Events on hold for June; Stay tuned as Permanents will be coming back

Brevets and other events

Our hold on sanctioning events will extend at least through the end of June.

Most states are still experiencing community spread. Testing and tracing are not up to the standards promulgated by our national health organizations. Social distancing is still encouraged nationwide. While we can come up with ways to help keep our riders safe, running events can have an impact on communities whether that's through virus transmission or the risk of accidents. As a result, our Pandemic Response Committee has recommended that we extend the hold through the end of June.

The RUSA board has voted and accepted that recommendation.

From our website: Randonneuring is long-distance unsupported endurance cycling. This style of riding is non-competitive in nature, and self-sufficiency is paramount. When riders participate in randonneuring events, they are part of a long tradition that goes back to the beginning of the sport of cycling in France and Italy. Friendly camaraderie, not competition, is the hallmark of randonneuring.

As a riding community, we have shared goals and awards recognizing our achievements. It's the camaraderie that makes us a club. When we open, it should be nationwide. That doesn't mean that every RBA will be forced to run events but they should have the ability to do so, working with their local riders. Opening now, on a geographical piecemeal basis, with a heavy emphasis on solo riding, would be abandoning much of what makes up our sport.

Permanents and Insurance

We have some good news to share! Effective May 1, we have a new insurance program that includes permanents. However, it's not a simple matter of flipping a switch. We have work ahead of us - Deb Banks, John Lee Ellis and Crista Borras are working as a committee on the details of the revised program. We have major system changes to make and organizational work to do. Crista, John Lee and Deb will be reaching out to existing route owners to get the organizational work underway in parallel with our web team work.

A restart of permanents will be incorporated into the recommendations from our Pandemic Response Committee. More details on insurance and any required changes will be shared before we reopen any RUSA riding. Stay tuned!

July and Forward

By mid-June at the latest, we expect to provide an update for July. The Pandemic Committee has also started to think about the guidance and support that we might provide to RBAs and riders as we build our reopen plan.

Because there will be several months this year without RUSA sanctioned events, for any RUSA Cup effort in progress at the time events were put on hold, you will have three years to achieve the RUSA Cup rather than two.

For example, if your first qualifying event was on 1/1/2019, you now have through 12/31/2021 to complete. If your first qualifying event was on 2/1/2020, you now have through 1/31/2022 to complete.

Our hold on sanctioning events will extend at least through the end of May. 

Given where the country is now, on the leading edge of this pandemic, social distancing encouraged until at least the end of April and all but 8 states (as of this writing) with stay-at-home orders, and all 50 states in a disaster declaration, our Pandemic Response Committee has recommended that we extend the hold through the end of May. 

The RUSA board has voted and accepted that recommendation.

We understand that solo and small group riding is still occurring in some states where encouraged or permitted by law, but none of that will be for RUSA, ACP, LRM credit or covered by RUSA insurance, until we resume sanctioning events.

By mid May, we expect to provide guidance for June. 

Dave Thompson, for the RUSA Board.

April 14, 2020

Just a few days ago, on March 21, we told members that we weren't shutting down nationally but we said that could change any day. Since then, things have quickly gone downhill. The US confirmed cases have increased ten-fold and surpassed China. Our European and English speaking brethren worldwide have shut down, including Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. In much of Europe, not even solo riding is allowed other than utility cycling.

While not every state or county in the US has declared "stay at home" orders, we are heading that way. Testing has ramped up, giving us a better picture of community spread, but it's still incomplete. Too many are being monitored, test results unconfirmed.

So, with concern for our members, their families and communities, we started contacting RBAs one by one who still had rides on the calendar for April.  While every RBA was being ultra careful, the Board felt that those rides needed to be cancelled. At this point, we have nothing on the calendar for April. There is a small handful of rides taking place this weekend; but April is cleared.  

At this time we aren't sure about May. Rides are still on the calendar. The Board did not want this to be "closed until further notice", rather we'd see where this was headed, whether things were starting to level off. In densely populated areas, we do not expect the virus to have peaked in April. We need to develop a reopen strategy, perhaps starting out with short populaires that won't require either support or replenishment stops. If and when we approach this decision, it will probably be with travel and rider count restrictions. We want riders to feel safe and comfortable, and the Board wants your support and agreement that it's the right thing to do. We will be setting up a small board-led committee of RBAs to monitor and recommend a reopen strategy.
 
The RUSA Board

We are declaring a "pause" in counting months for R-12 and P-12. These months will not require make up rides. But R-12 and P-12 will still require 12 credit months in all. The pause period will start March 1 and end when things are more-or-less back to normal.  To determine when to restart, we will take our cue from other cycling organizations such as USA Cycling.  Rides during the pause period will not count towards R-12 / P-12 with the exception of rides during the month of March. Riders may use March as a pause month or if they have already completed rides they may use those toward any awards including the R-12/P-12.

Make-Ups for No Perms Make-Up period (12/2019 - 4/2020) - For those who were planning their permanents suspension make up rides to be ridden in March or April, those make up rides can now take place in the 2 months following the end of the pause.

Examples, assuming solely for the sake of these examples that the pause encompasses March, April, May, and June (not a prediction!):

• Your R-12 twelve months ended in March, and you got in a ride in March, but you were going to make up a missed month (e.g., January) by riding an extra 200k in April. Now you can ride that extra 200k in July or August.

• You started a P-12 in January and got rides in January, February, and March. Your twelve month period will now extend through April, 2021 (16 months minus the 4 "paused" months = 12 credit months).

• You started an R-12 in January but missed February and haven't made it up yet: your twelve month period will now extend through April, 2021, and you can make up February with an extra ride in July or August.

We have upgraded our website and database to a new server. This keeps us current with the software we rely on. The new deployment is testing out well, but please let us know of any incongruencies you see, by creating a issue report (preferred), or by contacting the RUSA Web Team directly.

Super Randonnée 600Ks are very challenging permanent routes that include over 10,000 meters of climbing over 600K within a 60-hour time limit. If you were hoping to ride one, perhaps to qualify for the ACP R-10000 award, we have good news. RUSA has made special arrangements to provide insurance for riding US Super Randonnée (SR600) permanent routes. The insurance fee varies with the number of riders, so please contact the route owner to determine the cost and for other details about registering. A list of SR600 routes and their owners can be found by using Search->Permanents and choosing Format=SR600K.

As of today, we do not have an offer of insurance for Permanents.  Without insurance, we do not have a Permanents program nor can we cover personal / training rides in the past or going forward.

For those working on R-12/P-12's, we will allow makeup rides using ACP, RM, and RUSA events as follows: 

We are defining a makeup period of December 2019 through April 2020.   To the extent that you have a gap in any of these months that you wish to cover, for the purposes of these awards only, we will move ride credit from one month to another upon application by email to makeups@rusa.org.  The deadline for application is the end of May, 2020.  

Remember, a ride can only count once, e.g. if you want all five months covered, you need five rides in that period for the respective award.

If you have any questions, please direct them to the same email address and we will provide FAQ's as necessary on the RUSA website.

The RUSA Board has chosen officers for 2020:

• Dave Thompson - president
• Debra Banks - vice president
• Lois Springsteen - treasurer
• Tim Sullivan - secretary

Thanks to Dave, Deb, Lois, and Tim for undertaking these responsibilities!  The rest of the 2020 Board comprises:

• John Cap'n Ende
• John Lee Ellis
• Pete Dusel - RBA Liaison

We are pleased to announce that we have acquired a one-year insurance policy that covers all RBA-organized events, effective immediately.

Unfortunately, the Permanents program is suspended as of midnight on December 2, 2019. We will put a program in place for people to make up rides for khound, P12 and R12. (More on that later)

We will keep you posted.