Several years ago, Crista Borras initiated the fine tradition of recognizing a new category of rider, the Rookie. As far as DC Randonneurs is concerned a rookie is that bold - and slightly reckless - rider with no previous brevet experience who launches his or her randonneuring career by attempting (and completing!) a full brevet series. Three years ago, there were only three such riders; two years ago, eight. The competition for Rookie of the Year just gets tougher. This year the list of candidates was limited to members who listed their RUSA affiliation as DC Randonneurs and did most of their qualifying rides in the DC series, and there were still eleven candidates. Here they are, with PBP or 1000K indicated if they went even farther by participating in one of these very long rides. As you can see, we had eight rookies who went from being mere cyclists at the start of the year to being PBP anciens by the end. Incroyable!

Chip Adams (PBP)	Justin Castillo (PBP)	John Chapin (PBP)	David Goodwin (PBP)
James Houck	Glenn Kuhn	Jim Levitt (PBP-dnf injury)	Maile Neel (PBP)
Rick Rosa (PBP)	Ray Skinner* (1000K)	Ron Tosh (PBP)	Clare Zecher (PBP)

* Not technically eligible for Rookie of the Year due to DNF-mechanical on 600K, but completed 1000K

How to choose from such a distinguished cohort of rookies? Three things that might tip the scales are: Completing PBP, consistency in riding brevets, and volunteerism. Jim Levitt completed the DC Super Randonneur series, and although an achilles tendon injury stopped him from finishing PBP, he rode 11 brevets with DCR last year, and at the time of this writing appears to be one brevet away from an R-12 award. Ray Skinner completed a fleche, 9 brevets, the 1000K, and volunteered to run the superb cabin control on the Frederick 400. This would clearly have put him in the running, were it not for a mechanical on the 600K that prevented him from finishing the SR series.

But in the end, the Board unanimously chose Maile Neel to be Rookie of the Year. She rode all but one of her SR series in DC. She finished PBP as one of the Magnificent Seven DCR women PBP finishers. She rode 15 brevets last year, a dozen of them in the DCR region, for a total of more than 4000km. And she just qualified for the R-12 award. Her unbounded enthusiasm for randonneuring, as evidenced by these multiple accomplishments, makes her an ideal ambassador for our sport, and thus worthy to carry on the great tradition of DC Randonneurs Rookie of the Year.

(If you were a rookie in 2007 who completed a full qualifying series, and we somehow overlooked you, please let us know.)