Thursday, January 12, 2017

Growth of Perm Route Starts Nationally (and some States)

The chart below shows the number of RUSA perm "Group Starts"(*) by year, the number of states in which those perms and perm-pops started, the number of perm "groups" by year for the six states with the most perm starts, and the number of perm "groups" for the other states not specifically shown.  [You might wonder why I decided to show six specific states:  (1) because that's the number of states that allowed the exhibit to fit on the page, and (2) there was rather a natural break-point in the counts between the sixth and seventh states.]

You will notice that the total number of "group starts" increased every year until 2016, when there were approximately 440 fewer start groups than in 2015.  I have a good idea why the count for North Carolina (NC) decreased by approx 130, being almost entirely due to two frequent riders being knocked off the road and their corralling of others to ride once or twice a week going missing, combined with two other frequent riders essentially retiring or at least taking a hiatus.   However, I have no information or knowledge about why California (CA) and Washington (WA) also showed significant decreases in their counts.  Guesses would include a post-PBP effect and perhaps a decrease in K-Hounds in those states.

I'm attempting no profound insights (at this time); just simply showing the high-level information.

I have not attempted to look at the amount of brevet riding by year / region or state.
 


Year Groups # States
CA WA TX NC FL MD
others












2004 34 5
6 0 22 0 0 0
6
2005 124 9
10 21 57 0 0 0
36
2006 370 17
25 80 130 7 9 1
118
2007 764 23
182 101 248 22 29 24
158
2008 1,065 28
245 161 198 33 93 43
292
2009 1,815 31
353 332 395 45 114 56
520
2010 2,631 38
449 472 555 194 75 89
797
2011 3,921 35
724 569 663 349 93 168
1,355
2012 5,123 46
997 660 742 382 224 266
1,852
2013 5,175 47
1,048 803 555 392 215 278
1,884
2014 6,227 47
1,481 904 578 422 286 370
2,186
2015 6,803 48
1,484 1,125 511 449 339 323
2,572
2016 6,359 51
1,315 964 616 318 385 312
2,449












Total 40,411

8,319 6,192 5,270 2,613 1,862 1,930
14,225


(*) "Group Starts" -- for purposes of this chart / blog-post, a "Group Start" is one group starting one perm or perm-pop route (presumably at the same time, though I cannot confirm that same start time assumption), regardless of how big or small the group.

The 40-plus-thousand "group starts" in the above chart translate to approximately 68-thousand individual completed rides / "RUSA-T" certificates.  [Obviously, there is a lot of solo riding occurring on perms.  Hey, I like doing solo bike rides, but it is rather amazing the amount of solo rando perm riding that occurs.]

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