I really need racing
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280k people got sick YESTERDAY. over 4,000 died YESTERDAY. Comparing that to death by car accident. 40k died by car accident in 2019. Almost 400k have died by Covid in the past 10 months. And the rate of death is going up exponentially, not down, while automobile deaths are declining. How can you even try to make a comparison?
Not to mention, driving is essential and unavoidable for many. This is ludicrous.
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I believe that Zwift has close to a 100 today, something similar tomorrow too.
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Im over indoor racing. I need the real thing. Just like I want to sit down and eat my dinner somewhere.
Sit on your bike trainer & eat dinner. 
Are there cafƩ rides on zwift? 
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Prediction: Zwift willl start making its own brand of coffee. Itās one of the signs of the apocalypse.
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The real sign of the apocalypse would be if there were cafes in Zwift, and every time you stopped at one, you got a real coffee 
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The real sign might be when you can zwift in a Simās game. 
Hope we donāt all end up doing simulated simulated cafĆ© rides from our tricked out gaming chairs. La-Z-Boy will be the new Specialized. I just depressed myself.
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I have contemplated framing a couch out of carbon fiber. Save 10kg over a traditional couch! Such performance!
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Ha! Would that mean paying your buddies less pizza & beer when they help you move?
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Thinking about it moreā¦ a carbon/titanium sleeper sofa may make it not the heaviest thing on the planet.
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You mean like this Cycling in Grand Theft Auto V with GTBikeV: Details // Setup // Install HOW-TO ā GPLama.com?
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Right now, Iām not certain of the timing of my stateās vaccine rollout. Iām in the last priority group. Iām not doing any large group events until I am personally vaccinated. Iām up for a solo version of anything, thatās for sure. There was one small gravel ride last year that I did, and it was small enough that we were all dispersed at the start and on course. At the finish, there was enough space to keep your distance also; some people talked, but we were all outdoors. I think that sort of thing is acceptable. I donāt normally do TTs, but you can clearly do them similarly.
There may be a grey area with some events. Thereās a May Gran Fondo Iād like to do if safe. It is unlikely I will be vaccinated by then (itās in the realm of possibility, and I hope I am, but right now Iād say thereās maybe a 10% chance that happens). Right now, the site is talking about an afterparty, which I assume is outdoors. The thing is, this was a fairly popular event in normal times, so Iām not sure how safe I would feel. I think not many people will be up for a century ride in May, so I may do that (but retain the option to bail out if thereās too much crowding on the road), and I may not go to the party. If itās a lot of people showing up, I donāt think I can really do it in good conscience. If I did traditional road racing or crits, that would be a grey area also, since those are inherently mass start and you inherently have to keep pace with the pack.
At present, I donāt know how I would feel about large events later in the year. I would assume thereās a good chance most of us will have vaccines available by then. If I am offered the vaccine, I will take it. The thing is, they are 90% efficacious, meaning that I could be in that 10% and someone else in the crowd could be also, plus we donāt know if you can be vaccinated but still be infectious if you get Covid. And we also can assume that not everyone whoās offered the vaccine will take it. I imagine event organizers would restrict the events to people who can show theyāve been vaccinated. The thing is, youāre still in that 10%. Right now, I would lean towards this is an acceptable risk, but my views may change depending on what happens on the ground.
I had a lot of fun with solo and small group challenges last year. If the whole of 2021 has to be that way, I will be bummed but accepting. I hope it does not come to that, but I think we should plan for that to be possible.
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Hereās an article on how to think about social distancing after getting vaccinated. This is changing my thinking a bit in the direction of more caution. The key point is that we need a community to hit herd immunity before we can safely relax social distancing. That means that 75-85% of the people in the community are vaccinated.
First, thatās quite a few people. Thereās the actual availability being constrained, plus a lot of people are hesitant to take the vaccine.
Second, recall that herd immunity means that an outbreak wonāt be self-propagating. An outbreak will die out because the virus quickly runs out of new hosts to infect. This is good, but itās not the same as nobody gets infected. Thereās still some risk to others.
Iām still thinking I would be OK with a smaller event where the organizer requires that participants be vaccinated. We would still have to have masks on when interacting with everyone else. I donāt know if thereāll be social pressure in the right direction by mid next year, when everyone is tired and they think theyāre vaccinated so theyāre OK.
I am a bit more hesitant about larger events based on this information, as you canāt help but interact with the community. We will have to see. The thing is, I donāt know how we would get reliable and prompt information on how many percent of people in a community are vaccinated. I suspect the quality of information available will vary depending on where you are. In principle, I would expect it to be available at the county level in the US at least, but that is a bit of a coarse measure as the county is going to be heterogeneous, and you may have rides that span multiple counties, and there may be lags in vaccination data, etc.
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With Sea Otter moving to October, I think that is the earliest there are going to be major races where the riders are not bubbled.
The rate of vaccinations right now is not encouraging or where we need in order to make 2022 relatively normal. We need to be putting around 1.2-1.4M doses in folks per day to reach herd immunity by the end of 2021 in the US.
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We only have had about 5 weeks of no group riding/racing where i am in AU earlier in 2020. We just had 3 days off over the last weekend as a precautionary lockdown, but all back to normal again. I expect racing this year to be going ahead here, but with occasional missed weeks here and there if any cases pop up
This is true, but do remember that our capacity to produce new vaccine doses should be increasing, plus we get more and more practice at administering the doses, plus we will probably get some more current vaccine candidates improved.
That said, we are also going to be encountering vaccine refusals ā¦ I know a minority of healthcare workers are refusing to get vaccinated for now out of concern over side effects. I mean, I donāt agree but I do understand the vaccine approval process got really compressed. I donāt want to flame people who are nervous about potential side effects and who donāt want to jump first. For that matter, social media shaming certainly wonāt work on the hardcore refusersā¦
I think your post sums it up well and youāre certainly making valid points without bashing anyone I think itās important to understand that some people have valid concerns about a vaccine that had so much pressure behind it to get rolled out. My wife and I never thought anything malicious of it, but what if there are long term effects we donāt know of. Luckily some of our concerns were addressed by another friend in pharmacy regarding side effects, including the fact there were women in the studies who got pregnant (infertility was a concern of ours) and the short term effects as well. After analyzing the info and talking to other friends in the field, sheās getting her first vaccine Monday.
I think itās unfortunate there is so much shaming over this thing. People with concerns have the right to information, and not to be called idiots. I find the most vocal people on either side are either āIām not getting the vaccine itās going to kill me and/or government will track meā or the flip side āIāll take any vaccine they give me because I believe everything everyone says about anythingā and are both equally stupid.
Thereās also still no conclusive studies showing whether or not vaccinated people can still spread the virus to others, at least as of a week ago according to my friend who runs the COVID vaccination program at his hospital. Not a reason not to get it, but something to think about because the shots really only give you IIRC 9 months or so in the clear. He DID tell me that during studies, those who had the vaccine had higher antibodies and immunity than those who actually had COVID
To be clear, my comment about vaccination rate had absolutely nothing to do with people who chose not to get it, for whatever reason.
Iām specifically referring to the availability, tiering, and access to the vaccine. We simply arenāt getting doses into people who want them fast enough. Doses are being wasted. Demand dramatically outpaces supply but yet we havenāt used up supply 
Once everyone who wants a vaccine has gotten one and we see how this pandemic is fairing, then we can start to talk about the other folks.