Fun with Award Data- RUSA Cup Edition

[Joshua Haley]

I just completed my 3rd RUSA cup, which warranted firing up Excel and having fun with some numbers. 

Since the award's inception in 2003, there have been 457 RUSA cups earned and applied for among 261 riders, so that breaks down to 42.8% of cup earners going on to earn at least a 2nd cup! That led me down the path of wanting to know what percentile my 3-cup earnings have put me into compared to those who've also earned one. 

Looking at the counts, we can see that a majority are 1-time cup earners, but the repeat offenders aren't uncommon.  

The interesting point is those greater than 10 who've earned an Ultra-RUSA cup, of which there are only 3 individuals.  That single datum at 20 RUSA cups is a Texas-shaped outlier whose identity I'll let you guess, who's earned a 2nd ultra. 

So my 3rd cup puts me among the top 27.6%  of RUSA cup earners in the 72.4th percentile. It will probably be 2028 before I will have a chance to work toward #4.  

Looking at cups earned/claimed per year, I see a pretty similar shape to my analysis on R12 and KHounds, with a peak around 2015/2016 reflective of RUSA's membership zenith. I'm going to guess the "every 2-year" peak pattern is an artifact of the cups not overlapping (only every 2 years if you're stretching it out) and the relative sparsity of the 1000k needed to earn the cup.  Interestingly, there is a bit of a pattern of the PBP year being down (maybe because only "Once a Year 1200k" folks like me are going to PBP, which doesn't count?)

Finally, 261 riders over 23 years is not a lot compared to the number of active riders who've signed up for and ridden with RUSA.  The cup is HARD to earn, requiring one of everything <=2 years, which requires a great deal of preparation, planning, luck (or an ungodly amount of schedule flexibility!) I've had at least one fall through due to schedule constraints on my part, making that last event hard to get.   

What does it all mean?  IDK, probably that I have too much time and am very bored while stuck in a meeting that should have been an email. 

The cup is an epic trinket, being the only one from RUSA that you can drink out of.  You do tend to get weird looks if you use it for morning coffee for a month, as I did at my office when I earned my first back in 2019. Congrats to anyone who's ever earned it. 

Josh

[Pam Wright]

Had to smile big and laugh a bit at “ The cup is HARD to earn, requiring one of everything <=2 years, which requires a great deal of preparation, planning, luck…” because yes, it is, and I also remember before the RUSA Cup was born… or maybe when it WAS born!

At Texas Stampede, THE Bill Olsen first told me of his personal goal to do one of everything EVERY year as we walked to our after-ride feast.   After I fell down laughing at how ridiculous that sounded (I rolled my eyes a lot in those early days), I think I challenged him to make it real…

Memories fade or vary amongst allllll these RUSA wackadoodles, but MY memory says Bill first recommended this award and was a bit deflated when the 2 yr time frame was approved :-)

Thanks to Bill, I heard some of my best stories and hadsome of my best laughs on the road and even though my sweetie may be the biggest wackadoodle, I know how lucky I was the ride with BOTH Olsen wacko’s, especially THE Bill :-)

Pam Wright

3205

Sent from Pam's phone

Please pardon misspellings and/or short responses. 

[James Logan]

Thanks for making me feel inferior to the Texans because I only have 1 RUSA cup 🙂

Hi Texans.  I love you guys.

Separately, I have a RUSA cup.  And RAAM qualified.  (The latter in Texas, of course.) That perhaps is a smaller group.

Jim Logan

Pittsburgh, PA 

RUSA #3730

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Sent: Monday, July 20, 2026 1:37 PM
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Subject: [RUSA] Fun with Award Data- RUSA Cup Edition

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

I never found earning the RUSA Cup all that challenging. I got one in the year I joined first RUSA. The real challenge I had was earning the R-12 in that calendar year by riding only calendar rides, all of which I rode with with THE Bill Olsen.

[Joshua Haley]

Just for you Dan,

I don't have gender data for RUSA members, so this is precision guesswork enabled by AI and spot checks, looking at just the likely ladies. 

RUSA Cups Per year:

Having done no analysis, the first thing I notice is that the fundamental shape looks the same as the all gender data.  I don't have a % breakdown of the number of female riders in 2016, but it would be interesting to see if that number was ~16.6%.  If it's around that, it's scaled with female membership percentage; if it's below that (which I have an inkling it is), the data is indicating what we already know: the ladies of RUSA are rarer, but on average friggin strong/dedicated. 

Repeat Earners:

I'm not drawing much from this other than that the shape once again is similar, just smaller in magnitude.  Most have a single cup, a few have a couple or several, and then we have 2 outliers marching towards the ultra.... I'm starting to think this request was a combination of bragging on Texas, and trying to incentivize those outliers to cross cup #10 🤔

Josh

On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 8:18 PM Dan Driscoll <dandri...@me.com> wrote:

Thanks for the laugh ;=) my friends….

Once RAAM Qualified it’s good for life, I like that, no one can take that away from you. 

I think the RUSA Cups are a lot easier than most think, it’s planning, one a year should be pretty doable. 

I’m running a 1,000km this fall and would love to have you both. 

We will run our 1,200km again next year April 15th. 

One year to close a RUSA cup, I pre-rode the 1,000km at Golden Falcon, then just hung around and rode the 1,200km on the event date. Most of the 1,000km was with you Josh. 

Josh, thanks for the post and the research to make it interesting. If the goal is to motivate others, I think you struck Gold. The only thing I’d like to see you add is statistics for just the females, they need incentive, too…… in my experience the gals are much more competitive, and just need a rabbit to chase. 

DD 

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[Dan Driscoll]

Thank you, my friend…,

Bagging on Texas, comes way behind bragging on our RUSA Ladies, and as you say, giving them incentive to go for it, is what we do….

Thank you for the call. 

See ya next time,

DanD 

On Jul 22, 2026, at 14:42, Joshua Haley <joshua...@gmail.com> wrote:



Just for you Dan,

I don't have gender data for RUSA members, so this is precision guesswork enabled by AI and spot checks, looking at just the likely ladies. 

RUSA Cups Per year:

<Screenshot 2026-07-22 at 3.26.33 PM.png>

Having done no analysis, the first thing I notice is that the fundamental shape looks the same as the all gender data.  I don't have a % breakdown of the number of female riders in 2016, but it would be interesting to see if that number was ~16.6%.  If it's around that, it's scaled with female membership percentage; if it's below that (which I have an inkling it is), the data is indicating what we already know: the ladies of RUSA are rarer, but on average friggin strong/dedicated. 

Repeat Earners:

<Screenshot 2026-07-20 at 4.16.14 PM.png>

The interesting point is those greater than 10 who've earned an Ultra-RUSA cup, of which there are only 3 individuals.  That single datum at 20 RUSA cups is a Texas-shaped outlier whose identity I'll let you guess, who's earned a 2nd ultra. 

<Screenshot 2026-07-20 at 4.20.14 PM.png>

So my 3rd cup puts me among the top 27.6%  of RUSA cup earners in the 72.4th percentile. It will probably be 2028 before I will have a chance to work toward #4.  

<Screenshot 2026-07-20 at 4.27.17 PM.png>

Looking at cups earned/claimed per year, I see a pretty similar shape to my analysis on R12 and KHounds, with a peak around 2015/2016 reflective of RUSA's membership zenith. I'm going to guess the "every 2-year" peak pattern is an artifact of the cups not overlapping (only every 2 years if you're stretching it out) and the relative sparsity of the 1000k needed to earn the cup.  Interestingly, there is a bit of a pattern of the PBP year being down (maybe because only "Once a Year 1200k" folks like me are going to PBP, which doesn't count?)