some roots will look strong, but most will be still brittle. meaning when moving the cutting from cup to 1 gal, there is chance that you will break lot of roots unless it's done really carefully. if the damage is big enough, it will delay or kill the cutting. you want as many roots are possible holding on to the soil mix and holding the shape of the current cup well, so you can more or less pull it out and plug it in to same soil mix in 1 gal.
after being in 1 gal for awhile, the roots should harden enough bare rooting and moving to larger container shouldn't be much of an issue.
this is one of the reason i use peat pot method. as long as i see few roots coming through the peat pot, i know they are ready to be moved to 1 gal. no need to wait for extensive growth since peat pot will hold the soil and the roots. but in winter.. i don't know if it make any difference since i keep the cutting in cups for months.