Much has happened since my last post, where I was humming and hawing over whether to ride outside. I decided against it, but mainly for ‘social pressure’ reasons. I didn’t want to get honked at.

March 23 Update: Well now we have a much worsening medical crisis in Italy and while France appears to be doing better than our neighbor, there’s no guarantee this will not change (our other favorite riding country – Spain – is seeing a massive number in the increase of both infections and deaths, jumping far ahead of France in the process). We are already seeing hospitals in the northeast overwhelmed, with patients either being medivaced out or put in a newly-built army field hospital. We have 16,000 cases and nearly 700 deaths, which is only 12% of Italy, but we are also a week ‘behind’ them and numbers are growing exponentially.

I’m not always that fast on the uptake and I know some of you saw the signs in plenty of time and have been on the trainer all along. But I also know that many are still riding outside, even in small groups. I’m now of the opinion that this is socially irresponsible, but only because it appears that the best way to stem the tide of this awful virus is to stay inside. Period. If you could find a way to never leave home you would be safe. If you go outside and touch anything, anywhere, you are at risk. I think it’s serious enough now to think and act in this manner. The arguments in my last article now seem antiquated, but I know that many of you are thinking the same thing, e.g. it’s just a walk in the woods; there’s nobody on the roads around here anyway; I don’t come close to anyone on my bike.

It’s up to you, of course, especially if you are still allowed to ride outside (I think only France, Italy and Spain have effective ‘bans’). However, unless everything I read by people smarter than me is false, we are not helping humanity by possibly being exposed, or exposing others, to this thing. I hope that wherever you are, you are the exception to the rule (like Japan for the moment), but as testing ramps up in all our countries we are bound to see many, many more cases, lots with dire results as we now know. Covid-19 is definitely not ‘the flu’.

Oh, and if you want to do a ride that is now illegal (basically any ride of any length in France), don’t upload to Strava. The fuzz is watching!