires to be substituted for permanents; i.e., the shorter rides can be perms or pops.

I hear the concern about causing more work for the permanent team. In my petition to the awards team for the rule change, I will offer to join the permanent team to handle the additional approval work.

Regarding whether the Rouleur Award reaches novice riders, I looked at who received one in 2025. The median RUSA number of rouleur awardees was 11747, corresponding to someone who started randonneuring in 2017. Less than 10% of awardees began riding in 2025. 

This suggests there is scope to remove barriers for novice riders, as Charlie Martin pointed out.

[Rob Hawks]

I'm not sure I see the straight line from fewer newer members not signing up to receive the Rouleur designation directly to that being because there is a barrier, with the barrier necessarily being not allowing perms within the designation's criteria. Is it possible that newer members, which are assumed to be younger (I don't think that is dramatically so), maybe aren't enthused by that designation? I don't think either conclusion is clear cut.

How many perms are ridden by just one member at a time?

How many brevets are ridden by more than one person on the same event?

If I had data like that I might be able to brush away my concern that perms don't build community (unless you define community as online or electronic).

That including perms in the Rouleur criteria would inundate the perm route review team didn't resonate with me as much as the admittedly nebulous concern that perms don't build community in the same way that brevets do.

Charlie Martin once produced a report for the RUSA board that included numbers for how many people rode the same perm at the same time vs. brevet event numbers. Or maybe I dreamed that.

rob

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[Iwan Barankay]

Rob, 

Perhaps you can spell out what data you want to see and what your empirical prediction or question is more clearly and what result if any would convince you?

The issue I see where I am in Philadelphia is that new riders ask about shorter events here and about getting the rouleur award but such rides aren't being offered. They are scared to jump straight into a brevet or longer as the local RBA insists on making rides hard. So little to no community is being bullt.

Also, when new riders do ride they ask about when the next short event is but as only two are being offered per year they are disappointed. I created numerous populaires here to offer people a chance to ride and contrary to your perception that *did* create a community of people riding and designing perms so they can keep randonneuring and they then build up the base and confidence to do longer events either here or in NJ, DC, or Brooklyn.

So my perception is not aligned with yours in that given the local philosophy of the club many don't feel at home and which for more permanents to built up credit and awards. 

[Dave Thompson]

For what it's worth, below are some numbers from 2024.  You'll see the number of unique perms in 2024.  5908 of the 7285 perms were single riders and as you can see, it drops off quickly.  97% have 2 or 1 rider.

Perhaps the issue is that the events aren't being offered ... I would have the same issue in Florida, if I was chasing a Rouleur.  I'm pretty certain that if I volunteered to organize the events, the three FL RBAs involved would be happy for me to take that on. 

(ps - since there was a reference to numbers, I've provided numbers; I'm not trying to make a point per se.  I ride a lot of solo perms myself - like today!).  

riders	num perms
1	5908
2	1153
3	147
4	43
5	16
6	6
7	5
8	3
9	1
11	2
12	1
Total Result	7285

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[Roger Hillas]

Dave,

Yes. Me too. That’s why I think club rides are important.

Where I really see young riders is the south and southeast Asians at PBP. They are *much* younger than the rest of us. You ride all over the world. Do you have any insight into this?

Roger

[Iwan Barankay]

When I ride back in Germany, there are also a lot of young riders and very strong. Part of the reason may lie in the dense train network making it cheap and easy to get to any start location and also easy in case you have to DNF. Most young riders don't have (access to) a car. 

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[Ramsey Hanna]

My perspective in the DC area is that it’s extremely difficult to attend randonneuring events without a car which tracks with what Iwan says. It would also explain why most people might prefer to just ride a perm from home. I don’t think there’s as many people intimidated by the distances as you would think, the beurocracy and inconveniences of randonneuring are what I think are the main barrier.

I usually have the most fun on rides with 1-2 other people but that might just be my perspective,

Ramsey

[Charlie Martin]

Charlie Martin once produced a report for the RUSA board that included numbers for how many people rode the same perm at the same time vs. brevet event numbers. Or maybe I dreamed that.

Rob, I suspect you're recalling the below SFR post from 2020. The surrounding context was how people could keep their P-12 streaks alive after the perms program went offline indefinitely, with the observation that people relied heavily on perms for their populaire qualifiers. (The eventual resolution to that was the ability for the P-12 and R-12 awards to handle a paused period and make-up rides. That proposal didn't exist yet at the time of this discussion.)

https://groups.google.com/g/sfrandon/c/eY-LEPrduko/m/jGhaQDllCAAJ

Regarding whether the Rouleur Award reaches novice riders, I looked at who received one in 2025. The median RUSA number of rouleur awardees was 11747, corresponding to someone who started randonneuring in 2017. Less than 10% of awardees began riding in 2025.

Below is a related analysis. It's a histogram of the number of Rouleur awards achieved vs rider tenure (in full years). There were 367 Rouleur awards at the time of the report. 25 members achieved the Rouleur within their first year of rando (tenure = 0 full years), and another 25 members achieved it within their first two years of rando. I don't think that it's particularly meaningful to compare those numbers to their percentage of everyone who's achieving it, but the data's here for people to bucket however they like.

RUSA tenure (full years)	Count of Rouleurs
0	25
1	25
2	20
3	21
4	14
5	13
6	14
7	16
8	18
9	15
10	14
11	11
12	14
13	12
14	11
15	17
16	18
17	15
18	13
19	12
20	12
21	5
22	4
23	7
24	8
25	7
26	5
27	1

- Charlie

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[Rob Hawks]

Charlie,

No, that was not what I was recalling. Dave posted the chart I was thinking of.

Rob

[Iwan Barankay]

Thank you, Charlie, for the data. I don't have access to tenure data like you (or not without clumsy scraping); I only have the RUSA number for quick data insight.

For comparison, looking at ACP SR awardees this year, the median RUSA # is 12793 compared to 11747 for the Rouleur Award. So if anything, the SR awards tilt more junior than the rouleur award. 

[jeff.li...@gmail.com]

Iwan,

I'm not so sure it is legitimate to compare the Rouleur award to the ACP SR award. Most of the RUSA regions do not support the Rouleur award and most of them do in fact support the ACP SR award. Furthermore, as people age they tend to lose athleticism. It is definitely easier to earn the Rouleur award (if the rides are available to ride) than it is to earn the ACP SR award. And since a large majority of RUSA members are elderly, less of them are able to earn the ACP SR award.

In one of your posts in this string you made a comment that Philadelphia cyclists want to be able to continue their "randonneuring" doing rides less than 200k in length. Technically speaking that is an impossibility. These cyclists can certainly continue being "weekend warriors" seeking to get a "trophy" that RUSA.org offers. But in the Philadelphia area that is not going to be an easy task to accomplish. As you know, I am a product of the PA:Eastern RUSA region which is where I developed my mentality that randonneuring is something that involves long distance endurance cycling. This populaire stuff is a joke. And even if you get the award diluted by getting perms allowed, that will not solve the other problem of a Dart Pop needing to be offered in Philly. The real problem you seem to be having is the mentality that RUSA.org has. Currently it is not well run and is content to take whatever it can get as RBA's. RBA's as a result get to do pretty much whatever they want to do after the first year of probation. The exception to the rule is when an RBA wants to offer a grand brevet. That requires permission/approval from the organization's president. And let's be totally honest, not many RBA's step up to the plate and offer a grand brevet. And some, i.e., PA:Eastern do not think highly of cloverleaf routes. The big loop versions are the hardest to administer. So PA Rando doesn' t have a history of offering many grand brevets. No 1000k brevets, for that matter.

Ideally there should be a standard baseline that all RBA's must comply with so RUSA members will have rides available to earn awards. This is especially true for the "lesser awards" involving rides lasting up to 600k in length. I realize that it would be a stretch to require all regions to offer at least one 1000k ride a year. Some don't even have the geography to offer a 1000k event. San Diego and Long Island regions come to mind. Hawaii, too. Is there such a thing as a 600k event on Hawaii? Should that region ever have been approved?

RUSA.org's core mission is to support Paris Brest Paris in America. I learned that on Day One when I joined RUSA  back in 2017. Do populaires help with that core mission? No. Populaires properly exist within the domain of local bike clubs. And we all know there are local bike clubs in Philly. Encourage members of those clubs to do more and more populaires with the goal to eventually join RUSA.org and become a randonneur. What is the first thing you would need to do to get local bike club members to think in terms of joining RUSA? Obviously it would be to show them the nice number of perm pops RUSA has to offer in the Philadelphia area. I just did a search to see how many there are. Oh my, three came up. One is 101k. One is 103k. And the biggy is 178k. That is lame. There is not even one in the 125k to 149k range. You offered to volunteer for the Perm Program. Why not just create 15 to 20 perm pops for Philadelphia. Then recommend the routes to the local cyclists who have told you they want to earn the Rouleur award. They will not get the Rouleur award, but they can soon think in terms of the ACP SR award.

Jeff Lippincott

RUSA #11633

PS. As I get older (I'm age 63 currently) I am thinking more and more about getting myself a Honda Monkey motorcycle to check out 300k routes I still can ride on my bicycles. But for how much longer will I be able to go the distance under manual power?

[Phillip Stern]

This is an interesting discussion on what motivates randonneurs and how to attract new riders to our sport. 

At 64, I’m not planning to ride more of the long brevets. The ride itself hurts too much and it takes me too long to recover. I’m retiring (from work, not riding) next year and plan to complete lots of 200k perms and do brevets up to 300k or maybe 400k. 

I am not an award hunter but I do set goals and am pleased to achieve them. I have an SR, an R12, and have completed ten Fleche and five 600k. I wanted to ride PBP but think that goal may go unrealized. 

In my opinion, you don’t attract new randonneurs with awards and graduated distances like 100k, 125k, 150k. You attract riders to randonneuring by showing them the excluent routes that are used for our brevets and perms. 

I’m in a large cycling club near Boston. Only a handful of the Rippers ride with New England Randonneurs but the number is slowly increasing. One way to introduce people to randonneuring was to get them to join my Fleche team. 

I think an even better way to interest new randonneurs is to invite them to join me on a permanent, but the added effort of becoming a RUSA member and buying a perm permit is too high a barrier to entry for most people. 

Phillip Stern

#11135