N.C. Perms -- What Have People Been Riding?, # 2

I'm too tired from yesterday's solo effort on the Egypt Mtn perm to write, er, type anything cogent, today.  Instead, amongst other things, I've been following the Facebook posts of a crew of fast-dudes on the Carthage Coffee Run perm.  I also figured out how to make an interesting (?) summary or two of the NC Perm data that Ian extracted for me.  It takes a lot less mental energy for me to fiddle with Excel than it does for me to think cogently enough to type a ride report.  Therefore:

While scrolling through the data, it seemed that permanent rides used to be more likely to attract a larger number of participants (riders) per ride than has been the case recently.  Could I replace that impression with actual data?  Of course.  Sort the "data-base" by date, perm route within date, RUSA # within perm route; then do a little formula magic and ... viola ... the chart you see below.

year	rides	riders	avg	kms	hrs	k / rider	kph
2012	375	685	1.83	106,944	5,495.7	156.1	19.5
2011	342	711	2.08	108,899	5,559.5	153.2	19.6
2010	188	482	2.56	82,511	4,205.4	171.2	19.6
2009	44	140	3.18	28,266	1,463.8	201.9	19.3
2008	32	80	2.50	16,846	851.9	210.6	19.8
2007	19	59	3.11	12,556	588.4	212.8	21.3
2006	7	18	2.57	3,894	187.6	216.3	20.8
total	1,007	2,175	2.16	359,916	18,352.3	165.5	19.6

The above is the same chart as published the other day, but I've added a new "rides" column, relabeled the previous "rides" column as "riders", and added the "avg" column.  The "avg" is the average number of finishing participants (riders) per the redefined "ride".  Now, a "ride" is a given course on a given date, regardless the number of participants, and also ignoring that some riders may have started at differing times.

Clearly, the average number of riders on a given "ride" has declined substantially since 2009.  I think the reasons for that are primarily twofold:  (1) there are now many more courses than there used to be, so people have more choices -- as the Phun Physiologist once told me, "in those days, the only thing we had was Kerr Lake Loop";  (2) 10K-Hounds (and other big-kilometer hounds) may need to ride when no one else is interested or able.

Something that pops out at one is that we have now exceeded 1000 separate permanent rides here in NC.  Btw, this excludes all rides where all participants DNF'd.  [If you don't understand why that would be, take a good look at the results for any perm that has had DNF's.]  

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While scrolling through the data, it dawned on me that it might be interesting to search for and highlight "milestone" rides.  Therefore:

• as mentioned the other day (see above link), the first perm ride in NC was by MikeD and JerryP on Jul-01-06 on the Blackbeard's Permanent course.
• the second perm ride was by MikeD and DavidB (RUSA #14) of Ohio, on Jul-22-06 on the Kerr Lake Loop.
• the first ride with more than two participants was Nov-25-06 on the Kerr Lake Loop.  There were 5 riders: DavidB of Ohio, PaulS (RUSA #95), JoeRay (RUSA #2618), that MikeD guy again, and Ian's dad, Adrian (RUSA #1229).
• the tenth ride was the Phun Physiologist's (RUSA #4070) first ever rando ride, on Feb-23-07, with JerryP, and (of course) it was on the Kerr Lake Loop.  [As I understand it, that was R-1 of Dean's continuing R-series, which reached R-72 a week ago.  Also, as I type this, Jerry is nearing completion of what will be his R-82 ride.  Them two guys is crazy!] 
• the first NC perm ride on a course not "owned" by MikeD was on Apr-29-2008, when Joel (RUSA #692) and HenryM (RUSA #744) completed the Sauartown 200 (back then, the route was only 203-kms long).  
• the 100th NC perm ride was Dec-26-09, by Al P (RUSA # 3732) on the Tar Heel 200 course.  (Six days earlier, twelve people had done that same course, and the very next day, six people would do the Showdown in Black Creek route.)
• the 300th ride was Jan-16-11 on the Tar Heel 200, by JayJay (RUSA #5459) and ChrisW (RUSA #6454).
• the 500th ride was Aug-18-11 on the Clayton Coffee Jaunt, by JohnO (RUSA #5687), as he pursued 10K-hound status.
• the 750th ride was May-23-12 on Get 'er Dunn, by DeanF (Phun Physio) and MickH (RUSA #6169).  Dean has done G'eD so many times (more than 150 times) that it is completely fitting that one of his Dunn-rides made this list.
• the 1000th ride was Dec-22-12 on the Bahama Beach course, by Ricochet Robert (RUSA #6628), BobB (RUSA #5843), and me (RUSA #6218).

As I typed just the other day:  "In coming days, I'll try to publish a report or two (or three) regarding which permanents and perm-pops were ridden in 2012, with comparison to previous years."  
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[For the next post in the series, click-here.]