Happy Birthday! August marks 10 years since the founding of Randonneurs USA. My, how it's grown!
In 2008 we will have more than 200 ACP brevets—200km, 300km, 400km, 600km, and 1000km—all over the country. More than 200 RUSA brevets and populaires will complement the ACP calendar. More than a dozen ACP flèche events were scheduled along with a handful of RUSA darts. More than 100 riders have already challenged extraordinary heat to participate in Grand Randonnées of 1200km or more held in Virginia and Washington. Another Grand Randonnée is planned later in the year in Colorado.
This year, we have 450 permanent routes that offer additional randonneuring opportunities outside the calendar. Our permanents coordinator, Ed Robinson, has a great report in these pages.
A few months ago, we issued member number 5000, marking another milestone for the organization. In great numbers, members take advantage of our rides, with over 5000 event finishes recorded already this season. Our riders continue to rack up the awards created to recognize randonneur accomplishments, like the four new Ultra-Randonneur recipients featured in this issue.
In an even more important indicator of current and future health for RUSA, members are volunteering all over the country. As always, I encourage each and every one of RUSA's members to join its volunteer ranks. Volunteers make the national organization work and our volunteer RBAs could always use help in administering their local rides.
Many, many RUSA members have been contributing to the materials written about randonneuring, in the RUSA and local newsletters, but also in postings all over the internet. My RSS reader keeps me current on at least a dozen local newsgroups and over three dozen individual blogs written by randonneurs. Please see Ed Felker's article in this newsletter for a recap of some of this great material.
I can't wait to see what the next 10 years will bring!
—Mark Thomas