UKH

The cyclist had an crash and needed treatment. What difference does it make how far from home he is? The officer implies it was a bad idea to go for a bike ride but it is a totally lawful form of exercise so why shouldn't he? All my major collisions with cars whilst cycling have happened within 5 miles of home. This sort of attitude just fuels hostility towards cyclists from certain sections of the public.

https://www-somersetlive-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.somersetlive.co.u...

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

Surely they should've been focussing on the fact that he was with friends than the length of the bike ride. That's the bit that's actually covered by the law!

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

Far too much inconsistency and lack of common sense in the policing of this lockdown, both on the ground and with the decision makers at government level.

A couple of weeks ago I reread the regs and worked out it would be fine for me to take a half hour drive to Dartmoor and walk of a couple of hours. Passed a police car sat in a lay-by on the way, no reaction at all. Now the local police have put out  a warning not to visit Dartmoor this weekend and said they will be patrolling. 

In reply to climbingpixie:

True, however my nephew flatshares with 2 other young blokes and regularly goes for a run with them so things are not always as they seem.

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

Fair point. I forget that not everyone lives with their family/partner. I'm also particularly conscious of it as gangs of lads/groups of blokes out on bikes seems to be the main social distancing failures, usually cycling way too fast for a busy towpath and being really inconsiderate. And I say that as a cyclist who is usually quite positive towards people on bikes!

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

There are also tw*ts like this https://cro.org.uk/incident-17-2020-may-8th-fri-15-12hrs-north-of-bruntscar...

In reply to Sir Chasm:

Well yes. People like this deserve all the ridicule you can throw ar them. Firstly, why had their companions buggered off and secondly what is it that makes people think if they're having a tough time someone else needs to bale them out. 

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

The two relevant conditions are:

1. Avoid unnecessary travel.

2. You can go outside for exercise. 

If he was travelling to somewhere on an unnecessary journey then he doesn’t meet the first criteria. If he’s gone out for exercise he can ride his bike for the second point. 
 

I think the police have got their and/or mixed up. The exercise doesn’t need to be ‘necessary’. The press haven’t helped in their desperation to sell advertising space. 
 

The definition of ‘locally’ could do with a bit of clearing up. 26miles is a round route where you’re potentially no more than 4-5 miles from your house. 
 

Unless he’s taken his bike in his car to Somerset for some stupid reason. 
 

Move on, nothing to see here. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

IF one is not supposed to go 20 miles by car for a walk on the moors when one could walk much more locally, then perhaps logically one should not go 20 miles away to cycle when one can get the same cycling exercise far nearer home.

Incidentally the OP link gives the rather imprecise "during a 26-mile road" which might mean he was 26 miles from home or alternatively on a 26 mile circular route and thus always far nearer home.

However I can't see the impact on key services is likely to be much different if an accident occurs 5 miles or 20 miles away.

I imagine a main reason for (over)rigorous enforcement of restrictions is to discourage vast numbers of people from travelling unnecessarily under the guise of "going for exercise", and if so the government should have made this clear. If true it means that unfortunately keen cyclists are being disadvantaged, but at least there is a reason behind it, valid or not.

In reply to oldie:

I think the clue is in the word ‘during’. 
 

If he was 26 miles into a 50mile cycle it would be ‘during’ a 50mile cycle ride, which could have been 5miles from his house if he was on the first or last part of an out and back. 
 

The red flags are when the police ask if a 26mile bike ride is necessary. Exercise has already been deemed as ‘necessary’ by definition. However, I’d suggest 26miles is around 2 hours at an average of 13mph. Is 2 hours a brief period? Is it keeping time out of house to a minimum? 
 

Ask 100 non cyclists and they’d say a 2 hour bike ride isn’t brief or a minimum. Ask 100 cyclists and they’d say that’s just about right for a short ride. 
 

My belief is that is why the ‘brief’ and ‘minimum’ conditions have been kept deliberately kept loose. If you tell people they can exercise for 2 hours, you’d get a bunch of people who never do any exercise claiming that hanging around the park for 2 hours is acceptable by law. If you made it 60mins, a whole set of people would ignore it anyway and it would be impossible to police. 
 

If they put a 10mile limit on ‘local‘ travel we’d all know what we could do. 

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

I found that rather a disturbing statement. How many have you had!?

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

Bit that mainly got me was this:

"This cycle ride ended in tragedy, luckily the cyclist only suffered minor injuries"

Horrendous bit of over-dramatizing the report of an incident which was not in any way a tragedy, as no-one died! And yet no word as to "why" he came off.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Definition of "keen cyclist" varies immensely - everyone in my club is a "keen cyclist" by definition, but the club does rides of various distances at various average speeds to suit all members desires/abilities. Is someone on a 20 mile ride at, say, 12mph average any less keen than someone on a 70 mile ride at 18mph average?

I think one of the kickers is the early comments in the guidance about keeping in line with "your usual exercise". My "usual" exercise on a bike would be 3 hours plus and in the region of 60 miles. During this, I've been going out for around 2 hours - anything much less than that and it isn't really worth going out.

Although my mate that went out for 6 hours and clocked up 100 miles on Friday was rather stretching the limits, but, having looked at his route, he was mainly miles from anyone else on quiet roads.

In reply to LastBoyScout:

Also puzzled by the fact that he was "found" lying in the road by the police. What happened to his mates? Where did they go? 

I agree reads like sloppy over dramatised reporting.

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

Apart from riding with friends, the cyclist doesn’t deserve all that negative attitude. Accidents happen and you could argue that a cyclist that can go for a longer ride is more likely to avoid an accident. Compare that to a person who went for a two mile ride for the first time in the last decade? Well... 
 

With all that being said, 26 miles is not even that long. Heck, I had 27 and 28 mile runs last week. 

In reply to LastBoyScout:

I’d say anyone who joins a club is a keen cyclist. And you‘ve (maybe by chance) used 20miles as an example of a less keen cyclist, which is kind of my point. 
 

Would any rider in your club consider 26miles a particularly long ride? 
 

I’m a runner. Everyone in my club can or is ultimately looking to run 10k. Most people in the general population think a 5k parkrun is ‘a long run’. Indeed anything below 5k is considered middle distance.    We do have track athletes, but they’re a different breed. I’m not sure what the cycling equivalent is of someone whose maximum distance is 800m. 
 

Anyway, my point is not the absolute distance, but more the attitude to whether that distance is considered by someone else to be reasonable. Eg, even one of your cyclists who only cycles 10miles, is aware that there are cyclists regularly cycling 100miles and that their 10miles would be considered short by many, even if they find it quite long when doing it themselves. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

20 miles is the shortest ride my club does, apart from intro rides. More likely to be 25-30 miles minimum.

Some, maybe, if they've just joined. Again, it's a bit woolly, as if you're that end of the spectrum, then you're more likely to be on a cheap/heavy bike, so harder work even if you're fit than for someone from the other end that's likely to be on something exotic in carbon.

I agree with your points in general.

In reply to Trangia: Ha! I have been knocked off my bike by cars 5 times. Two close passes where I was hit by car/van door mirrors, a car pulling out from a side road on me, I've been doored (half my fault I guess as I should have avoided that) and rear ended by a car at a roundabout traveling about 25 mph. The last 3 were all less than 5 miles from home. I live somewhere now with very quiet roads and do most of my cycling off-road!

In reply to Trangia:

It makes you wonder if he just crashed and the police came upon him very soon after and made a big thing of it. In the normal course of events he might have taken a few deep breaths and pedalled off home.

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

"There is no limit on how long people can exercise for, but they should spend as short a time away from home as possible."

Makes perfect sense...

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

It's a part time copper being allowed to spout rubbish in a local rag that won't be read by many people apart from the ones that have somehow found it and have posted it on places like UKC.
It's also worth noting this:
In response, many locals defended the cyclist and said they were within their rights to do this as part of their daily exercise.

In reply to Trangia:

This was last week, about two miles from home (sorry about the language) https://road.cc/content/news/near-miss-day-403-close-pass-ambulance-driver-...

I was taken out by a hit and run driver two miles from home a few years ago.  I has to get SWMBO to come and get me as neither the bike nor I were functioning properly.  Near misses too numerous to count. 

My new 7 am rural lockdown 'ride to work' is running at about 10% near misses (I encounter no more than 10 cars every morning and usually one of them will be too close - which I why I gave up and started riding my commuting bike, which has cameras, instead of a decent road bike (hence the video above).  Which is of course ridiculous.  But then again, the maximum speeds that the police have recorded per limit category during lockdown are:

163mph: 70

119mph: 60

121mph: 50

134mph: 40

110mph: 30

73mph: 20

So, if you're working to a 40mph sight line and there's some imbecile doing 134 you are ****ed.  There's been a 70% increase in recorded speeding offences, with a 40% drop in traffic volume.  And you still get people saying cyclist should wear hi-viz.  A Browning Hi-power would do me (and, yes, that does date me)

In reply to nniff:

As you've got the video, I do hope you inform the Police regarding that "ferry ambulance" driver trying to "drum up custom". It might wake a few people up if he/she got points and a fine, not to mention the extra whack on their annual insurance bill.

In reply to fred99:

Sad to say, they've got to be really offensive for me to do that (it's a long story) and that one does not make the cut.  Unlike this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlMo_dlU5cQ&t=135s  scoot to 2:15, the rest is 2 minutes pre and post incident footage as required by the Met.  Language again, I'm afraid. 

In reply to nniff:

Looks like you were "lucky" to escape that one.

Out for my daily "keep my health up" ride in an hour or so - hope I don't get anything like that.

In reply to nniff:

Careful about swearing in these videos. I once reported a deliberately dangerous driver to Avon and Somerset police - was told that my foul language in the footage constituted a Section 5 public order offense and effectively threatened into shutting up.

In reply to Trevers:

They've not mentioned it to date, presumably because I'm not swearing at an individual because the driver is isolated in their tin box and because it's after the fact.  I don't swear much as a general rule, but there's something about near-death experiences that changes that.  Avon and Somerset police do have something of a reputation for be particularly ineffective in this area of policing.

In reply to Trevers:

I wonder if the driver was one of their own ?

At the very least it implies that they treat cyclists with less respect than car drivers. We're all road users, and a hell of a high percentage of cyclists (and indeed motorcyclists) are car drivers as well.