Anybody thinking about cutting back on group rides b/c of Delta?
 

(There used to be a covid forum for this, but it got shut down. I know that this is a topic that could turn political, but I hope that people can just say where they are at, and leave the politics out of it. If I'm wrong, I'm OK with the mods shutting down the thread)

I'm still going on group rides, and I don't yet plan to stop. I think that *most* of my ride partners are vaccinated, but I don't know for sure.

The things that we learned about covid transmissibility last year - nobody knows if they apply to Delta. as in, "you're pretty safe outside". Does that apply to Delta? I dunno.

So I'm having second thoughts.

You?

Let me amend that. I know that most of my ride partners are vaccinated, but I don't know if all are. Odds are, some aren't.

Not cutting back on group rides yet but the groups that turn out at club rides are much smaller than pre-covid.
I didn't do group rides for a lot of last year, though. Started back with small groups or just one or two other riders.

No, not planning on cutting back at this point. Everyone within my small club is vaccinated and treats the issue with due respect, IMO. We meet outside, we do post-ride food/drink outside, we carry masks just in case we need to go inside.

I'm not cutting back, I didn't do group rides before covid. 🙃

That said I do think you're safe outside. I do group other sports and Delta isn't changing that. You need some large number of viral particles to become infected, indoor vs outdoor air makes a huge difference in how much of somebody else's breath you take in.

There's legitimate question about what degree vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. Apparently you build up systemic immunity that isn't present in your nose and throat where the virus takes hold. We just don't know.

Until we learn that it actually transmits differently from the original strains, I’m not going to assume it does. That would be like wearing gloves in public because Delta “might” transmit through touch.

I never stopped wearing a mask in public though, and will not until this thing is actually gone from the public. For realsies.

I haven't done many group rides. I did do a couple of century rides in the past, as well as ride the rim.

I'm not signed up for any century rides, and could allow COVID to influence my choice. Oops, it looks like I just missed the Blackberry Bramble. Ride the Rim is still ahead. A lot of open air, but hectic at the rest stops.

Apparently nobody in my massive group has gotten really sick from covid, its like cycling makes you immune to it. I think most of the riders are vaccinated, I'm not and don't plan on bringing it up haha. My main worry is once the lockdowns go forward as planned people will stop coming out :(

If you're riding close quarters with people you don't know well there's always a chance that they are unvaccinated. Some people might even lie about their status to avoid ridicule.

Probably depends on how bad it gets. I'm still registered for some coming up in September and/or October.

However these rides though 500 or more attending always have me pretty much in a small group or solo. Even when waiting for the start.

Though there has been speculation about even riding 20 or more feet behind another not being safe, there is no evidence. Most breaths will be dispersed by breeze and most of the time there is a cross wind that will blow every breath out of the path of others behind.

And I've got my vaccination. So even if I do, I'm going to imagine that I won't get a bad case of it. Though there are a few exceptions for the vaccinated that do wind up getting hospitalized. But if I was going to base everything on the few and not the many, I wouldn't even ride a bike, drive or fly.... even without COVID being the thing.

But I reserve the right to change my mind up until I get to the start place. I can always go home if I don't like what I see.

Most of our group is vaccinated but we still are having our post ride beers outdoors. Of the two anti vaxers I know, one has just become very ill with COVID. And his wife. Self inflicted :foo: but fingers crossed for a friend.

I imagine they're giving you plenty of space for all kinds of other reasons...

I did group rides right through the worst of it, but we did keep them to just "family" and converted one of our two weekday morning thrashes to a "socially distanced time trial" until everyone was vaxed. No plans to stop now, but I am back to wearing a mask in the supermarket. :(

Quite true, but with Delta, you need 1000 times less b/c the viral load is 1000 times as much. Is the indoor air/outdoor air difference a factor of 1000?

Not sure.


I have been hesitant to do group rides since early 2020. This Spring I reconnected with my regular group (we also all work together in a science-related industry, and are all fully vaccinated) and we did a short tour together. I don't know if the Delta Variant will have any effect and I will retreat back to riding alone 100% of the time, or if I can push my nerves aside and keep riding with them.

Riding next to someone at even 15mph very well might be 1000x less load than sitting next to someone at a bar for the same length of time, yes. Breath droplets are getting constantly yanked back by the wind. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for being extra cautious, but riding with someone seems much less risky than, say, going to the grocery store. Do you have any indication that riding next to someone with the air getting pushed back at 15mph isn't 1000x less load?

I do not know the answer to that question. But your "might very well be" is also not a high degree of certainty.

Probably more like 100,000x

Unless the group is limited to a maximum of two riders and those riders ride next to one another for the duration of the ride, group rides consist mostly of riders lined up, one behind another. Breath droplets are constantly yanked by the wind and move in a stream from the face of the rider in front to that of the rider behind. Compare a rider squirting water into his or her helmet; droplets would inevitably spray into the face of the next rider. It's hard to think of a more efficient virus delivery system.

Simple rule that I follow: I think, "What would the virus want me to do in this situation?" Then I do the opposite.

Okay, so that's a theory. How does this square up with the spread among cyclists IRL? Is it those damn pacelines in FL and TX that are leading the surge? Somehow, I doubt that.

covid will never go away. We will just learn to live with it in time. We're just not there yet.

Does anyone on this forum know Larry? Know anyone who knows Larry within 6 degrees of separation. In close to 20:years on BF, I’ve seen my share of trolls. I have to give Larry some cred however on trolling on almost every possible issue imaginable. I can’t believe there actually is a real Larry.

I’m vaccinated, so I have no concerns. If any of my ride buddies choose not to get the jab, there’s the possibility that I, an asymptomatic carrier, could give it to them, but that’s on them

there’s no actual evidence that the virus is spread in such a manner. There was one theoretical paper that suggested that it might be, but it was all based on computer simulations. However, it had nice colorful graphics, so the media glommed onto it and it suddenly became gospel.

No change for me. When I first heard about the new SARS epidemic in China in winter 2019 I knew we were in for a couple of years of impact. (Although I didn't anticipate the highly polarized and politicized reactions, since nothing like that occurred with the 2004 SARS pandemic or any flu, meningitis or other pandemic in my lifetime.)

I stopped doing fast group rides in autumn 2019 anyway. At the time I didn't know whether I had severe allergies, an upper respiratory inflammation (both of which I've had for years, occasionally treated with prednisone), or was sick with flu or worse. I didn't want to spread my cooties from sneezing, hacking coughs, asthma attacks, etc., so I quit fast group rides where it's impossible to completely avoid clouds of spit-spray. Usually I'd hang at the back, but occasionally had to take a turn up front and hoped I could breathe long enough to do my bit for a minute or so.

After the COVID pandemic appeared inescapable in early 2020 I quit all group rides for several months. By July 2020 things seemed to be settling down a bit, and most evidence indicated that small group activities outdoors were reasonably safe. So I'd do maybe one casual group ride with a few friends per month. We barely work up a sweat but it's pleasant and a good way to rack up some easy miles. On my own I tend to emphasize hard workouts of 60-90 minutes and seldom ride solo longer than 35 miles. But it's a 24 mile round trip just to join most local group rides, so between the commute and group ride I can do 40-50 miles or more at a recovery effort.

After getting fully vaxxed (Moderna) this spring, I joined two or three casual group rides a month. We do a dinner ride once a month, and have done all of those outdoors on patios, or sometimes a potluck in a park. I'll probably continue doing a couple of casual group rides a month, but not a few times a week like I used to.

At first some local friends formed fairly small groups of close friends for frequent group rides, in hopes of minimizing the exposure network. Good in theory. In actual practice, many folks who ride with one group will also join others, and so on, with an ever expanding network of risk.

Several friends have continued casual group rides several times a week throughout the pandemic. To my knowledge there has been one case of one person becoming sick from COVID and recovering, but a family member caught it and died. In other groups that I don't participate with, both parents of a local personal trainer died of COVID. The trainer's clients included the former mayor, who got COVID but recovered, and a fairly large network of other people who also caught it.

There's no way to know for certain how they caught it, because -- judging from their social media posts -- the folks who continued large group rides throughout the pandemic are also very active in other events, meetings, parties, etc., and photos indicate few were masked even indoors.

So while medical evidence indicates that some outdoor activities are reasonably safe -- a smallish group, a breeze to disperse the airborne Super Cooties -- my impression is that the same folks who are most active in group bike rides are also big risk takers in almost every other way. So we're not only exposed to other folks even in small group rides. We're exposed to everyone else they've associated with in large and diverse networks.

So I'll continue doing mostly solo workout rides where I don't need to worry about blowing snot rockets and hacking up airborne clouds of Super Cooties all over other folks. The current best evidence indicates my Moderna jabs should provide roughly 65% protection from the Delta variant, although a booster may be appropriate later this year.

My impression from watching friends, acquaintances and associated networks of acquaintances that includes pretty much the entire local government: the problem isn't necessarily group rides, fast or otherwise. It's the complex network of associates.

Many of my friends and acquaintances continued group rides throughout the pandemic, with the exception of a brief pause for a month or so in spring 2020.

At first they tested the waters with one group ride a week among close friends.

Pretty soon, some were also joining other small group rides. And members of those other groups also joined other groups. And so on.

Some are directly involved in local government, or in businesses that are actively involved in local government. And photos on social media indicate they continued participating in many indoor activities -- where masks have limited effect. By summer 2020 most had discarded masks in most situations, especially outdoors.

So it's not just a group ride, fast or otherwise. From what I've seen among friends, if they participate in any group rides at all, they probably have a diverse network of other contacts. And the longer they went without experiencing any COVID symptoms, the more risky contacts they engaged in.

It's likely the people who did become ill were their older family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, clients, etc. The handful of reports in the news about COVID deaths indicate these were mostly folks who were elderly and/or disabled or with compromised immune systems, diabetes, heart or respiratory disease, etc. That includes the elderly parents of a local personal trainer, whose clients included the mayor. His parents both died. The mayor got sick but recovered. That's just one example. Most got little or no news coverage.

The main problem wasn't resistance to reasonable precautions while waiting for vaccines. Most folks just didn't believe it was real, or really serious, so they didn't see much need for precautions. The economic crisis took priority, which is understandable. The main problem continues to be resistance to vaccines. It was predictable that people would quickly tire of masks, social distancing, constraints on business, travel, etc. But it wasn't predictable that we'd see so much resistance to the easiest practicable solution -- vaccines. That's a head scratcher, at least for those of us who grew up in an era when immunizations were considered a routine, mundane thing that we just did because it made sense and it worked.