Dilemmas

I’m torn, genuinely, I am. 
 

We are living in times that none of us like, but most of us – those who receive these emails anyway – want to be able to go out and ride our bikes, to take people to places to ride bikes and to watch other people ride bikes. 

 

Sadly, we can’t do all of these activities. And that’s where I’m torrn. I desperately want to be able to run activities where we can all meet up, have a ride for a few hours and then chew the fat afterwards. There is nothing I would like more than to sit and get to know what makes you tick. And by the amount of messages I get from you, that’s what you want also. 
 

But we can’t currently do that. 
 

So my dilemma is this: When activities resume, should Manchester Cycling Academy have a philosophy of working to the spirit, or to the letter of the Law?
 

The answer that we are coming to is that we have to work to both the spirit and to the letter of the law. Yes, the law says that in certain Covid Tiers we can travel to cycling activities for under 18’s and yes, we can have groups of 30 should we need to, but the spirit of the law means that by doing that, you do risk the lives of people you pass on the way and risk putting extra burden on an already overstretched NHS should you have an accident. 
 

We’re very proud that the services that Manchester Cycling Academy provides are evidence based, meaning that everything we do is supported by research, so when there is so much evidence available regarding Covid-19 then we should listen to that. 
 

Evidence tells us that by traveling anywhere, we increase the risk of having a road traffic accident, falling off our bike and of course, increasing the risk of Covid transmission. 
 

We have lots of exciting activities planned for the late winter and spring months that will allow potential riders to the BTEC course to ride with us to sample our philosophy and answer any questions that they may have and If we don’t run these activities it may become difficult to recruit a full complement of riders for September 2021. 
 

So to ensure that these activities go ahead, our commitment to you will be that once we come out of lock-down all our activities will be Covid secure, both in terms of the activities themselves and the journeys that we will ask parents and supporters to do in order to get the rider to the event.
 

So once we launch the next block of activities, we will publish a Covid Activity Protocol that we will ask everyone to commit to. This way we can ensure that not only we and the riders stay safe and healthy, but that our community can stay safe and healthy too.
 

It’s important to remember that we won’t be in lock-down forever. We as cyclists are very fortunate that we are allowed to venture out on our bikes for exercise on a daily basis, so if you do get out there be careful, stay in groups of 2 people, stay local and encourage others to do so too. 

This blog first appeared on Manchester Cycling Academy’s newsletter which you can sign up to HERE