Impending P-12 crisis
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Charlie Martin
Jan 2, 2020, 7:02:21 PM1/2/20
to SF Randonneurs
With perms suspended indefinitely, there's a question mark hovering above NorCal P-12 aspirants. The only method going forward for securing populaire credit that's been communicated with confidence is completing calendared populaires (including team events when applicable). Traditionally these have been offered infrequently compared to 200k+ brevets, and there's a dearth of opportunities beginning on the ides of March [1].
What would be helpful for keeping these events going? Routes, hosts, processes, insurance contributions…? I'm up for some problem solving but I don't want to add to the noise if there's folks who are already working on this. I can imagine some solutions may require some lead time to implement [2], so I wanted to kick off the discussion.
[2] E.g. as one idea: create some new routes localized near people who may be able to host them.
Bonne populaire,
Charlie
Metin Uz
Jan 2, 2020, 7:19:50 PM1/2/20
to San Francisco Randonneurs
Here's my unpopular opinion: a populaire is not really a randonneuring event, but is meant as an introduction to the sport. Therefore, there is really no reason for a P-12 award.
--Metin
Bill Bryant
Jan 2, 2020, 7:45:58 PM1/2/20
to charlie....@gmail.com, SF Randonneurs
I don't think there will be a P-12 crisis, Charlie. It will certainly be more inconvenient due to the lack of permanents, but I suspect you'll see the various Nor-Cal rando clubs putting on more populaires this year. For example, SFR has one coming up soon, DBC will have a mixed-terrain 100k in early February, and Santa Cruz is offering a 100k in mid-January, a 130k in early February, and a repeat of the 130k in mid-March. Unlike the ACP brevets which need to be calendared in September of the year before they are run, RUSA populaires and brevets only need a a week or so to get onto the RUSA calendar. So, don't give up on the P-12. Watch the various rando-chat lists for calendar updates and additions. I think as we all adapt to "a world without permanents," you'll see more populaires sprout up. Yes, some will be on the same day as a 200k or longer brevet, but with some strategic calendar management, a rider could reasonably expect to earn both the P-12 and R-12 in the same year. Overall, I think we are luck to have so many randonneuring rides on offer around our area; other parts of the country may not be so fortunate.
Bonne route!
Bill Bryant
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Rob Hawks
Jan 2, 2020, 7:54:39 PM1/2/20
to Bill Bryant, Charlie Martin, SF Randonneurs
Plus, for SFR, if scheduling is an issue, there is always the option of volunteering for the populaire and riding a worker's ride (RBA approval needed) in the two weeks before the main event.
rob
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Metin Uz
Jan 2, 2020, 8:50:41 PM1/2/20
to San Francisco Randonneurs
Can one ride (and get credit for) an ACP brevet on the same day that the RUSA populaire is scheduled? For example, ride the populaire workers ride, then volunteer at the start control and ride the 200k that is concurrent? Asking for a friend...
--Metin
On Thursday, January 2, 2020 at 4:54:39 PM UTC-8, rob hawks wrote:
Plus, for SFR, if scheduling is an issue, there is always the option of volunteering for the populaire and riding a worker's ride (RBA approval needed) in the two weeks before the main event.rob
On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 4:45 PM Bill Bryant <bill.b...@gmail.com> wrote:
I don't think there will be a P-12 crisis, Charlie. It will certainly be more inconvenient due to the lack of permanents, but I suspect you'll see the various Nor-Cal rando clubs putting on more populaires this year. For example, SFR has one coming up soon, DBC will have a mixed-terrain 100k in early February, and Santa Cruz is offering a 100k in mid-January, a 130k in early February, and a repeat of the 130k in mid-March. Unlike the ACP brevets which need to be calendared in September of the year before they are run, RUSA populaires and brevets only need a a week or so to get onto the RUSA calendar. So, don't give up on the P-12. Watch the various rando-chat lists for calendar updates and additions. I think as we all adapt to "a world without permanents," you'll see more populaires sprout up. Yes, some will be on the same day as a 200k or longer brevet, but with some strategic calendar management, a rider could reasonably expect to earn both the P-12 and R-12 in the same year. Overall, I think we are luck to have so many randonneuring rides on offer around our area; other parts of the country may not be so fortunate.Bonne route!Bill Bryant
On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 4:02 PM Charlie Martin <charlie...@gmail.com> wrote:
--With perms suspended indefinitely, there's a question mark hovering above NorCal P-12 aspirants. The only method going forward for securing populaire credit that's been communicated with confidence is completing calendared populaires (including team events when applicable). Traditionally these have been offered infrequently compared to 200k+ brevets, and there's a dearth of opportunities beginning on the ides of March [1].What would be helpful for keeping these events going? Routes, hosts, processes, insurance contributions…? I'm up for some problem solving but I don't want to add to the noise if there's folks who are already working on this. I can imagine some solutions may require some lead time to implement [2], so I wanted to kick off the discussion.[2] E.g. as one idea: create some new routes localized near people who may be able to host them.Bonne populaire,Charlie
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Charlie Martin
Jan 6, 2020, 1:58:08 PM1/6/20
to Metin Uz, San Francisco Randonneurs
Here's my unpopular opinion: a populaire is not really a randonneuring event, but is meant as an introduction to the sport. Therefore, there is really no reason for a P-12 award.
IMO PBP is the only "randonneuring event" and everything else just serves to get people to PBP. ;) Jesting aside, the opinion seems better directed to the RUSA awards committee and board, which presumably saw enough value in the P-12 award to propose and approve it. The reality is, the P-12 and its Ultra-P-12 counterpart exist and some of us find it a compelling enough goal to aim for. If it keeps people coming back to their bike and engaging with RUSA, then I see that as a win.
Awards help keep people engaged with their local regions, with RUSA, and with the global randonneuring body. People can have a richer randonneuring experience in the process of chasing awards. Awards encourage people to do types rides they otherwise wouldn't, visit new regions, states, and countries, stretch their limits, have more amazing experiences, define tangible and motivating goals that keep them coming back to their bike. These aspects align with the goals of SFR and I think the region benefits by facilitating people chasing after awards if that's what motivates them.
Plus, for SFR, if scheduling is an issue, there is always the option of volunteering for the populaire and riding a worker's ride (RBA approval needed) in the two weeks before the main event.
Worker's rides are a great thing and I appreciate them being offered. I know they're a favor, not an obligation. With the exception of the Women's Populaire, odds are that if I were unable to make a particular ride, then I'd also be unable to volunteer for that ride and be eligible for the corresponding worker's ride. Or maybe there's other options, like being allowed to do the worker's ride for Event A if you volunteer for Event B? I don't know entirely how SFR does it. I know that when I tried to volunteer for the Women's Populaire last year, I got very little communication back about whether there would be a role for me to fill, and I was never invited to the worker's ride which happened without me. I am very hesitant to form P-12 plans around a worker's ride.
I'd like to emphasize that I'm not primarily asking for additional events that would pile additional work on top of SFR's administration and volunteers. This would miss the point. I recognize that there is significant overhead in hosting an event, and for this to scale, I don't think the additional events could be added and run in the same manner as they are today. I think an ideal solution may not come from approaching this with the traditional patterns. I think we would need to innovate on our processes and relieve some bottlenecks. DC Randonneurs is having success with their "petit events" concept that arose in response to the perms program shutting down. I'm trying to find solutions, not add to the problems. But I don't and can't know what the road blocks are without some communication, hence my original post. I have some ideas and could contribute in their implementation, but I don't feel I have a good handle on what constraints we're working with.
Does every new populaire need to have an accompanying picnic? Are we open to populaire routes that don't start/end in San Francisco? Could people make routes that start/end at their house and host them as calendared events? Can the bulk of the administrative work be sharded out to one-off event organizers? Are we willing to increase fees or cut any corners on the quality of the one-off events, if it's the difference between them existing or not? Would it be fair game to DNS any late arrivers for one-off events so that organizers or start volunteers could more easily make plans around participating in the one-off rides? Is there some minimal amount of support that's required to keep insurance happy? Should we consider morning/evening weekday populaires to avoid conflicts with the current published calendar? Can there be multiple worker's rides for an event if it'd help some volunteers with scheduling? (I'm also interested in a non-ironic response to Metin's question.) Is it worth looking into a short-term "South Bay Populaires" region that moves the problem 100% off of SFR until a long-term solution is in place?
With perms being gone indefinitely, rando regions are the only avenue for riding populaires. RUSA folks are working on solutions, but it's a difficult problem and for the past month they've not been able to make any guarantees that will let people plan out how their P-12's will/can fit in with the rest of their year. I'm still holding out hope but I don't want to put all my eggs in that basket. Until a resolution is reached, my impression is that riders should turn to their local clubs to keep their K-Hound/R-12/P-12 dreams alive. I have not seen much communication about this locally and I get the impression it doesn't register high on the list of problems SFR is trying to tackle. Still it seemed prudent to start by asking my local region. I hope that we can find a solution that adds minimal burden to the current rando regions. If it's not going to be feasible to find a solution that doesn't overwhelm the local regions, then I'd like to shift the focus to how we might empower members to still pursue their goals (new temporary region, etc).
If one were to take a peek at my tentative 2020 calendar it might shed some light on why I'm trying to actively solve this rather than wait and see what pops up. There's at least 4 months with no Bay Area populaire opportunity on the calendar. When a short notice opportunity does come up, there's a good chance it's going to fall on top of a 1200k, SR600, or other ride that I've been making plans around and may have already invested resources in registration, reservations, insurance costs, and other logistics. Some of the populaires currently fall on dates that I'd ideally be reserving for SR600's or 1200k's (e.g. there's a conflict with the NY-Montreal-NY in August). It's reasonable that I might have to make some sacrifices if P-12 is something I care about, but at the moment there's no way to tell what that would be and no way to finalize my plans for the year. It'd be pretty silly to shift my year around early on to make P-12 work, only to find that nothing will pan out in say, September.
Thanks,
Charlie
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Rob Hawks
Jan 7, 2020, 11:00:24 AM1/7/20
to Charlie Martin, Metin Uz, San Francisco Randonneurs
Regarding populaires being offered by NorCal regions, given that those events do not need to get on the ACP calendar, they can and in fact are added to the RUSA calendar frequently and through the year, not just in September. In fact, between your first and most recent post a number of populaire events have been added:
There are 16 populaire length events now on the calendar for NorCal (Humboldt, SLO and Santa Rosa currently do not have any listed. Of course, many may not consider traveling from the Bay Area several hundred miles to do a populaire length event, but maybe I'm wrong about that.) See the chart further below.
Historically, NorCal regions have hosted the following number of Populaire length (100-199km) events in the past:
Davis: 26 (maybe 25. A 2016 event has no finishers listed but is not listed as cancelled. Give them the credit if they hosted it but no one showed).
SLO: 4 (region was dormant for a while but now has an active RBA)
Santa Rosa: 3 (including one of the first in the area)
Santa Cruz: 9 (many more coming this year!) (2 of the 9 were actually RUSA Dart events where the minimum distance allowed back then was 180km and not the 200km that is the current minimum. Pretty sure most teams went for the 200km distance then so maybe these two should be omitted?)
Humboldt: 0 (This is a relatively new region, so give them a break here)
Fresno (now dormant): 2
San Francisco: 42
As far as when regions first hosted a populaire length event:
SFR: 2005
Santa Rosa: 2006
Santa Cruz: 2008
Davis: 2012
SLO: 2017
2020 calendared Populaire length events so far:
rob
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Bill Bryant
Jan 7, 2020, 11:49:45 AM1/7/20
to Rob Hawks, Charlie Martin, Metin Uz, San Francisco Randonneurs
Thanks, Rob, that's a nice overview of current 2020 offerings, and the historical perspective was interesting too.
As you mentioned, unlike ACP brevets, RUSA brevets and populaires can be added at any time and the calendar will have additions. Santa Cruz will likely host a monthly populaire through the end of the year, some with a Los Gatos start/finish (the Foothill 112k route) and Santa Cruz (the Pescadero 100k route). Hopefully that will assuage some of the worry about the permanents program suspension by folks trying to earn their P-12.
Cheers,
Bill Bryant
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Stacy Kline
Jan 8, 2020, 2:02:40 AM1/8/20
to San Francisco Randonneurs
Wow, Charlie, great summary of the angst many are feeling regarding their ongoing chase of randonneuring's most coveted RUSA awards!
I know that over the past nine years I have met so many amazing randonneurs who have inspired me to attempt these awards as well. Indeed, I had no idea that Greg and I would be able to sustain our cycling long enough to work for almost every award RUSA has to offer with 2019 completing our Ultra Super Randonneur, Mondial, K-Hound awards, and our 2nd PBP earning Greg a place in the Charlie Miller Society and me a place in the Adrian Hands Society...woohoo!
I am so very proud of not only Charlie's amazing 2019 K-Hound with a stunning 26,000+ kilometers of RUSA events, but his recent blistering 36 hour Super 600K! I am so proud to know Deb Banks, the first American woman to complete a Super 600K and to have the next American Super 600K woman cyclist Kerin Huber as our RBA, both of whom are two of the only four American women to earn the incredible ACP Randonneur 10000 award with Calista Phillips and Kitty Goursolle; and don't get me started about Lois Springsteen's feats! I am so proud of our dear friends John Guzik for his successful 1000K & K-Hound achievements and Kimber Guzik for her successful 600K. I am so proud to have ridden with Linda Bott who was 9th at the halfway mark on the Gold Rush 1200K (with 100+ Double Centuries)! This year our friend Lori Arita completed her first 600K, and both she and her amazing husband Jeff Arita finished their first PBP! I am excited for our constant cycling companion Terry Hutt as he attempts his 2nd 1200K, this year with his amazing daughter Amber! I am so proud of everyone I have met randonneuring and their accomplishments big or small, and I wish I could list them all here.
Thank you Rob, Bill & Lois, Deb, Ryan, Eric, Vickie, Kerin and David in California, and all of our RBAs and board members nationwide for working so hard to keep our awards going, with whatever form the next iteration of the RUSA Permanents program looks like!
I love that our RUSA awards system helps us push ourselves further than we ever thought possible on a bike as we happily strive for "one more award", especially when the rest of the world thinks we are crazy to ride so far! :)
Most affectionately,
Stacy Kline
Charlie Martin
Jan 8, 2020, 5:22:43 PM1/8/20
to Stacy Kline, San Francisco Randonneurs
I've compiled some stats for the period 2019/01/01 through 2019/12/02 (the period where perms were active) that are intriguing. Rob, I'm happy to share my raw data with you if you want to check my methodology. I'm sure there's a bit of fuzz depending how you collect the data, but I don't expect significant deviations.
Permanents:
- Total hosted: 5,285 (perm pops: 3,562)
- Total finishers: 7,650 (perm pops: 4,950)
- Credited RUSA distance: 1,108,598 (perm pops: 531,982)
- # hosted on weekend: 2,878 (perm pops: 1,762)
- # hosted on weekday: 2,407 (perm pops: 1,800)
Calendared events (excluding cancelled ones):
- Total events: 846 (calendared pops: 129)
- Total finishers: 7,860 (calendared pops: 1,029)
- Credited RUSA distance: 2,292,310 (calendared pops: 111,014)
- # hosted on weekend: 768 (calendared pops: 122)
- # hosted on weekday: 78 (calendared pops: 7)
At a glance, the suspension of the permanents program is a devastating blow to RUSA ridership. While the perms program was active in 2019, a third of the total credited RUSA distance and 86% of the hosted rides were through the perms program. Half of the credited RUSA distance from perms was from perm pops. Permanents were responsible for 83% of the total RUSA populaire completions. 96.5% of all populaire rides were hosted through the perms program. Perm pops were actually quite popular on weekdays, with 1,800 weekday perm pops hosted. Half of all perm pops were hosted on weekdays, and 99.6% of weekday populaire completions were through the perms program. There were 3,562 hosted perm pops compared to 846 total calendared events.
For populaire distances, the permanents program was wildly successful. For me, one enormous benefit was that it allowed me to participate in the full brevet calendar while getting in my P-12 requirements on weekdays when the published calendar was relatively quiet. It seems I'm far from alone in finding weekdays convenient for populaires. For 2020, the things I'd most likely be dropping to achieve P-12 (and continue the series for Ultra-P-12) are the Fresno/Davis 300k in March (would shift around my 3/14 SR600 and put me on the wire for SR-12), the Laguna Lake 200k in April (plus doing a 300k instead of a 400k the day before), the Antelope Lake 600k in May, nothing in June (assuming SFR has a dart pop option; otherwise I'd drop the SFR dart), tentatively screwed in July, NY-Montreal-NT 1200k in August, tentatively screwed in September, all good in October (assuming Davis has a dart pop option; otherwise tentatively screwed), Mt Hamilton 200k in November. There's a demonstrable need for weekday pops that rando regions have historically not fulfilled. Given the history of when populaire events pop up on the RUSA calendar, it's another reason I'd like to actively address this concern rather than waiting to see what pops up.
For the time being, RUSA members no longer have individual agency to ride rando rides of their desired distance, route, date, and time. The keys are entirely in the hands of a handful of region administrators who are able to calendar rides and submit results. That's a heavy burden to throw on top of regions, and it would be absurd to ask RUSA regions to calendar 5,000+ more events to fill in the void left behind by the perms program suspension. I hope that we can still explore a middle ground that keeps administrative overhead manageable while meeting riders' needs.
Thanks,
Charlie
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Massimiliano Poletto
Jan 8, 2020, 5:31:06 PM1/8/20
to Charlie Martin, Stacy Kline, San Francisco Randonneurs
At risk of controversy, I will remind everyone that it's still possible (and enjoyable) to ride a bike without a piece of card stock wilting in your jersey pocket. :-p
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Mike Sturgill
Jan 8, 2020, 5:41:31 PM1/8/20
to charlie....@gmail.com, Stacy Kline, San Francisco Randonneurs
Charlie said: "For the time being, RUSA members no longer have
individual agency to ride rando rides of their desired distance,
route, date, and time."
Not exactly true. Anyone can still ride any of the routes, at any time, with whomever they choose - member or not (a new benefit!). Ordering a trinket for the ride is now on hiatus.
Not exactly true. Anyone can still ride any of the routes, at any time, with whomever they choose - member or not (a new benefit!). Ordering a trinket for the ride is now on hiatus.
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Charlie Martin
Jan 8, 2020, 6:00:13 PM1/8/20
to Mike Sturgill, Stacy Kline, San Francisco Randonneurs
…and given the choice, there were at least 7,650 decisions to do such rides for RUSA credit last year.
I'm glad people are having fun, but it feels dismissive. I get that not everybody cares about this. If you don't have any stake in the problem, then I'm not asking you to contribute to the solution. I'd respectfully ask that you please don't derail an attempt at improving the status quo for the people who do feel there's a problem.
I'm glad people are having fun, but it feels dismissive. I get that not everybody cares about this. If you don't have any stake in the problem, then I'm not asking you to contribute to the solution. I'd respectfully ask that you please don't derail an attempt at improving the status quo for the people who do feel there's a problem.
- Charlie
Robert Cauthorn
Jan 8, 2020, 6:02:20 PM1/8/20
to San Francisco Randonneurs
I agree, Max.
I usually ride routes of my own making -- or routes that we use on brevets -- but I have often ridden a perm route that I thought was exciting because the owner put together a really clever plan but without registering with the owner or doing it for RUSA credit (I do ping the route owner AFTER I ride it to express my satisfaction and gratitude for the work they put into it for all of us. I do it after so there is no risk of liability concerns.
Charlie, I found the data you compiled absolutely fascinating and I thank you for it. I'm unconvinced that losing the perm program will impact RUSA growth because I'm not convinced there is a strong correlation between the perm program (or even populaires) and RUSA's growth. Ultra distance riding has been gaining steam for a long while now as people want a physical test but with a sense of camaraderie rather than competition.
I'm an oddball in this respect: while I love RUSA, I have almost zero interest in RUSA awards and RUSA credit for rides. I do collect medals but for a personal reason: I do it for the grandkids I hope to have someday. But I completely -- and I mean completely -- understand why a great many people would find the different awards inspiring and exciting goals. I hope we can all resolve this challenge so that people can get back to these adventures.
A question for the RUSA leaders on the list. Would it be possible to transition the perm program into a "ride your own adventure" program that accepts electronic proof of passage AFTER the rider has done their ride of their own choosing (and thus bearing their own liability) at 200k,300K,400k,600k? People could submit RWGPS files and/or Strava files and photos of the route to demonstrate they rode X distance with the allowable time?
Under a model like that, RUSA becomes an authorized record keeper of epic rides (with associated honors upon completion for the riders) but it doesn't stipulate the route and thus avoids liability. A modification of the perm program like this could also allow an interesting *entry* point for new randonneurs: you could have lower distance awards (say a 50k a month for a year, etc) that might seem more achievable to people who are building up their distances. Next thing you know they'll do their first 200K and then, well as we all know, that's when the real trouble starts, ha!
And Charlie -- that total for the year... wow! You'll be amused by this: about September I told my wife about you and said, You know I think he might hit between 27,000 and 30,000 kilometers this year. And you did! Well done, buddy!
Bob
Metin Uz
Jan 8, 2020, 6:30:10 PM1/8/20
to San Francisco Randonneurs
I'm glad people are having fun, but it feels dismissive. I get that not everybody cares about this. If you don't have any stake in the problem, then I'm not asking you to contribute to the solution. I'd respectfully ask that you please don't derail an attempt at improving the status quo for the people who do feel there's a problem.
I have to disagree. I am not crying at the loss of the Permanents program. I am actually hopeful that something good can come out of it.
I have seen in other contexts how an emphasis on measured goals can have a detrimental effect on the overall health of an activity. You create strata that people aspire to, and as more people reach them, you have to create new, higher ones. After a while, all this turns into a rat race. Randonneuring, which can be translated as "wandering", becomes a goal oriented activity chasing numbers instead of experiences. If I were on the RUSA board, I would question what higher goal is being served by awarding points to a rider who rides the same route 40 times in a year.
I would like to conclude by quoting a good non-randonneuring friend, when explained that you need to keep control receipts in order to get credit, asked "what is credit?"
--Metin
Eric Norris
Jan 8, 2020, 6:49:02 PM1/8/20
to max.p...@gmail.com, Charlie Martin, Stacy Kline, San Francisco Randonneurs
Entirely consistent with my motto for 2020: #focusonfun
--Eric N
On Jan 8, 2020, at 2:31 PM, Massimiliano Poletto <max.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Rob Hawks
Jan 8, 2020, 7:02:20 PM1/8/20
to Charlie Martin, San Francisco Randonneurs
I have zero reason to doubt your methodology at all. However, the questions I'd like to ask (and you likely won't have access to the data to answer them) is how many of those perm populaires were ridden alone?; what was the average turn out for perm pop rides and what was it for scheduled brevet populaires?; how does RUSA, the RUSA community and randonneuring in general benefit by solo rides? I think some of your data hints at a comparison in that it took 5285 hosted perms to equal roughly half the credited distance that scheduled populaires got with 16% of the hosted events.
I agree it would be absurd to expect RUSA regions to host close to 5000 more events. One question I would ask is why is a region hosting what amounts to a permanent (for one or two riders) but calling it a brevet ok insurance wise? Could there be negative repercussions for RUSA if something went amiss on one of those type of 'brevets'?
rob
Rob Hawks
Jan 8, 2020, 7:19:47 PM1/8/20
to Charlie Martin, Mike Sturgill, San Francisco Randonneurs
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 3:00 PM Charlie Martin <charlie....@gmail.com> wrote:
…and given the choice, there were at least 7,650 decisions to do such rides for RUSA credit last year.
I'm not trying to be adversarial here, but do you have access to data that would let us know how many decisions were made to do a ride that in all other regards met the criteria for a RUSA perm pop (100km completed in X amount of time, ...)?
In those 7650 decisions you mention, how many of them would not have been done if not for RUSA 'credit'? How many of them would have been done anyway *in spite of* RUSA credit?
While RUSA regions attempt to fill a gap for some of the RUSA membership on this count, how about we do a year long experiment. At the end of 2020 we look back and measure how much fun we had and compare it to any other year, and see how it compares?
All this aside, for the fraction of SFR membership that is on this email list, and reads this thread, SFR will very likely be adding popualire length brevets to the 2020 calendar using new routes as the year progresses. They will likely be half the reg fee, start and end at places that will relieve SFR volunteers of the task of serving post ride food and drink, but still have some level of support well above what permanents usually offer. As with all other brevets we run, we will try not to compete with other nearby regions.
While I don't view the loss of perm pops as worthy of using the word crisis, I think in the end Charlie raises a good topic and has clearly put some thought behind his questions and comments.
rob
Charlie Martin
Jan 9, 2020, 3:54:24 PM1/9/20
to Rob Hawks, Mike Sturgill, San Francisco Randonneurs
Can one ride (and get credit for) an ACP brevet on the same day that the RUSA populaire is scheduled? For example, ride the populaire workers ride, then volunteer at the start control and ride the 200k that is concurrent? Asking for a friend...
I thought I remembered reading something about this in the past, but I was having trouble digging it up. I finally found it. Source: https://rusa.org/Download/RBAProcedures.pdf
Pre-riders are allowed to ride and receive credit for Permanents ridden on the date(s) of the pre-ridden event. However, notify your pre-riders that riders are not allowed credit for events whose scheduled date and time conflicts with the scheduled date and time of another event. (“Events” includes all events on the RUSA calendar, and so does not include Permanents.) For example, someone who pre-rides your June 10th 600k is not allowed to ride some other brevet scheduled for June 10th and get credit for both.
So back to the original scenario, for which I understand this to be an example:
Calendared event: 2020/02/01, 8am, 100k: Metin's Popular Populaire
Calendared event: 2020/02/01, 8am, 200k: Metin's Merry Mixed-Terrain Meander
Then on 2020/02/01:
- 01:00-06:00 - Complete a worker's ride of Metin's Popular Populaire.
- 06:00-08:00 - Volunteer at the start control for Metin's Popular Populaire.
- 08:00-18:00 - Complete the normally scheduled Metin's Merry Mixed-Terrain Meander.
It sounds like no, the current RBA procedures prohibit this. And actually it's unrelated to riding Metin's Popular Populaire the same morning as Metin's Merry Mixed-Terrain Meander. If the worker's ride happened a week in advance, the procedures would still prohibit riding Metin's Merry Mixed-Terrain Meander. If I had to guess, the intent was that worker's rides are for workers, and if you're out riding a different calendared event on the day the event is held, then how could you be working for the original event you are presumably working for. (A few answers: start control volunteer; or finish control volunteer whenever you complete the event.) Maybe there's other reasons, I'm just speculating. I would be interested to hear from the RUSA board, but relaxing these restrictions seems like it might attract marginally more volunteering.
(Rob, I do have some more data I can share. Don't have time to compile it at the moment, will come back to this thread later. Thanks for your response.)
- Charlie
Metin Uz
Jan 9, 2020, 4:34:10 PM1/9/20
to San Francisco Randonneurs
Charlie,
When I asked the restriction about workers rides, I was told it had to do with ACP homologation, where the computer will reject two rides from the same rider on the same date.
Since RUSA populaire results don't go to ACP, in theory this restriction does not necessarily apply. So it should be possible to do the populaire workers ride the week before, and then ride the 200k that is concurrent with the populaire after working at the start control.
The reason I asked the question is a lot less convoluted. Last year Davis 400 and Fort Bragg 600 were on the same weekend. Since I liked both events, I wanted to do the 600 workers ride the weekend before, then ride the 400 on Saturday, and volunteer for the 600 finish control on Sunday. I was told that ACP would not homologate, because the computer would flag this as an error (since clearly one can't ride a 400 and a 600 on the same date).
--Metin
Greg Merritt
Jan 9, 2020, 5:05:59 PM1/9/20
to San Francisco Randonneurs
A handful of rando[m] thoughts in response to this whole business:
A rug has been pulled out, even though not all of us had two feet fully planted on that particular RUSA/Rando rug. We should all recognize that a number of folks are getting "toppled" as a result of what's happened to that rug, even though some of us hardly noticed any disruption.
Regarding stats on people riding Perm activities solo...I don't seem to remember being promised companionship on any RUSA or ACP brevet, dig...?? I'm sure many of us have ridden solo, not seeing any other Randos, for five- or ten-hour blocks (or even much longer) on events with dozens and dozens of participants, yeah?
...and speaking of riding solo, as far as the Super 6 events go, I understand that they now require more than one person. Is that correct? But they don't have to ride together? And can one of the registrants DNF, while the other homologates? And can that DNF be one minute after the start? Or what if one of the two registered riders DNSes? (Rando was already a funny game...who woulda thunk it coulda gotten even funnier?)
See ya at the Populaire!
-Greg
Charlie Martin
Jan 13, 2020, 2:42:11 PM1/13/20
to Metin Uz, San Francisco Randonneurs
I crunched some more numbers. I wanted insight into what size of riders is more reflective of a permanent vs a calendared event. This is my attempt at capturing the spirit of one of Rob's questions. I included my methodology below and am open to crunching numbers differently if people have better ideas and if I have the data. I also have inline responses to some other specific questions at the end.
Methodology:
- It's a bit painful to incorporate DNS information. IMO it would be interesting to include and it would have a visible effect on these results. I don't think that DNS data is critical to get the big picture.
- I threw out events with 0 finishers since I think it adds noise to the rides that are actually happening (and again, it's a heuristic since per point [1] this doesn't incorporate DNS data), and anecdotally I question how consistently/diligently perm owners throughout RUSA submit results for 0-finisher perms, even if that's the correct process. Whereas for calendared events, the event entry hangs around begging to be submitted until an official processes it (e.g. by submitting results for 0 starters). For reference, there were 46 perms recorded with 0 finishers and 145 calendared events recorded with 0 finishers. Per the normalization in [3], this would correspond to 87 perms and 1714 calendared events had there been 10,000 instances of each instead of 5,285 perms and 846 calendared events.
- Since there were vastly more perms run than calendared events, I added normalized columns to reflect "What would the data look like if there were 10,000 perms and 10,000 calendared events?" Throwing out the instances with 0 finishers, I scaled the perms by a factor of 10,000/5,239 and the calendared events by 10,000/701.
- No perm had 13+ finishers, so I aggregated calendared events with 13+ finishers into a single pile.
- Time period corresponds to the same period in 2019 before the perms program suspension. This mostly discards any data we'd otherwise have for December, notably a non-ACP-season month. I think this data still paints the big picture.
My takeaways:
- At least in the context of RUSA as a whole, 1-2 riders "looks like" a permanent and 3+ riders "looks like" a calendared event.
- SFR runs really large events relative to other RUSA regions. Big shock, I know!
Some inline responses to questions earlier in the thread:
how many of those perm populaires were ridden alone?
Of the 3,537 perm pops that had at least one finisher, 2,598 of them had exactly one finisher.
what was the average turn out for perm pop rides and what was it for scheduled brevet populaires?
See analysis above.
how does RUSA, the RUSA community and randonneuring in general benefit by solo rides?
This could easily be the topic of a much longer essay than I've provided, and the answer will be heavily colored by what things the author values in RUSA and randonneuring. There's going to be a diverse Venn diagram of things that I value vs what other people value in the context of what solo rides can contribute to RUSA and randonneuring. My hope would be that SFR and other regions would promote the sport in ways that are inclusive of the diverse things that people value in RUSA and randonneuring.
I have a few thoughts about the question itself, and I'll also provide direct responses from my own perspective. As Greg puts it, "I don't seem to remember being promised companionship on any RUSA or ACP brevet." Actually I thought this ship had sailed in the 1920 holy wars between allure libre and audax (spoiler: ACP went with allure libre). Literally at the top of the page when you load rusa.org is: "Randonneuring is long-distance unsupported endurance cycling. This style of riding is non-competitive in nature, and self-sufficiency is paramount." While the amount of support and willingness to ride in groups I've seen during brevets is welcome, it's not core to how I see randonneuring. Clearly this is valued very highly by many people, but I would caution against universally saying "this is what randonneuring is." Camaraderie is also a core value listed in the rusa.org introduction, and I would suggest there is often plenty of room for that to play out opportunistically even during an allure libre event where people may well ride solo hours on end in practice.
I have already shared my thoughts on the merits of the RUSA awards program. To the extent that (1) there are not calendared opportunities for riders to fulfill some of these goals, or (2) other riders do not share the same goals, solo rides are there to fill the gap. Chasing after RUSA awards keeps riders interested participants in RUSA. It encourages consistency and dedication. And even if I personally am riding a solo populaire in pursuit of a P-12, I feel more connected to people in other parts of the country who are pursuing the same goal, and there is a bond there. Supportive communities form around awards, and I've enjoyed following along and sharing pats on the back in the K-Hounds Facebook group as several riders achieved an incredible milestone this year. Their excitement is contagious. I love seeing the group ride photos when people stop to celebrate someone's 10,000th km. Seeing people pursue their goals encourages me to follow suit. I wonder how many K-Hounds we'd have seen in 2019 if one were to exclude all the solo rides. I wonder how many K-Hounds there will be in 2020. I wonder if we can find ways to better support people aiming for K-Hound without a perms program.
Shout-out to my friends in Seattle who stepped up to make sure a calendared 1000k would materialize once I started asking if I should make plans around it. If I were the only registrant, they would still have made it happen and I would still have been overjoyed to ride it. Why did I care so much about that 1000k? I wanted it for a couple of awards I was aiming for. And what was the result? I got more fulfillment from RUSA, and I got to interact with a ton of amazing SIR folks. I even stuck around to participate in their dart pop the following week and had a great time hanging out with them. Lots of camaraderie there, and it would have been the same effect if I had ridden that 1000k solo. (Though I *also* had a blast riding with the handful of folks on the 1000k, and I've remained in close contact with a few of them.)
Most of the SR600's I've done have been solo. I've done my best to bring in other people for those and even jump in when I see another group forming. With more people those have been all the more enjoyable. When I can't find other people to join in, it's still a fulfilling experience. Even those solo rides can advance randonneuring. Sophie Matter reached out to me after receiving 2019 results from the US, and remarked: "In France, only 1 SR600 is open in the winter, but nobody took up such a challenge yet. I hope your example will inspire other riders." I would love to shift people's perception of SR600 events from once-in-a-lifetime/once-in-a-R10000 to something more approachable. This is a fantastic ride format and I see considerable opportunity for it to grow. For the time being I'm glad I'm still able to enjoy it when there aren't other people around who want to join in. By continuing to ride them solo I hope it at least gives the format more exposure, helps it to seem more accessible, and at least gets people thinking about whether maybe it's something they'd like to experience.
I have done many solo permanent populaires in 2019. Some people do not consider this "randonneuring". Okay. Many of these connected me to other rando regions (namely SFR and Davis), and absolutely made the difference in regularly getting me to come out to calendared brevets (read: RUSA community) in the absence of a car or early morning public transit availability. Being able to work toward a mondial and a galaxy as part of my commutes was a decisive factor in deciding to stick with randonneuring vs finding some other goals to pursue. Most of my other solo perm pops were on a climby route that I created that I knew I would have fun doing over and over and that I could carve out time before work to ride. I'd love if I had time to ride an even longer route before work, but unfortunately the combination of work and sleep prohibit that. This again was something that kept me engaged with RUSA and randonneuring. Without the option of RUSA credit, I've been replacing these solo rides with other goals that have nothing to do with RUSA. I imagine that the loss of solo rides would similarly chip away at other people's engagement with RUSA.
While RUSA regions attempt to fill a gap for some of the RUSA membership on this count, how about we do a year long experiment. At the end of 2020 we look back and measure how much fun we had and compare it to any other year, and see how it compares?
I can tell you before the end of 2020 that it'll be a more fulfilling year for me if I'm more free to chase after the awards that motivate me. :) I still welcome the end-of-year reflection you propose.
All this aside, for the fraction of SFR membership that is on this email list, and reads this thread, SFR will very likely be adding popualire length brevets to the 2020 calendar using new routes as the year progresses. They will likely be half the reg fee, start and end at places that will relieve SFR volunteers of the task of serving post ride food and drink, but still have some level of support well above what permanents usually offer.
Really great to hear this. Thank you very much! I'm happy to look into building new routes, gauging interest, looking into scheduling, as much or as little as you want. I hope that NorCal ends up with a useful offering of populaires for any P-12 seekers in the area.
When I asked the restriction about workers rides, I was told it had to do with ACP homologation, where the computer will reject two rides from the same rider on the same date.
Metin, that's quite interesting and rings true as a likely reason for the restriction. I sent a proposal to the Board on Friday asking if they're open to lifting the restriction when at least one of the events is sanctioned solely by RUSA. There's clear potential here for further incentivizing volunteering while giving riders additional avenues to pursue their goals in the absence of permanents. I'll provide an update if I hear back.
I've received a lot of (mostly) thoughtful feedback privately and in person. Kudos and thank you to the people who are following along.
Thanks,
Charlie
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