Many roadies including me are suffering from social distancing
for they are not able to flock together like good old days.
Many groups in my city have cancelled their periodical group rides.

I my case, I am not going to attend any group ride(even a small ride with 2 or 3 dudes) and have planned every workout to be solo flat ride or short climb ride.

However there are some advantages. You can organize your own workout and change every detail on road if required. Nowadays, I seldom do 30s sprint 30s rest intervals when I got bored while riding solo.

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Stay home, stay healthy.

Looks like business as usual on the roads where I am.

Here in Spain cycling (and running) outdoors is now banned as part of the lockdown measures. Already people are being fined if caught. I actually saw somebody this morning from my balcony being pulled over by the police for running. Another friend actually rode today and received two official warnings from police in just 40km.

Same in Italy I understand.

I have heard that the pros are allowed to trains as it is their job. But they must carry a recent Corona test result with them and proof they are pros.

The logic of the measure is that they want to reduce the load on hospitals as much as possible, each bike accident takes up precious time in the hospital from Corona patients. Plus, if you have an accident you really don’t want to be anywhere near a hospital for fear of catching the virus.

This lasts 15days here, starting officially on Monday morning.

You've got to be kidding! Cycling outdoors is banned because it causes a significant load on hospitals... wtf?! Why not ban cars instead? They have 100x the accidents, and as a side bonus the bike accidents would drop to near zero! I sure hope they don't enforce stupid rules like that in the US...

USA Cycling posted this today, and it mentions canceling group rides.

"Due to the latest data on Covid-19’s spread and the healthcare system’s ability to manage this crisis, USA Cycling is recommending cancellation or postponement of all sanctioned events immediately and calling on all race and event directors, clubs, coaches, athletes and members to postpone or cancel all scheduled races and events immediately. This includes any gatherings such as group rides, in-person group meetings, etc," the US governing body said.

Use of cars and other vehicles is also under strict controls too.

Plus, all bars, cafes, restaurants, non food shops, swimming pools, gyms etc etc.......are closed for a minimum two weeks across Italy, Spain and I believe France too.

Home delivery of groceries is only possible if you are old or disabled.

Get ready US, you will be next to fall under these emergency controls.

There are "emergency controls"... and there are stupid rules that make no sense.

I am not an expert on public health, I am guessing you aren’t either. So best to just follow the advice of the experts advising our governments.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

You don't need to be an expert on public health to know that someone riding a bike alone is not going to spread the virus. I doubt they will get that silly in the US, but who knows.

....some people really think they know it all don’t they. You really should run for president.

China managed their situation well mainly because most people very diligently followed all the rules that were put in place. So far in Europe it looks to me like everybody is being similarly respectful of the rules that are put in place. Hopefully this will result in a quick resolution and minimise the pain and suffering.

If everybody has your attitude in the US and is selective on which rules they support and which they disagree with, then good luck in managing your imminent pandemic.

While I agree that we should follow the rules made by government, even in a lockdown one has to go to the grocery store to get food. Biking to a store or running there should be reasonable means versus a car. I can't really see how cycling or running are adding to the spread when done outdoors. If anything it is getting people away from each other.

I believe US will be less impacted than Europe as will be the case in Canada. We inherently have more space between people, and we travel in cars vs mass transit and generally our cities are less compact. Our polluting lifestyle in North America will play out in our favour. But US and Canada have to curb travel.

Ideally Trump grounds all aircraft other than cargo airplanes TOMORROW and just extends an aid package to the major airlines so they stop operating and stop assisting in the spread. Between that and the rest of us avoiding each other, we can flatten the curve fast.

Preventing people from going outside *alone* is just plain stupid. That is not an infection risk.

Ya... don't have high hopes for "aid". Big corporations will lobby for it and get it (protecting stock prices), but MANY businesses will be slammed just as hard and won't get squat. Paid leave for your employees who can't work because your business is shut down... where does that money come from? You're already making zero $ and having to pay for rent and utilities... now you have to pay employees to stay home as well?

Unfortunately not everyone in Europe (I'm in Belgium) is following the rules as well as they should. Which is how many (most?) countries got in this situation in the first place, not being more strict and careful at times when we knew people were travelling to and from risky areas. I hope going to ski in Italy was fun because that basically caused the entire country to be shut down. Before that week of holidays we had 1 isolated case coming back from China (of course carefully monitored) so it's not like people weren't aware. They're just selfish and dumb. Fun fact: one of the initial people coming back infected from Italy thought he was fine because he wore a scarf, and that dumbass is a teacher.

Belgium is locked down now (non-essential places are closed, but we can go outside still so not like in Spain or Italy yet) and the response of many was to hoard toilet paper (like everywhere apparently) and to have a last lockdown party until midnight Friday evening when bars would close. Then yesterday they went just over the border where the neighbour countries hadn't shut down bars and shopping stores yet (they did today). People keep getting together for walks/group rides/... because some think just being outside is already more healthy. Sure it might be, but if someone sneezes on you outside vs inside, that won't make any difference.

I just read that UK is being even more insane than other EU countries (well they wanted out so there was already a sign they were different in a special way): they will try to somehow make people immune by not really avoiding the spread of the disease. The "thinking" behind this is that this is just the start of another yearly seasonal thing like the flu. I'm not sure Nostradamus ever predicted stuff like this but Einstein sure did by saying stupidity is infinite (he wasn't sure about the universe).


As for the bike riding not being allowed (Spain/Italy): plenty of people manage to fall of their bike without any others involved. Plus at the same time they are limiting cars on the road as nobody is allowed to just go outside for any reason, so the point about "why not cars" is not relevant. As is usual with practically all "what about" arguments. Really, when you start a point by saying "what about" then it's likely a dumb point. Anyway, when a country is indeed dealing with hospitals being overloaded, then such a measure, no matter how much you think you'll be fine, is very warranted.

US is on the same exponential growth path as Italy was. Right on track. Sure you have some remote areas, but if you check the world map with the spread of the virus you might notice there are some very remote places also infected. All it takes is one idiot. Pretty sure all countries have some of those.

Reluctantly made a run to the grocery store a minute ago. Some idiots were holding little league baseball practice when I drove by the fields. 🤦🏼‍♂️

The US "response" has been a total clusterfuck of stupidity. Trump dismantled our national pandemic response team 2 years ago. There is no one in charge of anything. People coming back to the US from overseas stand packed together in immigration for hours. No one is checked for disease at all. No restrictions on in-country travel still, so "spring-breakers" are running all over spreading disease. Events are getting cancelled (even low risk ones), but one of our senators stated publicly today that people should travel and go to restaurants and bars to support the economy!

Too much political BS. 90% of republicans think everything is fine! I hope they are right... but you'd have to have your head up your butt to believe that. Just look at Italy... only worse.

I don't think our sparse population and lack of public transit is going to save us. There is enough travel for it to be seeded everywhere, and restaurants, bars, schools, grocery stores, etc are great ways for it to spread locally.

The amount of St Patricks day parties and bar crawls that still went on this weekend makes me want to punch a wall. I'm so annoyed with my generation at the moment.

You are missing what I am saying. Generally in North America, there is more personal space and more use of personal vehicles rather than public transit. This is helpful in a polluting kind of way (we burn through more carbon for our personal space). Its not like Canada is filled with geniuses but we did better than lost of Europe even though Covid19 got here in early Jan directly from Wuhan. Sure our medical system did well, but its not just that. We're not in each others space like Europeans.

But it may spread just like Europe. There are some factors in favour of a fast North America spread that are exactly the same as in Europe and that's the space in airplanes and airports. The space there is identical to Europe.

There are two bars within a couple of doors of each other at the end of my street - one is a full-blown Irish place in an old movie theater, and on the marquee outside they have something like "St Patrick's Parade Cancelled? No problem - we have (local Irish band) playing Saturday and Sunday". WTAF.

The other bar (more of a "craft beer" place) is open too and I noticed yesterday that they seemed pretty busy when I drove past around mid-afternoon.

Back to the OP, I rode the Schuylkill River Trail between the city and King of Prussia yesterday and today and it's definitely quieter than normal. Not many groups at all, did see a few groups of 5-10 yesterday but for the most part it was either groups of 2 or solo riders. Lots of families with young children out riding/walking, which was kind of surprising to me.

We had 9 guys today on our group ride in Arizona. Biz as usual (and we're all over 50).

Space doesn't matter at all. It's people getting in contact with each other. And people as a group are dumb. I know people hope and like to think they are exceptions, but everything I hear/read/see assures me that US and Canada are as filled with dumb people as the rest of the world. And even so, it only takes a few idiots to ruin it for the rest. In the US there's even people denying anything bad is happening because the president said it's not that bad. It was the next hoax, right? I usually do have more faith in Canada, but if you see that even the remotest places to live have infected, then it's kinda unrealistic to think it won't get there. Especially because it already is there and not in small numbers anymore.

Unless you guys have listed all 244 Canadian cases and tracked down all the people they met over the last week (let's keep it short and simple even though it could be 2-3 weeks), and everyone those people met, and everyone ... You get the idea. Quite easy to contain if that's the case. Doesn't take a genius to realize there's no way to keep it contained once it spreads over more than a few people. If it was then we'd all be worried about whatever training we just did.

Today the government in the Netherlands, where i live, ordered all restaurants, bars, concert halls, cinemas et cetera to be closed as of today untill april 6th. Furthermore also schools and daycare centers will be closed starting monday. People are advised to work from home as much they can if possible. People have started to stock pile food and weirdly also toilet paper. Supermarket shelves are empty.

We're not that concerned with death rates. We're trying to slow the spread so hospitals and other crucial services won't be overloaded. That could result in a situation where not everyone can receive proper care.

Swimming pools are closed. My local tri club has cancelled all group trainings. I ride and run alone and I don't swim. I tri to stay away from other people as much as i can but i still need to go shopping for food.
Group rides don't seem sensible to me at this point.