Re: [RUSA] Digest for randonneurs-usa@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

[in...@cyclingforever.com]

I will be %100 against the idea of adding perms to 12000km RUSA Grand award. The entire idea was to encourage riders to participate on the domestic 1200km that they have ridden before and not to chase only new ones. It's a lot of work goes to organize one. I would extend the 1000km at most given some 1000km and 1200km offer at the same event. 

IMHO, generally speaking,  riding perms are NOT randonneuring. We have already too many awards allowing perms. 

My 2 cents,

Hamid Akbarian 

On 2026-08-18 10:14 AM, randonn...@googlegroups.com wrote:

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• Awards Changes for 2027 - 1 Update

Awards Changes for 2027

Dave Thompson <thomp...@gmail.com>: Aug 17 06:35PM -0700 We have some exciting changes to announce for RUSA awards in 2027!   *First, a new award!* A proposal was submitted for an award celebrating riders who have completed 10 domestic 1200ks. In evaluating this proposal we realized there was a dearth of awards acknowledging similarly difficult rides such as the 1000k, the 8k600, and the SR600. So we are excited to announce a to-be-named award for riders who have completed a combined 12,000 KMs of those rides domestically. Our working title is the RUSA Grand Tour, but we're open to suggestions before finalizing. For those curious about how it will work, it will be automatically awarded and excess KMs will carry over to the next award. It will be retroactive, counting a lifetime of RUSA riding history.   *Second, changes to the Rouleur.* Even though the routes themselves are much less challenging than Grand Tour events, we've seen that achieving this award can be very difficult. Only 1/3 of our regions have offered a full slate of the requisite events in the past three years, not to mention that it takes 5 rides to complete - more than the SR. A member can't miss any qualifiers, and all rides must be completed within the calendar year. To increase accessibility, we are allowing riders to use Permanents to satisfy the fixed-distance ride requirements, but only after Oct 1 in each calendar year. For the team event, we'll be developing a Permanent-based team event qualifier, again available from Oct 1 onwards. To keep riders connected to local regions at least one qualifying event must be region-calendared. Stay tuned for details! These changes to the Rouleur will take effect in 2027 and will not apply retroactively to prior years.   *The Ultra Fleche *award will be changed and renamed. Grand Team? Again we are open to suggestions. We felt that we should encourage attendance for more than the ACP Fleche so we are now including all RUSA team events: Arrow, Dart and Dart Pop. The award will be achieved by accumulating 3600 kms in team events. Of course, current Ultra Fleche awardees will automatically have accumulated 3600 kms and receive this award. Like the Grand Tour, it will be retroactive and kms will carry over to the next award. Foreign Fleche completions under ACP rules will count, up to 50% of the kms.   *Rationale - **Grand Tour*   This one is actually pretty easy. A 12,000 km accumulation sweeps in events that are similarly difficult despite little recognition from our domestic awards. - The SR600 lost a lot of incentive when it was dropped from the ACP R10000 award but these are beautiful routes and we'd like to encourage our members to tackle them. - The 8k600 is the replacement climbing part of the R10000 and is at least as difficult as the SR600. - The 1000k is required for ACP R5000 and R10000 and RUSA Cup but is another monster distance that could use some more recognition. - Counting kms and allowing carryover, vs simply counting number of rides allows for a mix and match and means that members don't have to worry about the order that they rack up their achievements. - Counting lifetime retro makes everything much easier. - Do we need this award? - Yes - Awards are all about recognition and personal achievement. This award recognizes those who are really testing themselves. Randonneuring is an endurance sport and the rides that this award recognizes are the pinnacle of endurance. - Help us - do you have a better name for this award?   *Rationale - Rouleur*   - The primary purpose of the Rouleur is to provide a goal for entry level and late career riders and bridge them to 200+ km distances. We want everyone who joins RUSA to have a goal that they can immediately pursue and a path for ramping up to traditional rando distances. - This is an award that we've made very difficult to achieve because of the calendar commitment. It's difficult for the wrong reasons. Miss / DNF one event and you're out of the running. Join / renew with RUSA too late in the year and you're out. Not a member of 1/3 of the regions that offer the rides... tough luck. - Many RBAs don't have the bandwidth or number of local members, to run a complete Rouleur schedule. With the team ride included, it's more work than putting on a traditional SR series. We cannot ask the Regions to satisfy the demand for an award that the Board created any more than they already do. To satisfy the calendaring needs of its members, a Region would have to offer many of the events multiple times. - We decided to increase accessibility by including perms but don't want to offload the ridership from the regions who do participate so we have left perm accessibility to the Fall and the prospective Rouleur awardee must ride at least one calendared qualifying event. - Team rides are special and still included in the award but we are also adding a fallback, an application-based team permanent to substitute for the team event. All three prospective riders already have a team ride? Not applicable. Your region has a team event coming up in the same timeframe? Please reconsider. - Upon completion, the committee that approved the substitute team perm will validate the results according to the official team event rules for riders. - Do we need to do this? Yes. The Rouleur has provided incentive ... and fun ... for many riders but hasn't really been available for most new members - our target audience. The numbers are striking - in 2025 we had 958 brand new members of which 7 earned a Rouleur. 2022 through 2024 there were 2,1 and 6. How do we entice more cyclists to join our sport? By providing some early goals for them to achieve. How do we keep long-time members riding more than a couple of 100k's? Give them a goal and that 200k might become their stretch goal. Advertise the award! We want the Rouleur to work for us; it's a great concept but unavailable to the bulk of our regions - What about Rouleur weeks? These typically have a different audience. Most new members won't block off a week's vacation, travel and stay at a hotel and ride 700 km within a week. Rouleur weeks are a rando-fest and have their own audience.   *Rationale - Grand Team*   - We want to encourage participation in all RUSA team events - Arrow, Dart and Dart Populaire. The current award only recognizes the Fleche. - Ultra Fleche was really a misnomer as all of our Ultra awards are for accumulating 10 of an award. The Fleche is an event, not an award, so we want to correct that as we change the award. - Help us - do you have a better name than our working "Grand Team" name?

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

What Hamid says rings true with me. The existing "Coast-to-Coast 1200km" award encourages riders to enter grand brevets that they have not completed previously.  And the same goes for the "Rando Scout" award.  It too encourages riders to enter brevets and populaires that they have not completed previously. Grand brevets are a tremendous burden on whoever organizes them. Organizing them is probably just half the battle. Route creation is a huge element that most people seem to take for granted. And there are not many RUSA regions that can support the creation of more than two or three unique routes. Some cannot even support one. Unless someone is fixated on riding all the grand brevets offered in a calendar year, then it is more than likely the riders will choose grand brevets they have not successfully completed. And guys like Hamid who likes to offer grand brevets regularly but cannot create a new course every time (nor should he have to do so) gets burned with a poor turnout for several of his offerings. When thinking up awards RUSA should not only think about how they might attract new members or keep existing ones, but also how NOT to discourage its RBA's from going the extra mile. Were the RBA's included in the approval process of the new award Hamid is talking about? Seems like they should have been. When the Roleur award was dreamed up were the RBA's included in the approval process of that award? I recently read in this Google groups that only a third of the RBA's support that award. Something does not seem correct here. My 2-cents.

[Geoff Hazel]

If it wasn’t for perm awards I wouldn’t have anything these days. 

As I’ve aged I’ve gotten much slower than I used to be and last time I rode a scheduled 200k I finished nearly an hour later than most riders and within 15 minutes of closing. 

With perms I can still chase P-12 and American Explorer awards. 

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[Noah Swartz]

Sorry Hamid, I'm confused by your feedback

Permanents do not count fire the new grand tour award, not were they ever proposed to. This award is discussions meant to incentivize people to show up to scheduled long brevets.

Also as Geoff points out, there are more opinions at play here than just those of the RBAs.

And Jeff, I'm also not sure what you mean, but if you would like to submit an application to remove the Rouleur award the board will be happy to review it.

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[Noah Swartz]

I'm going to go a step further and share some more thoughts. The board will take some time to respond to some of the specific points brought up here, but I just want to share my personal perspective.

I understand that RBAs are, reasonably, concerned about attendance for their events. But I think viewing awards as the only motivator for attendance is misguided. I would proffer that we can (and should!)  consider a multitude of ways in which we can entice riders to show up for events. Cool routes! New areas! Camaraderie! Good volunteer support!

The world of cycling is big, and Randonneuring is not the only game in town. Awards that allow riders to stay connected to Randonneuring when there isn't a calendared event mean that a rider may choose to stay involved with RUSA and their local club rather than turning their attention to one of the many other organized cycling events out there - gravel races, grand fondos, double centuries, bike touring, etc. Not that they can't or shouldn't also do those things, but having the option to ride those roads while still working on a RUSA award keeps riders in the fold, especially in regions that don't offer many or many new events.

I know for me this has been very true. Working on my K-Hounds kept me involved in RUSA and motivated me to ride perms weekly and sign up for every calendared SFR ride. Not only that but it led me to track down the route creators of the permanents in my area and befriend other older, very accomplished, Randonneurs who had themselves stopped riding as many calendared events. I think this is a huge win! We should be about building community for our community organization - and perms can accomplish this as well!

So, as I said, the board will respond to some of the concerns raised in the prior emails, but I would just implore those who are responding to try to not look at it as perms vs RBAs but instead as Randonneuring vs not randonneuring and remember that awards are not the only things that bring riders to the start control.

Noah

[Joshua Haley]

For what it's worth, I think we actually have some good compromises in here:

- Regarding the 12,000km award.  The only perm I'm seeing in here is the SR600k, which has always been its own thing and not like a RUSA perm IMO.  The lack of all external assistance and the climbing have put it into its own special difficulty!  I see this award not as an alternative for an Ultra-1200k (which IMO, I think should exist!, I like counting to 10!🤣), but as something more akin to the RUSA cup incentivizing the sum of all "Harder" brevets. Where Harder in this context means >600k, or especially difficult.  I dig the concept, but we probably need to market that better. 

- For the Rouleur.  There has been pushback between what a region can offer (and I'm not getting voluntold to run events ever; that's called a job, and I'm too expensive for RUSA to afford), and riders who want to pursue the rouleur when their local regions don't offer the rides.  No one is wrong on that front.  It's easy to forget that some regions are small and have a sparse menu, and some have everything under the sun a few times over with everything inbetween.   I think time-gating it is a good middle ground: it gives riders an additional opportunity I can't support, without obliterating attendance at my summer ride series.  I will admit, I do have the weather advantage: riders pushing for the patch after October in my neck of the woods will face a much harder and miserable journey than the summer events I host. 

My 2cents

Josh Haley

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[Dan Driscoll]

Noah, my friend……

Hamid is correct. All SR600’s are indeed Permanents, and have been added into his original proposal. 

Hamid’s point is that distances half or less that of a Grand Randonnee’, nor Permanents should be clumped into a single Award, with Grand Randonnee’s. 

It’s not surprising that with the recent changes to the Rouleur Award, some RBA’s are a bit unhappy with Permanents taking riders away from their events. 

Noah, Thanks A Million for serving out the first year of your 3 year term, and best of luck to you on your future endeavors. Also thank you for volunteering for the RUSA Awards Review Committee. 

Kudos to the RUSA Board for allowing RUSA’s membership to pick your replacement, which has not been the case in the past when the RUSA Board has picked replacements for early retiring Board members. 

DanD 

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[in...@cyclingforever.com]

Dan, you are the greatest champion for awards. I just don't understand why and what happened that you are not part of award committee. I stuck between you and Dave but at this point, it's irrelevant but I am hoping that you go back to the award committee 😀.

Also,  I am not against perms, all I am saying is that one size fits all approch to an award may not work. 

I submitted the 10 1200km award idea but somehow my idea was basterdized with something totally different.

SR600 is NOT a BRM, nor LRM, nor RUSA event so Noah, please educate me what it is 😀?

Again, I don't have anything against perms and folks can ride them all day long but ACP does not recognize perms nor anything less than 200km. 

If "R" in RUSA stands for Randonneuring then perms is not but I don't have any issues for us to have it.

I am RBA of two regions and two regions unofficially,  this Year,  I offered 3 SR series  brevet week,  3 1000km, 3 1200km and many others and I work full-time and ride several 1200km. I am just lucky to have a wonderful wife  :-) and great support from local riders. 

Thanks to Rob Hawks smart move that RBAs can schedule more ACP events outside of the schedule window. 

My point is that I am all about giving riders more options but I also would like to stay within BRM, and LRM events if that makes sense.

If we are trying to change the RUSA to cover all types of rides and events then Board needs to be clear. 

Keep Riding and keep Smiling 😃, 

Hamid Akbarian 

On 2026-08-24 09:41 AM, Dan Driscoll wrote:

Noah, my friend......

[Dan Driscoll]

Thank You, Josh, my friend,

I’m with you….. absolutely love the RUSA Cup, it requires each Awardee to ride one of every distance domesticly from a 100km up to a 1,200km, and includes a Team Event. This Award works well in that RUSA members that might not ever consider doing a 1,000km or a Team Event are lured into those typically less participated events, to earn the Award. A win win for RUSA and its members. 

This is not the case with the new Grand Tour, in which, no particular event is required, just a total of K’s. A rider just does his/her favorite distance, likely leaving out the experience of the other distances or the hillier rides. 

If one of the Goals of this Award is to get more RUSA members to try a SR 600 or a 8K 600kms, it has missed that mark completely, by allowing those rides to optional. 

RUSA’s members have a huge investment in 8K 600kms and SR 600kms, it would be nice if there was a distinct Award that actually incentivize members to try them out as a requirement to earn an Award. 

I understand that all this typing will change nothing. Time will tell, if the major effort to onboard the Award will pay back in terms of ridership. I’ll be keeping track and reporting back at the end of 2027, with the results, but it’s my bet that these new Award types will not accomplish the intended purpose, in any significant way, by raising ridership for 1,200kms (same one more than once), and hilly 600kms.  

The biggest issue I see is that with these new Awards in place, they will act as a road block, to any Award ideas that might actually get more riders to participate in the rides intended to benefit. 

Take good care, 

DanD 

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