[SA Chris]

To be fair with all those fag ends all over the garden I'd keep my kids out of it too!

[Paul B]

But 50km? Max distance from home of 25km? Is anyone really going to be able to walk that home? I'm surprised that that seems OK when compared with some of the things that you're saying aren't OK.

The reality is for where I live, unless I stay in the valley (which is inherently busier both with bike, and car/tractor traffic), as soon as I'm over one of the rather large hills (~5 miles) that surround this place, walking home isn't really an option. How far can you realistically plan to walk in cleats anyway? Thinking back on my near misses, they're almost all between me and Longridge which is ostensibly flat.

I think it's easy to latch onto the distance from home but in reality that isn't the best measure. Choice of route (familiarity, traffic [both bike and car] etc.) and the ability to be self-sufficient in terms of repair are more important although perhaps that's justifying my own choices  . I think I've called for help once since starting riding a few years ago and that was me being utterly lazy knowing Nat was passing and having got my timings a bit wrong (it was getting a bit dark).

I've turned Strava onto private as has my Dad as I think I'm lucky in living somewhere where in a short distance (leaving from my front door) I can be fairly certain of seeing very few people. I don't feel like I've been taking the p*ss at all but from reading this would expect a few raised eyebrows if I were to post distances/duration.

[petejh]

Just on a pragmatic point - people riding roadbikes could easily zip-tie a pair of lightweight fell-running shoes or approach shoes to their frames to allow walking home if necessary. Or carry in a light pack.

[Paul B]

Just on a pragmatic point - people riding roadbikes could easily zip-tie a pair of lightweight fell-running shoes or approach shoes to their frames to allow walking home if necessary. Or carry in a light pack.

A set of FiveFingers rammed in your jersey pockets?  You can obviously remove the cleats too.

EDIT: I guess my point was that it's easy to fixate on how far you are from home, but walking back is the last thing you should need to rely on after all of the other self sufficiency/preservation measures.

[SA Chris]

Just on a pragmatic point - people riding roadbikes could easily zip-tie a pair of lightweight fell-running shoes or approach shoes to their frames to allow walking home if necessary. Or carry in a light pack.

Fine unless you spannered your bike going downhill too fast, falling off and busting a collarbone. I think cycling well within your limits must be another factor to include. Those Strava segments will always be there..

[Paul B]

Fine unless you spannered your bike going downhill too fast, falling off and busting a collarbone. I think cycling well within your limits must be another factor to include. Those Strava segments will always be there..

Completely but nobody is suggesting that hitting national speed limit is a reasonable thing to be doing! The pheasants (seeing very little in the way of traffic) are a special kind of stupid this year.

[Alex-the-Alex]

The double standards being applied to cycling and climbing are quite impressive... Not being critical. Just pointing out the difference in perception seems strange.. (I agree largely with Duma.)

[fiveknuckle21]

I'm with Paul B on this one. I haven't had a return to cycling, rather running, but i believe route choice and also the time of activity are paramount to my decision if and when heading out. If i was to go for a midday run through the middle of Stockport, utilising local cut throughs, parks, busy streets etc I'm more than aware that my potential to transfer the virus if i am infact asymptomatic would be significantly more likely than if i were to run the same distance, in the opposing direction, say up towards Disley, post 8pm.

In the spirit of the current restrictions I believe you should assume that you are asymptomatic. For me this has meant modifying my time of exercise and using local knowledge to try best to avoid anyone. I ran a 'decent' distance on Sunday evening and came across 4 or 5 people.

   

[Oldmanmatt]

The double standards being applied to cycling and climbing are quite impressive... Not being critical. Just pointing out the difference in perception seems strange.. (I agree largely with Duma.)

Yup.

Though to me, it’s not distance per-se, it’s inter community travel. You could manage 50k and never be more than 2 from your home. Or, for me, I could go from home to Teignmouth and back, via several small villages and Newton Abbot, so if I was a reeeally good shedder; I could expose a good 200k of population...

If, and it’s a big if, it’s that easily spread by aerosol.

Caveat: I doubt it, but you get the point, right?

[Paul B]

The double standards being applied to cycling and climbing are quite impressive... Not being critical. Just pointing out the difference in perception seems strange.. (I agree largely with Duma.)

There's no need to apologise, it's a discussion group and the reason I post/read is to hear what others have to say. I WAS critical of certain behaviors early doors, some I still feel rightly so, others less so. 

[petejh]

I think it is those things Matt but more than anything it’s where you live. Someone doing a 100k ride in some parts of Wales or Scotland (or England!) would be far less likely to spread virus to other people compared to someone doing a 5k ride around Stockport or any.other.town.
It’s clear the restrictions are in place in the main (not totally) to reduce and slow down spread in densely populated areas. Those of us who live in rural areas are, I suggest, mostly playing along to feel good about ourselves, display solidarity and community spirit, show a good example (and not encourage people into the countryside from other areas), and yes to not spread virus even though the likelihood - based purely on number of other people encountered - must be so much lower than in towns and cities.

[teestub]

The double standards being applied to cycling and climbing are quite impressive...

I guess it would be a different conversation if the government had said ‘one form of exercise a day, walking, running or lowball bouldering’.

[twoshoes]

The double standards being applied to cycling and climbing are quite impressive... Not being critical. Just pointing out the difference in perception seems strange.. (I agree largely with Duma.)

I'm not sure there's been a double standard. With climbing, the main concern for many people, at least initially, was transmission via contact with infected surfaces - ie. holds. You obviously don't have that problem cycling.

This is obviously leaving aside the potential for accidents (DIY etc etc etc, that's been done to death.) and was before the recent Belgian report into the effects of aerosol transmission.

[Oldmanmatt]

Exactly Pete.
I was angling for the inter community aspect. I could ride laps of St Marychurch and be no worse off than going to do the shop. 
If you live rurally, you’re fine.

At least you would have been, if half of Chelsea wasn’t “isolating” in every converted barn, former small holding and (in caravans) every lay-by...

[petejh]

Regards that Belgian report on aerosol transmission, surely most sensible people already knew that this virus is transmitted by aerosol though? So really, despite the restrictions saying running/cycling are OK, many people who are going running/cycling (especially in populated areas) probably knew at an institute level somewhere in the recesses of their minds that those activities which involve heavily exhaling will carry a risk of transmission above that of gentle walking. Don’t know what point I’m making - maybe that people know they’re doing something that isn’t ideal but if the regulations say it’s OK then that’s all the justification they need.

[tomtom]

What has shifted from 3 weeks ago - is that there seems to be more evidence that CV19 is less likely to be transmitted by contact - and more likely by droplets from someone sneezing, coughing or breathing (esp heavily I would imagine - looking at you runners...).

It would seem that washing hands is less important - and staying the fuck away from other people is more relevant now...

Maybe the guidelines should be revised? and - doesnt it make it seem rather futile that we were all washing our hands 10 times a day 5-6 weeks ago (which certainly helps) rather than closing schools....

[twoshoes]

Regards that Belgian report on aerosol transmission, surely most sensible people already knew that this virus is transmitted by aerosol though? So really, despite the restrictions saying running/cycling are OK, many people who are going running/cycling (especially in populated areas) probably knew at an institute level somewhere in the recesses of their minds that those activities which involve heavily exhaling will carry a risk of transmission above that of gentle walking. Don’t know what point I’m making - maybe that people know they’re doing something that isn’t ideal but if the regulations say it’s OK then that’s all the justification they need.

If you're talking purely about perception, then the consistent advice has been to wash your hands, wear gloves etc, whereas we're also told that masks may or may not make a difference and that the 2-metre distancing is lower in other countries. So for many people the impression is given that touching is bad, breathing is a worst an unknown. I don't know what point I'm making either.

[cowboyhat]

Apparently it's not just idle folk on ukb discussing what is/isn't ok, even the police still have to tell their own officers off (for telling people not to use their gardens)
https://twitter.com/grandad1975/status/1248247686563631104

Christ that's grim. The grimness of stupidity. Like I say, sucks right now to live in a city or densely-populated area with nannies like that around. On the other hand I bet her job sucks right now too, having to deal with bozos like that who appear to enjoy arguing the toss like a stroppy teenager.

Context is important here; thats eatswood, notoriously the poorest area of down town Rotherham. The cops will have just been cruising around the neighbourhood looking to wind up the scrotes who spend their days winding them up.

They are just picking on poor people. And judging by her accent not much would have to change to find herself on the other side of that conversation.

[Alex-the-Alex]

I guess it would be a different conversation if the government had said ‘one form of exercise a day, walking, running or lowball bouldering’.

That was for the BMC to say. I'm wearing my captain hindsight socks here, but was there not an option to frame it as: don't go climbing but lowballing is allowed as exercise if it fits in the general guidelines (local, no driving, household only, social distancing, your 1 exercise etc), you wash hands before and after, and wash your hands of social media too. Instead the blanket ban re-enforced the public image that all climbing is the same and holds the same risks. Fuel for the curtain twitchers. I feel uneasy arguing this point, but I feel an awful lot more uneasy with community snitching and police declaring bouldering illegal.

[teestub]

As per the govt’s message the BMC one needed to be straightforward and strong. What’s a lowball? What’s local? Anything but ‘no climbing’ leaves large grey areas and potentially comeback from the govt as a governing body.

[sdm]

Regards that Belgian report on aerosol transmission, surely most sensible people already knew that this virus is transmitted by aerosol though? So really, despite the restrictions saying running/cycling are OK, many people who are going running/cycling (especially in populated areas) probably knew at an institute level somewhere in the recesses of their minds that those activities which involve heavily exhaling will carry a risk of transmission above that of gentle walking. Don’t know what point I’m making - maybe that people know they’re doing something that isn’t ideal but if the regulations say it’s OK then that’s all the justification they need.

I still run to and around the parks close to my house in Northampton town centre about 3 times a week and walk most other days. I haven't been within 5m of anybody this week (excluding people in their houses or cars). I generally adjust my direction or speed to maximise the distance between myself and others and rarely come within 30m of someone else once off the residential streets.

You can't get the risk down to zero but this seems like a reasonable compromise. With a bit of planning, keeping big distances is quite easy for most people outside of central London.

[spidermonkey09]

What teestub said. It's not community snitching to point out that bouldering at Raven Tor, of all places, is both crushingly dim and incredibly selfish. I don't have an opinion on the guy walking his dog on the moors apart from it was (again) crushingly dim to put on instagram. There's a theme emerging here.

Your argument is the same as Adams; namely, people should be trusted to be sensible. My argument, Tim's too, is that all that grey area will be exploited unfortunately.

[TobyD]

The double standards being applied to cycling and climbing are quite impressive... Not being critical. Just pointing out the difference in perception seems strange.. (I agree largely with Duma.)

Yup.

Though to me, it’s not distance per-se, it’s inter community travel. You could manage 50k and never be more than 2 from your home. Or, for me, I could go from home to Teignmouth and back, via several small villages and Newton Abbot, so if I was a reeeally good shedder; I could expose a good 200k of population...

If, and it’s a big if, it’s that easily spread by aerosol.

Caveat: I doubt it, but you get the point, right?

Whereas I can go through precisely no other towns or villages, and past a lot of empty moorland. If coranovirus was infectious enough to be spread across miles of moorland on the breeze, we'd all already have it.

Will my feeling that cycling is pretty okay and climbing is not, is mostly based on the fact that a reasonable number of people can be out on the road, cycling independently and not be near or interact with each other, whereas if one takes climbing as ok then it really doesn't take many people at a crag for proximity and interaction to be likely.

Alex, you're right I don't have any data, nor I suspect does anyone else. But I'd be surprised if the majority of cycling accidents weren't collisions with or caused by car drivers.
I have a feeling one of the most common ones is someone opening car door in front of cyclist passing row of cars parked at the side of an urban road.

[Will Hunt]

Somewhere there's a road biking forum where they've all agreed that they should stick to the turbo for biking but that a spot of lowball bouldering is probably fine...

[TobyD]

Somewhere there's a road biking forum where they've all agreed that they should stick to the turbo for biking but that a spot of lowball bouldering is probably fine...

 

If you're on alternative realities to try to stay sane, would this is worse if the best strategy was all to stay as close to one another as possible?