BC-12 A Proposal
Decalendarizing the Permanents Award
by Eric Fergusson
Permanents Coordinator

Original message to the club Directors (April 28, 2025):
(Addition message follows below)

To say that the BC-12 Award is the “permanents award” is not strictly speaking true. The required 12 rides, one in each calendar month, can include a mixture of ACP brevets, fleches and traces, in addition to permanent brevets.

The BC Randonneurs permanents program, and the BC-12 award, date back to October 2008 modeled on permanent programs in France, the UK and the US. They offer something a little different from riding scheduled ACP sanctioned brevets. They offer riders flexibility and freedom. Riders can choose the time and date of their ride. They choose the route, and that route can be anywhere in the world. Riders also choose the distance. It must be over 200 km but does not need to conform to the official randonneur distances (200, 300, 400, etc.) A permanent route can be 243 km, because that’s the out and back distance to your favourite beach or cafe.

If you were to design an award that recognized permanents participation and achievement, what would it look like? You’d probably lean towards something that fits with the flexibility and freedom that defines the ride experience. More on that below, but first a little context.

At the time when the permanents came to BC Randonneurs, all-season brevets were trending amongst riders. Permanents co-founder and co-coordinator Tracy Barill, was particularly interested in pushing ACP brevets into the “shoulder months” as he called them. For the 2010 season, shortly after the permanents were introduced, the Lower Mainland added two 200s: the “Early Bird” in March and the “11th Hour” in November. The Island schedule soon followed. To earn a BC-12 could now mean that you only needed to ride permanents in December, January and February. The rest could be taken care of with scheduled ACP brevets, which you might be riding anyway.

So at that time there was this trend/fad for riding “off season” events. In my mind the challenge of the BC-12 always meant suffering through the rides in those 3 dark and icy months. I bought into this aspect of the program at the time, but on reflection I’m not sure it was ever the right challenge.

I’m not sure it’s safe either. I rode a December permanent with another rider in 2014 who crashed twice on black ice. There are other riders who have gone down hard too on winter permanents. As permanents coordinator I’m always relieved when riders report in after completing winter permanents, and I breathe easier when the temperatures go up in early spring, when ice becomes puddles.

Another problem with the current BC-12 criteria is that it doesn’t recognize the riding achievement, focussing rather on the calendar timing of your rides. Someone could ride 20 permanents and not get a BC-12 award, when another rider could earn it by just doing those three deep winter permanents.

And why not give riders the freedom to schedule some off-bike time on their own timelines, for their own reasons. Maybe someone is injured, or having knee surgery, or spending six weeks in Antarctica or just forgot to do their August permanent. Why not allow all of these, and still leave the door open for earning your BC-12.

So what would a better BC-12 look like?

I think that 12 is still a good number. I also think that there will be riders who enjoy the winter challenge aspect of the BC-12, so I suggest we keep the current criteria as one option. But I do think there also needs to be a more permanents focused option to the award. So let’s twin the BC-12: 12 rides, calendared or uncalendared.

The purist in me likes the idea of the award being a completely permanents focused award – 12 permanents in 365 days. But maybe we don’t need to go that far. The current award is already a hybrid. Why not keep this. I suggest that we require a minimum of 8 permanents, plus your choice of up to 4 sanctioned ACP events. With this mix a rider could, for example, ride a super randonneur series (200, 300, 400, 600), plus 8 permanents. There’s a nice symmetry to that.

Feedback welcome.

Eric's e-mail

On behalf of the directors Mike Hagen responded to me. His thoughts are not reproduced here in full, but are reflected in my follow-responce.

Eric Fergusson's follow-up response (June 5, 2025):

Thanks Mike for this thoughtful response. And thanks to the board members for their input. I’m addressing this to you, but I expect you will want to forward it to the board. I’m also very happy to attend a meeting in person to discuss this.

The board's response is mainly aimed at the safety issue of riding those winter permanents. That is indeed an important secondary issue. What I’m really suggesting is that we need to disassociate winter riding, imposed by the BC-12, from permanents. The winter brevets are a distraction from the flexibility and other positive features a permanents program offers.

I appreciate the thought put into the safening (not a word) modification of winter permanents by adding make-up permanents the following month. However, I don’t really like this idea. It’s a complication. The award should be simple and inspiring. The modification is a slightly convoluted way of saving (clinging to) the winter permanents, when we should be questioning their relevance to the permanents program at all.

Let me try and make more clear what I image a better BC-12 would look like:

There are two ways to earn a BC-12 award.
1. A rider needs to complete 12 brevets, including at least 8 permanents, within a calendar year.
2. "The year-rounder" BC-12. A rider needs to complete 12 brevets in one year that can be any a blend of permanents and ACP sanctioned brevets. Riders must complete a brevet in every calendar month. (i.e. our current criteria.)

You rightfully bring up the concern that "it can't be too easy or it doesn't mean much.” I agree. The question is what is the right balance of required rides between the two versions of the award. The current BC-12 (#2) would be a "special case” version of the award. Yes, riders would need to do winter riding, but would be allowed to use any number of the ACP brevets they’ve ridden their 12-month window. In practical terms, for our LM and Island schedules, this would mean up to 9 ACP brevets, plus 3 permanents. There’s a trade off with #1 also. Riders don’t have to do winter brevets, but they do need to add more permanents (at least 5 more) in to their annual ride mix. I’m still attracted to the idea of making the steeper requirement of insisting on 12 permanents, but am at peace with the compromise of “at least 8 permanents".

Testimonials: Well there was only one written response. Obviously Bob Goodison is our most extreme, extreme-weather rider. Here’s what he said: "Brilliant plan! For me, the month I'm most likely to blow the series is February - I keep expecting the weather to get better and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Other current permanent riders: As you know Karen is permanently out of the winter permanents game. She hated it, but thought the “year round" aspect was important. Dave King has no trouble riding in any conditions. He has not weighed in, but he did not ride through this past winter either. Murray Tough did ride through the winter, but also did not weigh in. I have a hunch he might ride the winter permanents, even if there was optional. That’s reason enough for us to not eliminate the current BC-12 option. I will say, however, that if my proposal is accepted, in the future I will not, as permanents coordinator, be encouraging riders to ride December, January and February permanents.

If I can make a more personal appeal, I’ve lived the BC-12 for the past 17 years. As you know I’ve got a continuous streak of monthly brevets going back to October 2008, at the introduction of permanents and the BC-12 award. (Not entirely true: some months were missed because of pandemic no-ride restrictions.) I’ve managed to keep this streak alive through a hip replacement, being hit by a car on the 2016 LM Spring 600 (broken collar bone, etc) and another self inflicted crash (the other collar bone).

No one has more invested the current BC-12 than me. I’m ready and eager to let the winter riding aspect of it go. In addition I especially love the idea of freeing permanents from the monthly scheduling complication imposed by the current BC-12 award. I feel strongly that the current version of the award is simply the wrong award for permanents, inspired by a winter riding fad that has run its course.

So who are we keeping the current BC-12 alive for? The originators of the award are out of the picture. It’s not really receiving a lot of love from the people still doing it.

To sum up, I don’t think we need to eliminate the current BC-12, but I really think we should add an alternative that better fits with permanents.

Eric