Cycling UK Advice Coronavirus

[hoopdriver]

If there is no traffic on the road, why do I have to adhere to the speed limit?

Exactly - and who does? Nobody

 

[hoopdriver]

I had intended to keep to a town loop - ten miles or so - but have found when I went out mid morning that there are enough cars, joggers, strollers, dog walkers about - and fair enough they are all keeping their distance - to make me change instead to my standard winter route out in the lanes, just under thirty miles. It’s a flat route, very safe, I know it by heart and I have reverted to going out at 4:30am back before 6:30. I see nobody the whole time. It is a route and a distance I do daily anyway so I struggle to see any harm in it, or any “taking advantage”.

 

[OldShep]

My thinking was that cycling for 2 hours means you are more likely to crash than cycling for 1 hour. This could be extended, and as you rightly say, where do you draw the line? As things appear to be heading, the Government may well have to implement some form of direction.

I am working in the perception of society in general. They would not look at the actual risk, but if it is really appropriate at this time to be riding a bike for hours.

Likewise, I never ride dangerously and always take care. It still did not stop me breaking my back and neck, with all the emergency resources that took up (see previous).

Life still has to go on, and exercise is good for our physical and mental wellbeing. My perception (and only mine, so no criticism of others) is that we are in a period of extreme risk minimisation, and to do what we can to help that.

I'll leave it at that.

For all who do venture out, for however long, safe riding.

To hold water your thinking would have to assume you’re totally safe in the home. I’m sure there’s accidents in the home.

 

[mjr]

Likewise, I never ride dangerously and always take care. It still did not stop me breaking my back and neck, with all the emergency resources that took up (see previous).

So I looked back at previous and in https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cycling-uk-advice-coronavirus.258555/post-5924652 you say that you cannot remember a while before the crash, so I don't think you can be so sure you didn't take a risk even just that once.

I've not yet needed an ambulance but my three A&E visits (as far as I can recall - see past rants about what meds have done to my memory) have been two from running and one from eating dinner. I'm probably safer cycling!

Even so, I am still taking extra care like double-checking at junctions because of surprises like high-speed muppet motorists enabled by clearer roads and I urge you all to be cautious. The roads are empty enough now that you can probably still get around faster than usual even then.

 

[Velochris]

To hold water your thinking would have to assume you’re totally safe in the home. I’m sure there’s accidents in the home.

Not really. That would only apply if I had said I am totally safe at home. I'm not, but on balance, I am safer at home, than riding a bike. Hence minimising, not eliminating risk.

 

[mjr]

If you don’t come into any contact with person or object other than your bike or your shoes. Why oh why does it need to be time restricted?

Do we how long this bug lives outdoors yet? Or is there a chance that rider A coughs it onto the floor, then it gets carried around on rider B's tyres, possibly handled when B checks their tyres, then introduced into B's home and eventually community... the minimisation order is trying to reduce the links between different communities so that the virus stops spreading so fast.

 

[Velochris]

So I looked back at previous and in https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cycling-uk-advice-coronavirus.258555/post-5924652 you say that you cannot remember a while before the crash, so I don't think you can be so sure you didn't take a risk even just that once.

I've not yet needed an ambulance but my three A&E visits (as far as I can recall - see past rants about what meds have done to my memory) have been two from running and one from eating dinner. I'm probably safer cycling!

Even so, I am still taking extra care like double-checking at junctions because of surprises like high-speed muppet motorists enabled by clearer roads and I urge you all to be cautious. The roads are empty enough now that you can probably still get around faster than usual even then.

A good point well made. I truly cannot say I did not take a risk. What I can say is that I set off intending not to take a risk, which is what we all do, but incidents can still happen.

 

[lane]

Do we how long this bug lives outdoors yet? Or is there a chance that rider A coughs it onto the floor, then it gets carried around on rider B's tyres, possibly handled when B checks their tyres, then introduced into B's home and eventually community... the minimisation order is trying to reduce the links between different communities so that the virus stops spreading so fast.

No idea but don't touch your face, wash you hands thoroughly as soon as you get in, wash your gloves and possibly also cycling kit. Best to be on the safe side.

 

[hoopdriver]

Do we how long this bug lives outdoors yet? Or is there a chance that rider A coughs it onto the floor, then it gets carried around on rider B's tyres, possibly handled when B checks their tyres, then introduced into B's home and eventually community... the minimisation order is trying to reduce the links between different communities so that the virus stops spreading so fast.

But of course rider B washes his hands when he/she gets home as we are all supposed to and so - la! - no more virus...

one can imagine all sorts of hypothetical possibilities. Billion to one odds still means there’s a chance but what sane person or society leads their lives that way?

 

[matticus]

Do we how long this bug lives outdoors yet? Or is there a chance that rider A coughs it onto the floor, then it gets carried around on rider B's tyres, possibly handled when B checks their tyres, then introduced into B's home and eventually community... the minimisation order is trying to reduce the links between different communities so that the virus stops spreading so fast.

Nobody has numbers for this stuff, but the chances of transmission via this mechanism are tiny.

When you compare with the chances at
- shopping in a supermarket, let alone
- sharing a crowded tube,

… the difference is several (many?! ) orders of magnitude. As this is a numbers/probability game, you can just ignore it. The spread IS happening, 99.9999% of it will be due to the High Risk situations like the two I mention above.

Bike rides are just irrelevant - I say that hand-on-heart. (group rides are probably another small step up the risk ladder … gawd knows how small that step is, it's pretty irrelevant with the current restrictions!)

 

[mjr]

But of course rider B washes his hands when he/she gets home as we are all supposed to and so - la! - no more virus...

If we know rider B doesn't follow the advice on minimising time outdoors, what reason is there to think that they follow the advice on hand-washing?

one can imagine all sorts of hypothetical possibilities. Billion to one odds still means there’s a chance but what sane person or society leads their lives that way?

Well, it was just one example. There's probably a greater risk of rider A accidentally coughing or sneezing onto some object like a gate that walker C touches.

Yes, we can't eliminate all risk, but we're playing the numbers here. Each extra circulation of a person outside their own community is another possible transmission vector and long exercise rides look like vectors that could probably be minimised - and if we don't minimise them ourselves, Big Brother Boris will probably do it for us in the next stage of lock-down unless there's a more obvious target like another weekend of fools crowding on the beaches.

More people probably are being infected in supermarkets or on commuter transport, but those are more difficult to tackle. As I've opined on other threads, cyclists are not valued in the UK and don't protest as much as motorists, so we're an easy target and any measures against us will be fully backed by the Daily Hate and FU Express.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

There are over 100,000 people in Italy (with a similar population level to the UK) who have been fined for breaching the restrictions, no doubt a great number of those think they’re doing no harm and came up with similarly manufactured justifications for being outside.

But that’s over 100,000 more possible vectors for transmission.

Working out ways to circumvent the clear stay-at-home advice isn’t clever, it’s selfish.

 

[hoopdriver]

Nobody is manufacturing reasons for being outside or trying to subvert the quarantine! In case you missed the news, everyone is allowed one exercise per day - of unspecified length. Entirely permissible! People on this site are discussing - intelligently and responsibly for the most part - ways to maintain fitness while adhering to both the letter and the spirit of the regulations.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Nobody is manufacturing reasons for being outside or trying to subvert the quarantine! In case you missed the news, everyone is allowed one exercise per day - of unspecified length. Entirely permissible! People on this site are discussing - intelligently and responsibly for the most part - ways to maintain fitness while adhering to both the letter and the spirit of the regulations.

In case you missed it, there’s a contribution up-thread where someone is talking about doing a 3hour ride and suggesting this is okay because it doesn’t breach the guidelines but is “stretching them to the limit”.
The guidance is to minimise your time outside, even for exercise.

 

[hoopdriver]

In case you missed it, there’s a contribution up-thread where someone is talking about doing a 3hour ride and suggesting this is okay because it doesn’t breach the guidelines but is “stretching them to the limit”.
The guidance is to minimise your time outside, even for exercise.

What "limit" is this you are referring to? The prescribed one exercise a day was of no specified length. If one is truly to minimise time - and take that word and meaning literally, as you seem to be doing - that means zero. None. Zilch. That is the minimum - or if you do not wish to consider zero a number, then make it one second. Anything above that is no longer a minimum.

The more sensible discussion was about what is reasonable under the circumstances, and that will vary by location - three hours on a lonely road in the Scottish highlands is not the same as three hours tooling around London.