Are group rides safe?

By you I guess. I have yet to meet a single person personally that has had this virus so in my area it seems like the fear has grossly outweighed the reality. But as I said, YMMV. If you aren’t comfortable then follow the protocol that makes you comfortable. I will do the same. In terms of leadership, yeah, not going to go there.

This is a contact tracing issue/problem. We simply don’t have it, so it’s impossible to say.

By “we” I mean anyone outside of South Korea, Taiwan, etc.

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Fair enough, and you may be right. But there could also be a bunch of asymptomatic people in your area. Just because 1, or a group of people, are asymptomatic does not mean that a given individual would be were they to become infected. What we do know is we know very little about the virus, so a little caution probably wouldn’t hurt. So ya, whatever you’re comfortable with, within reason.

Also that may be the case in your area, but not every area is (I.e. Italy, NY, etc.) so it’s important to have the conversation at least.

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Totally agree.

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The tricky dynamic for all of this is the individual risk tolerance vs. community risk vs. the benefits for all.

As much as I hate getting sick, I’m willing to take the risk of a group ride. Probably more likely to get seriously injured in a bike wreck vs. serious sickness or death from covid. That part is simple and very much an individual decision based on risk tolerance.

The harder part is whether I am contributing to community spread by doing group rides or big organized races, going to a gym, etc. The best I can do is just find a personal balance that feels right based on the info I have. People who feel everyone should be locked up in their houses until we have a vaccine will not be happy with my choices. Unfortunately, there is no scenario where people aren’t getting sick and dying from this daily and more people will die as we allow more social interaction vs. keep everything in lock down. The harsh reality is that the world is currently playing a balancing act between “acceptable” death rates vs. “acceptable” freedom to live life. Everyone has a different definition of “acceptable” for these things and our leaders/governments are trying to strike a balance through policy. As much as I think many of these politicians are complete bone heads, it’s a no win situation for them since every option at their disposal still includes death and economic disaster.

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When all this started my biggest concern with road riding and group rides was getting in an accident and having to go to the ER or hospital. So, I’ve been doing a lot of gravel riding. A couple of times per week a few of us go as a group. On gravel we are usually socially distanced anyway. We no longer share food, shake hands, fist bump, spit, blow snot, etc.

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US based here. Where I live we’re allowed to socialize in groups of up to 10. So I guess that would mean group rides of up to 10 are now permitted.

Personally I did zero riding with other people until two weekends ago, when I expanded my social distancing bubble to include two teammates who I am now riding with on weekends. This was a risk I was willing to take because, as someone living alone, I needed the social interaction for my mental health more than I needed to maintain my current social distancing bubble of myself and my parents (for whom I am shopping and handling all other interactions).

I will likely maintain a fairly small, but gradually increasing, group of people I ride with throughout the summer. I don’t really plan to attend typical large group rides nor races until more serious testing is in place and we have an idea of relative herd immunity numbers

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Where I am we are allowed to ride in groups of 5. Club rides and all organized events are still cancelled. We went out last weekend for a DK100 alternative social distancing gravel ride. The guys who were slightly more concerned stayed on the front more. We did a good job of not drafting for the first 60K but it started to fall apart as fatigue set in. It was a group of 4 and we were all pretty comfortable that everyone was working from home and following protocols.