As far as policies go, rider safety is always paramount. Safety comes through route design, rider awareness, and the club rules and procedures that promote it. It is everyone’s business. We can’t guarantee anything will be 100% safe, cycling has inherent risk. The rider must always follow all traffic laws, etc - but we can strive to put you on low traffic, high scenery roads.
Route design for safety is very challenging, especially in urban areas like Chicagoland. It can also be difficult in the countryside as well based on time and conditions. A safe route in the morning may be unsafe in the evening. The roads we ride on are still the biggest part of our safety. It's also a lot more fun to ride on quiet, scenic roads!
Routes designed for GLU Ultra Cycling Events will conform to the following:
While we would like to have it be so, RUSA rules and procedures do not always allow for the same kinds of flexibilty and options and keeping the sport intact is important. The sport of randonneuring is an old one. It dates to the 19th Century.
The basics of a randonneuring route are founded on the idea of designated stopping points or Controls. At a control, a randonneur collects a proof of passage, normally a signature on a special card called a brevet card and/or a receipt. The cards are carried, signed and the end and turned in. Riders must arrive and validate passage within a specific time frame. The route between 2 controls should be the shortest distance passable by bicycle to ensure that the route is followed. Randonneuring routes are timed with the time it takes to stop at controls being a factor in the overall efficiency of the rider. Great randonneurs don't just ride consistently and fast, they excel at time managment and the ability to effectively manage time at controls is vital part of the sport. One of the biggest challenges of Paris Brest Paris is attempting to manage the time spent at controls (which lines and a lot of walking can be involved). If you never use the cards, your experience at PBP will be a shocker. PBP is about time management as much or MORE than riding. You must get used to spending a certain amount of time at controls - at PBP, do not expect to spend less than 30-45 minutes at every control and likely much more. You will be in line with thousands of others.
All randonneuring routes must be approved by the RUSA Routing Committee. This is a long process (up to 6 months) and requires a lot of effort. While some minor flexibility does exist, major changes to the route can require re-approval.
One of the side effects of the traditional controlsl is that they can eliminate the best roads, particularly in areas where larger, busier county roads are the shortest distance. Quiet roads with far less traffic would require the introduction of additional controls, stopping riders and becoming burdensome. Controls are ideally spaced so that they coincide with needed services but get annoying when there are too many. You should expect a slightly different kind of ride on a RUSA event.
Many have argued for years that proof of passage should be made electronic and not require stopping. While this seems a simple solution, it also changes the sport significantly. Randonneuring is a sport based on camaraderie and controls and cards are also a place for otherwise solitary riders to meet up and moving through a control and collecting proof of passage are key parts of the sport. The added challenges on route design also create a consistency in randonneuring that GLU feels is really vital, the fact remains that once we remove all the pomp and circumstance, we aren't are not randonneuring anymore, so we encourage you to stop at controls. It's very necessary to keep up nutrition and hydration as well.
Many small clubs have no choice but to function through RUSA for insurance purposes. GLUC is extremely fortunate to have flexibility. Instead of diluting down the sport of randonneuring, we want to preserve it and keep it as a part of our club that we can all enjoy the traditions that make it so distinctive.
RUSA Events will