jlippinbike

I suppose the answer to this question depends on what kind of randonneur you are. If you ride perms to rack up lots of mileage for RUSA award credit, then you probably only want to design perms that are are somewhere between 100k and 299k. And if you want to ride perms that will indicate to others that you are really an ultra endurance cycling athlete, then you probably would want to design perms that are 300k or longer. But are 300k perms too much trouble to design? Are 400k perms too much trouble? Are 600k perms worth designing? How about 1000k perms? Or even 1200k perms? And would you consider a 350k point-to-point perm to be half of a 700k out-and-back perm? Or would it be better to describe a 700k O&B perm as being twice as long as a 350k P2P? Said another way, would you design the route as a 350k P2P to be ridden twice for credit, or a 700k O&B to be ridden once for credit?

unterhausen

I have designed some 300k and 400k perms that I don't think anyone would ever ride, so I never bothered to submit them. Once you have a 400k perm, making a 600k perm would be easy. The thing that got me started submitting a lot of perms was finding out Crista had a 600k that went fairly close to here.

Has anyone ridden any of your longer perms? I'm not sure why people would want to stop at 299k. Since perms give you actual time, there is no reason to have even numbered distances. A perm close to 200k should be just over so it counts for an r12. 300k doesn't count towards any awards other than r12 and distance awards, afaik. My takeaway from that is as long as it's a good ride, it doesn't really matter how weird the distance is. I have seen people say that for k-hound, a 100 mile perm is the perfect distance because you can do it after work. I remain unconvinced, because at 100 miles around here, you would have to go over some mountains. 100k seems like a good distance to me. I suppose that's the difference between a Texan and a central Pennsylvanian.


I haven't resubmitted any of my perms since the purge. I have a couple of them I'm pretty proud of that I really should resubmit.

clasher

Perms in Ontario are only allowed to use existing routes, though one can start at any control along the route. I've never done one, though I'll go out and ride my own 200/300 rides to check the roads. We have a few awards in our program but I'm not terribly interested in them, the ACP awards are enough for me I suppose, though I don't know if I'll ever get the R10000.

jlippinbike

Unterhausen said: Has anyone ridden any of your longer perms? I'm not sure why people would want to stop at 299k.

Before the RUSA perm program was revamped, I had two 300k perms in my name, and a 300k perm I created but had someone else submit it to Crista. That other person and I rode all three of the 300k perms. Currently NJ has a bunch of longer perms: many 300k, four 400k, and a 915k. I don't think any of the seven 300's I created have been ridden by anybody but me. I know the 400's have only been ridden by me. I didn't create the 915k route, but its creator rode it and so did I. While I was participating in the RUSA perm program last year I regularly checked the perm results page on the RUSA web site to see who from NJ was riding - racking up miles. There are not all that many riders in NJ participating. All the others rode primarily pops. I only did RUSA miles from March to early October. As soon as I hit K-Hound I quit. To hit K-Hound I rode 12 300k's, 5 400k's, and a 912k ride. I think I did only 4 200k's. The 22 other rides were less than 200k. About half of the pops were only 100k and the other half were 150k.

Unterhausen said: I have seen people say that for k-hound, a 100 mile perm is the perfect distance.

As I recall, you have not hit K-Hound yet. That is not a put down. I personally find it to be a silly award. But then, out of the four years I've participated in RUSA I have earned two K-Hounds. I'm not so sure the 100-mile distance is really the proper benchmark since distance tallies per RUSA are done in kilometers. When racking up "miles" toward 10,000 kilometer I have always found it best to rack up rides that are in 50 kilometer increments, i.e., 100k, 150k, 200k, etc. The problem with the 100k ride is it take too many of them to get to 10,000. The problem with the 200k ride is it will probably eat up the best part of your day. So the working stiff who has to report to some employer for 8 or 9 hours a day probably would want to squeeze in a 150k day. That's a 93 miles ride which for someone who is in reasonably good shape can knock out in 6 to 7 hours. Takes a lot less 150k rides to hit 10,000k than those pesky 100k rides.

GhostRider62

I did design a couple of 200K for me and had considered learning how to apply for approval but never did. I've ridded some Perm routes w/o getting credit for them. The longest official Perm I did was 300K, the NJ Ham and Eggs. Not sure if it survived.

WRT K-Hound, there was one year that it dawned on me that if I wanted to and would just put some emphasis on RUSA rides in the Fall, it would be very achievable since the miles would be ridden anyway. In the end, it just had no allure for me although not sure why not.

I have snuck some looks to the riding pattern of some K-Hounders and it seems there are two variants. Retired riders tend to do a lot of 100km Perms in addition to several SR series. Working stiffs will always get the R12, SR, and maybe a few 1200k grand randonnees with Perms more often in the 150-200k range.

Myself, I am more interested in my health and fitness and quite frankly, I sometimes find my fitness declining when doing the typical SR scaleup. It could be age but what happens as can be seen below, the brevets create a lot of fatigue. After a big ride, I have to take it easy to recover but then fitness drops. When I was younger and had CTL much higher, the effect was not as pronounced. I wonder if K Hounders are not chronically fatigued or just super fit.

unterhausen

The way my schedule works out, I would really have to want to khound in order to achieve it. I have only tried once, in 2019. If I had finished pbp, I probably would have continued to work on my khound. After I dnf'd, I started to feel like going for the khound had not been good for my training. Too many tough hot weather 200k's that left me needing a lot of recovery. 100km is a really good training distance for me. But you have to do 2 a week to khound. Not going to happen. I can see doing a 300k in the middle of summer, but it gets pretty hot here and adding in the climbing means I probably would cramp and have asthma problems. In my current state, I have promised my spouse I'm not climbing over any mountains if I can't get back home by not climbing any more mountains. The 3rd mountain inevitably triggers my asthma if it's hot.

After I ride too many 200k's, I find myself wishing I was at home mowing my lawn or something. I'm not sure cutting back to 150km would help all that much. Of course, when I think I'd rather be mowing my lawn it means I need to eat.

downtube42

I've ridden a ton of 200k perms, and plenty of longer brevets. I've thought about riding some of the longer perms around, but never have.

I don't want to overanalyze, but I think it has to do with how much the ride impacts my weekend. A 200k is a day; I might get up a bit early, but I'll have a normal evening at home and Sunday is unaffected. A 100k is a morning. I can even do a PTP 200k up to Olympia or down to Eugene, Amtrak home, and it's a one-day impact. A 300k starts to creep into impacting Sunday, with sleeping late and just being tired. I like to do other stuff - hike with my wife, etc. Thus far, my choice has been if I'm going to knock out a weekend, it's going to be a brevet. Not to say I'd never ride a longer perm, but that's what I've done to date.

I probably just overanalyzed it.

I'm in the midst of designing a perm around Mt Hood. Starting from here (just outside Portland), it would be around 240k. I could just make it a long 200k, or add some miles and make it a 300k, or move the start/finish out and keep it to 200k. I'm tending to the the latter. When I ride it, I'd take transit to/from the start/finish. Why do that rather than make it a long 200 and ride - particularly since the elapsed time would be about the same? Shrug.

In my RWGPS account I have a number of draft perms, including 300k and 400k. It is a bit of work, and right now I'd be creating a route I probably wouldn't ride myself.

downtube42

I think about going for k-hound, then look at my 12 years of rando and my biggest year was last year at 5300km. I just don't think it's going to happen as long as I'm working full time. I love to bike, but I do love to do other stuff. Not mow the lawn, but hike and MTB and travel (without a bike) and chill out on occasion.

unterhausen

The thing about wanting to be home mowing the grass only happens when I'm riding through an area where everyone is mowing their lawn. I have the thought and then realize I don't like mowing the lawn.
The most km I did was 5400 in 2019. So it would have been 6600 with pbp. I don't think I would have finished, the motivation after PBP would have been gone

jlippinbike

Downtube42 said: I think it has to do with how much the ride impacts my weekend.

I think this quote exemplifies so many things about randonneuring. Does riding a 200k route once a month for the R12 award impact your lifestyle? Does riding a 400k route on a weekend impact your lifestyle? Does riding a 600k route squeezed into a weekend (if that is possible) impact your lifestyle? And what about the 1000k routes and/or the 1200k routes? They take 3 or 4 days to ride and then there is the day before to get to the ride, and the day after the ride to get home. Earning the K-Hound award is definitely a lifestyle thing. It doesn't happen if you ride only when it is convenient to ride. This is true whether you work full time or are retired. In 2022 there were 54 K-hounders total. And the routes ridden overwhelmingly were 100k's and 200k's. Only one rider hit K-Hound who did not do any populaires. There were six riders who rode between 1 and 10 pops. There were seven riders who rode between 11 and 20 pops. And there were 7 riders who rode between 21 and 30 pops. That's 21 riders out of 54 total who did 30 pops or less in order to hit K-Hound. Those riders had to do many longer (200k+) rides to make up the deficit. And those longer rides definitely impact a rider's weekends. I was the only K-hounder to do 12 or more 300k rides in the year. The next highest listing of 300k rides was 7. I tied with two other riders for doing the most 400k's in the year at 5. The K-Hounders who racked up the most 600k rides were doing the Super Rando perms. Overall there were only 19 1000k rides added into the K-Hound mix. Not a very popular distance to ride. It's actually my favorite, but I don't like having to travel to the few RUSA regions that offer them. There were definitely a bunch of grand brevets added into the mix, i.e., 67. That's more than the total number of K-hounders.

GhostRider62

It seems to take a work-like devotion to achieve K-Hound and for me, although I cannot remember a year that I did not ride more than the 10K and many years rode more than double the distance, it just seems like a stressful chore. Apart from SR rides, many of my weekly training rides were 3-4 hours long or about a Populaire done 2-3 times per week. A dose like that seems manageable in terms in minimizing family disruption and negative impacts to health/fitness. The other thing for me is cost. Traveling to brevets can get costly whereas jumping out the front door onto a Perm is basically free. I used to have brevets close to my house and a 200k did not cut into family/weekend but if you add 90 minutes of driving on each end of the ride, the balance starts to tilt the wrong way if you are trying for 10K. I would guess Populaires are popular owes to lower stress on the body, wallet, and family time. A 400k or 600k is a real test and eats into one's reserves and I cannot imagine a steady diet of them is beneficial. I can think of at least 4 very well know endurance coaches who say the longest routine training ride should be 6-10 hours and that is for RAAM and TCR type athletes. With that my guess is 100-150km would be a good distance for someone trying for K hound. But, I never did it and what do I know.

jlippinbike

GhostRider62 said: With that my guess is 100-150km would be a good distance for someone trying for K hound.
For the most part I liked your analysis. But with 365 days in a year, and it taking 100 days of riding 100k per day to hit 10,000k, that's a serious commitment of days toward K-Hound. I've hit K-Hound twice now. The first time I accumulated a ton of pops. The second time I did not. Looking back on the two methods, both have their pluses and minuses. Ride shorter rides and you can do more since you need less recovery. Or ride longer rides and do less since you need more recovery. It's all a wash. I think only the second option deserves consideration since the K-Hound award is a randonneuring award. Riding a pop doesn't qualify a rider as a randonneur. It's kind of odd that some K-hounders hit the mark without riding a ride that must be ridden to really qualify them as a randonneur. One guy in 2022 rode a fleche and all the other rides were pops, and he made the K-Hound list. RUSA and its "Big Tent" philosophy is probably why there is so much turnover among membership? The tent is so big that it's hard to define what it really is about. And without some purpose to continue membership it's easy to just let one's membership fade away. I've looked at the membership numbers on some of the RUSA event results lately and seems like most of those numbers start with 14 and 15. My number starts with 11, and there are not really that many of those appearing in the results these days.

Machka 

The longest Randonnee I have designed is 600K ... in Tasmania.
The longest Perm I have designed is ... hmmm ... well, it will be 300K when I shift that ride into the Perm collection. Also in Tasmania.

Most of the Perms I design are between 50 and 100 km these days.

GhostRider62

WRT K Hound, I was just thinking of my personal situation in the past having ridden plenty of miles to get the K Hounder. I probably routinely did three rides of 100km per week and add a full Series and a smattering of other brevets and bingo, you have 10,000 kms. 100km isn't too tiring and being retired, it would fit my non-schedule

I did not know randonneuring was losing members. A RUSA number starting with 11 is getting low. I still have my IR number on some old cards laying around. The only thing I really hate are 10 controls on a 300k. I am not fond at all of being forced to ziptie a spot tracker to my bike for many reasons. It is pretty amazing how much change randonneuring has had over the past 3-4 decades. It will be interesting to see if the new approach used in PA brings randos into the game. The last 200k had something like 70 riders. Let's see how many of those newly stamped 40 pound expensive randonneuses roll up to the 400k. Age and demographics might explain drop off in membership if there is indeed one. Who knows. I don't

unterhausen

There is a drop off in RUSA membership between PBP years every time. I think people still don't understand the rules of getting into PBP.
I think the problem in PA is there is no cohort of slow people like there used to be. They just go to NJ, I suppose. I guess young riders are better for the long term, but they are going to be inactive once they start having kids.

antimonysarah

Also with the new-ish rule that people must join RUSA, the folks who come for a 100 & maybe a 200 once a year have to join and get numbers - previously a lot of them just didn't join. We have quite a few folks who drop in for a ride or two like that - there's some folks who get dragged into the fleche each year but don't otherwise rando, a local club isn't doing their big spring century this year and I think that's why a bunch of newcomers from that club showed up as a pack to our first 200k this year.

(They did great, they had fun, we encouraged them to come back, but they might really be "do lots of club centuries" people - and that's fine! We're happy to have them come to our slightly-oversized centuries (aka 200ks).)

Steamer

Longest route I've designed: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/38800661

Haven't ridden it yet, though.

Cue sheet:. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...t?usp=drivesdk

Someone go do it, and let me know how it went.

jlippinbike

Thanks for sharing Steamer! The route across PA looks interesting. I haven't studied it yet, though. Looking at it made me think there is probably an out-and-back 1000k route that can be devised from Princeton NJ to Morgantown WV that would pass through NJ, PA, DE, MD and WV. Your route sort of looked like a long version of the Crush the Commonwealth route.

Steamer

Yeah, actually, it started out as an effort to create an enjoyable version of Crush the Commonwealth. The CTC route kinda sucks, in my opinion. But the length is very nearly the same,+/- a 5 miles or so.

FWIW, there are lots of places to establish controles on this route, if turning it into a perm was actually desired by someone. At miles, 26.4, 57.6, 94.4, 117.2, 129.6, 136.6, 153.4, 156.5, 175.4, 225.4 (a good overnight stop on an eastbound run), 246.7, 258.6, 296.6, 314.5, 320.5, 342.7, and 363.4. You wouldn't need all of those, of course - just pointing out the opportunities along the route.

unterhausen

Riding to Morgantown sounds like torture. Does the GAP go nearby?

Steamer

Not really. The section of the GAP from Confluence to Ohiopyle is the closest it gets. You'd have to ride over hill and dale for about 35-40 miles to get to Morgantown.

NJgreyhead

My longest perm design nowadays? It would be one I could handle riding, of course. The legs aren't what they used to be, and they previously maxed out at only 200k. I don't think I would enjoy attempting a 200k these days. But I wanted to see what I might still be capable of enjoying. So I designed a route using the next landmark distance down the chart, a full century. Just got it approved (#04694), and rode it yesterday. It was a challenge for me, but I did enjoy it. And it felt like a bit of an adventure.