Will you continue cycling as normal during coronavirus?

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  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,325
    manglier said:

    bianchimoon said:

    ugo.santalucia said:

    I'm building fitness aiming at 30 miles in 90 minutes, which seems a sensible time to spend outdoors... today it took me 94 minutes, but it was still a bit breezy... might manage the magic number soon... with zero traffic I can even venture on some A roads I normally avoid... :D

    warm weather due Sunday, but brisk southerly, is it cheating to plan route accordingly ;)
    Not cheating at all; headwind out, tailwind home as usual. Many a fine KOM acquired that way, especially when the wind is from an uncommon direction.
    You know you are not doing it right when you push 300 Watt for 5 minutes and you don't even make the top 10% of the segment...
    Virtually all KOM but the categorised climbs are done in large groups and of course with a tailwind.
    left the forum March 2023
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,495
    Use it as a measure against yourself and ignore the digital cheats.
    I gave up on KOMs when someone took my wind assisted one by cycling 2 miles up a 4% gradient at an average speed of 40mph. 🤔
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • neeb
    neeb Posts: 4,473
    I only pay attention to KOMs with proper hills in them. Various ways you can target them if the top slot is out of reach - top 5%, top 10 in your age group, faster than the QOM.. :D
  • motogull
    motogull Posts: 325
    I'm a bit miffed that that outside exercising is at risk when you read the news story harping on about people faffing in parks, so not exercising just milling about.
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,325
    motogull said:

    I'm a bit miffed that that outside exercising is at risk when you read the news story harping on about people faffing in parks, so not exercising just milling about.

    We live to cycle another day... hopefully we'll have sxxt weather over the Easter bank holiday, so people will stay in and we can all keep cycling... :D
    left the forum March 2023
  • manglier
    manglier Posts: 1,298
    I went out yesterday for the fist time in more than 2 months following a pile up with a pedestrian (bruising finally cleared up). I must admit to being somewhat surprised by the number of pairs and triples out riding, even one group of 5 but they were an obvious family group so I'll let them off. Come on people keep it solo or Matt Hancock will ban it!
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,325
    manglier said:

    I went out yesterday for the fist time in more than 2 months following a pile up with a pedestrian (bruising finally cleared up). I must admit to being somewhat surprised by the number of pairs and triples out riding, even one group of 5 but they were an obvious family group so I'll let them off. Come on people keep it solo or Matt Hancock will ban it!

    Not my experience at all... and I go out a fair bit more
    left the forum March 2023
  • neeb
    neeb Posts: 4,473
    I have seen a few pairs out but they are very much the exception. Of course pairs will often be partners, or I suppose they could be flatmates.. Gives a bad impression however.

    I'm going to be very miffed if we are banned from riding solo on the road (about the most socially isolated thing you could do other than being inside completely on your own), just because joggers and sunbathers are clogging up the parks.. I still haven't forgiven my school teacher in Primary 5 for keeping the whole class in detention because of misbehavior that I played no part in and, in fact, had been annoyed by too!
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,495
    Detention? Meh, I got 6 of the belt.
    Fly with the crows, shot with the crows.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,495
    edited April 2020
    .
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • aberdeen_lune
    aberdeen_lune Posts: 547
    It’s great to be out cycling at the moment. Roads have 1950s volume of traffic, rare to have to stop at a give way junction. Lots of folk out running or walking in family groups. I will take it bad when things go back to normal and everyone jumps back in their cars again.

    Yes I am aware that people directly impacted are having a tough time.

    Do you think society will change when people realise the benefits of not driving everywhere?
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,495
    aberdeen_lune said:


    Do you think society will change when people realise the benefits of not driving everywhere?

    I asked this question earlier. The only response was for about a week or so. Sadly, I had to agree.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,325
    Society will change, but I don't think car journeys will go down significantly... at least not because people realise they can do without.
    I can see air travel going down and maybe travel in general. Some will realise that they can indeed work from home, so maybe fewer journeys by train too. Maybe we won't need all that extra capacity after all.
    I don't see talks about a third runway making a comeback any time soon and maybe even HS2 will be scrutinised again, since the country will be bankrupt.
    Large venues will face questions on whether they can operate safely and even small venues might have to face closing down due to lower demand.
    Young people were already drinking less than their predecessors and I can see pubs continuing to struggle over the next months and maybe years.
    This might be the nail in the coffin for cinemas and films might only be released for home entertaining platforms.
    The high street will take another battering and whilst previously shops were being replaced by cafes and restaurants, that might no longer be the case. The so called dark kitchens used by Deliveroo will be praised for being safe environments to cook takeaway food.
    Home deliveries will go from strength to strength.

    Basically a lot of what we are seeing now is here to stay
    left the forum March 2023
  • e17blade
    e17blade Posts: 215
    I am not riding 'normally' but I am riding. It took me a couple of weeks to get my head round it though...

    https://e17blade.wordpress.com/2020/04/07/lockdown-cycling/
  • bianchimoon
    bianchimoon Posts: 3,942
    Why duplicate post and start a new thread on the same subject?
    All lies and jest..still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest....
  • imposter2.0
    imposter2.0 Posts: 12,028
    bianchimoon said:

    Why duplicate post and start a new thread on the same subject?

    How else is he going to increase traffic to his blog? ;)
  • e17blade
    e17blade Posts: 215
    bianchimoon said:

    Why duplicate post and start a new thread on the same subject?

    I changed my mind and now can’t see a ‘delete post’ option. Is there one?
  • bianchimoon
    bianchimoon Posts: 3,942
    One positive of this from a personal point of view is that my daughter has take; up cycling using my second bike, she’s 19 and never really shown an interest preferring to run, but in the last few weeks her boyfriend who’s locked down with us, has bought a bike and they’ve both been doing regular rides approx 12 miles at 14mph averages. Yesterday I was about to go out and my daughter came and asked if she could come with me, we did a short 25 mile lumpy route at a fairly leisurely 16.5 mph. It’s just a matter of time until I’ll be struggling to keep up I think :o
    All lies and jest..still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest....
  • e17blade
    e17blade Posts: 215
    bianchimoon said:

    One positive of this from a personal point of view is that my daughter has take; up cycling using my second bike, she’s 19 and never really shown an interest preferring to run, but in the last few weeks her boyfriend who’s locked down with us, has bought a bike and they’ve both been doing regular rides approx 12 miles at 14mph averages. Yesterday I was about to go out and my daughter came and asked if she could come with me, we did a short 25 mile lumpy route at a fairly leisurely 16.5 mph. It’s just a matter of time until I’ll be struggling to keep up I think :o

    That’s really nice - enjoy it while you can!

    Hopefully a legacy of all this will be a handful of the people suddenly valuing exercise (not just cycling) will hold onto it afterwards.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,228
    This sounds like a good idea, to be honest.

    https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8037/box-hill-closed-to-cyclists-and-cars-for-easter-to-prevent-the-spread-of-coronavirus
  • joe_totale-2
    joe_totale-2 Posts: 1,333
    kingstongraham said:

    This sounds like a good idea, to be honest.

    https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8037/box-hill-closed-to-cyclists-and-cars-for-easter-to-prevent-the-spread-of-coronavirus

    Yeah, shame it had to come to this but it's impossible for them to maintain social distancing at somewhere so busy.

    Cyclists should be more creative when it comes to route planning.
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,325
    Makes total sense...
    left the forum March 2023
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,325
    In other (good) news... A&E admissions are the lowest since records began, to the point that some A&E departments have temporarily closed to do other things...
    left the forum March 2023
  • edindevon
    edindevon Posts: 325
    For anyone who didn't already see it, the Guardian had a piece today about a research paper that referenced the risks related to cycling too close to others:

    Many countries around the world have made daily exercise one of the few exceptions to strict lockdowns intended to curb the spread of coronavirus. But what if your daily jog, cycle, or even walk, with sanctioned fellow runners, cyclists or walkers could actually put people at greater danger of catching the disease?

    That’s what new research by a team of Dutch and Belgian researchers has found. They are warning that existing social distancing advice does not account for the increased potential spread of the virus in aerosol droplets that catch in the slipstream of heavily breathing runners and cyclists.

    In a white paper made freely available online by lead researcher Bert Blocken, professor of civil engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology, they say:

    "Walking, running or cycling are welcome activities to ease one’s mind in times of Covid‐19. But it is best not to exercise these outdoor sports in each other’s slipstream, according to recent research by Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and KU Leuven in Belgium".

    While the official advice to remain a specified distance away from other individuals outside your household works indoors, or in calm weather, Blocken says:

    "If someone exhales, coughs or sneezes while walking, running or cycling, most of the microdroplets are entrained in the wake or slipstream behind the runner or cyclist. The other person who runs or cycles just behind this leading person in the slipstream then moves through that cloud of droplets.

    The slipstream is the zone that arises right behind a person when they are walking or cycling, and which pulls the air a bit along with this moving person, as it were.

    Cyclists like to position themselves in the slipstream of others to reduce their air resistance. But someone who walks or runs also has such a slipstream. We have seen that no matter how that zone forms, droplets end up in that air stream. So it’s best to avoid that slipstream."
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,228
    On that study

    https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/v74az9/the-viral-study-about-runners-spreading-coronavirus-is-not-actually-a-study?__twitter_impression=true

  • schlepcycling
    schlepcycling Posts: 1,614
    kingstongraham said:

    On that study

    https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/v74az9/the-viral-study-about-runners-spreading-coronavirus-is-not-actually-a-study?__twitter_impression=true

    Worryingly this is being reported as research by the BBC website at 20.27

    https://bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52225173
    'Hello to Jason Isaacs'
  • neeb
    neeb Posts: 4,473
    I must admit that when I'm overtaking another cyclist I move out long before I reach them for exactly this reason.

    Even if it's 20m you can manage that quite easily when solo cycling on the road.

    But road cyclists will get the blame vicariously for the hoards of new cyclists on the shared pedestrain paths and in the parks...
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,325
    There is no evidence that you can get the virus by being in the slipstream of a cycling in front, whether at 2 or 10 meters...
    That said, there is also no reason to stay in their slipstream in the first place, especially now that roads are empty
    left the forum March 2023
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,495
    That’s a maybe but I don’t like anyone sneezing in front of me in a bunch at the best of times.
    I’m giving everyone a wide berth these days.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • Charlie_Croker
    Charlie_Croker Posts: 1,727
    pblakeney said:

    That’s a maybe but I don’t like anyone sneezing in front of me in a bunch at the best of times.
    I’m giving everyone a wide berth these days.

    I agree with that

    What does surprise me is the amount of vehicles (cars n vans) that choose to pass me closely*, given that the roads are less populated
    *if I put my arm out I could touch them

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