I love it when I learn something new! Thanks to Wikipedia I found out that Randoneurs are not limited to cyclists. There are also skiing and hiking ones.

So I guess the main difference is that there's a time limit between 'stations' and you have to have a card stamped when you get to each one.

Here's a link for anyone else that's interested....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevet_%28cycling%29