Cycling UK Forum

Clearly there is a large amount of 'interpretation' in regard to this issue, in Scotland there are specific guidelines (iirc its no more than 5 miles beyond your local authority boundary) but for the rest of us its a guessing game.

That said, from previous experience you'd have to be blatantly taking the urine to even come to the attention of law enforcement, by that i mean, for example, getting together with 3 mates, loaded the bikes on a car and driving from London to Dartmoor for your 'exercise'. A lone rider, or perhaps 2 if you meet the criteria, riding through the countryside is unlikely to provoke more than a few greetings from likeminded souls, walkers and horseriders.

As far as 'what is local', well for me i've always thought of local as being @ 30 miles / 50km as the crow flies, thats @ two hours ride for me, from my base, i know most of the roads in that aea well and don't often stray much if any further on my rides. It's fairly easy to get in a 100km loop, with a little thought i can add 50% to that and still be 'local'. Unless i'm in serious training i pretty much always make a stop, in normal times the route would be designed around a cafe stop but this last 9 months i've usually taken a sandwich along, finding a stop where i can, although occasionally i have used roadside vendors for a cuppa/burger when i know they will be available.

Beyond that i know the roads decreasingly well, they are used much less often even in normal times - a long day ride might potentially double the local distance range, i would not consider this to be local.

In truth, i'd rather have everyone on the same level of restrictions, it means i'm not constantly worrying about crossing boundaries into areas in different levels, a real headache where i am atm in Bristol, there are 5 'county', authorities within a 1 hour ride, another 3 just a few minutes further on, yesterdays ride passed through 4 which is fairly typical.

Your 'local' will be different to mine, its a term much like a rubber band, if you are getting towards the thing snapping, you are probably going too far.

And just a thought, you are more likely to attract attention wearing a club strip from Exeter (for example) whilst riding around Brumm than if you wear plain or more anonymous stuff.

stevemelia wrote: I don't know what will go in the legislation and what will remain just guidance.

The law wording remains as it always has, there is no legal limit on distance or frequency.

Strictly speaking there isn't even anything preventing slinging your bike in/on the car driving half way across the country and cycling there, other than the requirement to not stay away 'overnight'. Though the social responsibility of doing that is certainly questionable!

Note that is for England. Wales remains with slightly different wording that tries to shut that loophole, I cannot remember the exact form now but essentially requires the exercising to actually start and finish at your home rather than just permitting people to leave 'to take exercise'

"- exercise with your household (or support bubble) or one other person, this should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area. [and further down...]
If you do leave home for a permitted reason, you should always stay local - unless it is necessary to go further, for example to go to work. Stay local means stay in the village, town, or part of the city where you live."

If we were to interpret that literally, it would prevent cycling for exercise. Can you imagine someone cycling round and round the village where they live in order to get enough exercise once a day?

Well depends how you'd interpret it. To take exercise is a 'permitted reason' and going further than immediately local is arguably necessary if your form of exercise is cycling. Indeed later on it states:

"outdoor exercise. This should be done locally wherever possible, but you can travel a short distance within your area to do so if necessary (for example, to access an open space)" Which seems partly to allow people to leave central urban areas.


As for my interpretation it is largely along the following lines: We know outdoor transmission risk is very low and we know that exercise and good health is generally of benefit to the individual and society, including in faring better against COVID-19. As such, if you keep to yourself (or your household) then getting concerned about exactly how local is 'local' probably isn't worth worrying about and sticking to your normal cycling routes is fine.

Indeed, it would be far better for covid control to live without the allowance (both in law and guidance) of cycling with one other from another household if that is not necessary for safety or mental health reasons and certainly not to abuse it by cycling with a different friend every day of the week than to do loops around the neighbourhood instead of whatever normal rides you do. While outdoor transmission risk is very low, sustained exposure (e.g. wheel hugging over a cycle ride) will start to counter that.


Personally I will continue to make use of the local mtb trails which I am fortunate enough to live under 2 miles from. I've not really been much of a fan of road riding since lockdown started since the driving standard has become noticeably worse.

I have 3 regular circular rides of 28, 34 and 38 miles which and start and finish at my house.
At no point am i ever more than 5.2 miles from my house as the crow flies, i ride by myself ... and will continue to do so.
So still local ...

simonhill wrote:Was anyone fined for 'going too far' under the previous iterations of restrictions/tiers/lockdowns? I think not, but could be wrong. Personally, I wouldn't worry.......

My impression from reports (TV/radio) is that if Police stop you for in their opinion pushing too far their effort is to explain and send you home. So if you "gosh, hadn't realised, sorry I'll go home and next time do something different" sounds like they'd be happy and end-of-story; but "I'm doing nothing wrong, it's my right to do this so I'm not going home and I'm doing the same tomorrow and the day after" then I suspect you'd be more likely to get a fine. Go way OTT and even being receptive probably wouldn't help. But that is only my impression from reports - not spoken to others, not talked to officers.

Ian

" banning an activity completely due to the illegal acts of a tiny minority, and cherry-picking which activities it is done to, is an ugly precedent with an obvious danger for cycling."
Won't be the first time . A much less harmful activity, pistol shooting was banned. So is knife carrying.

It is obvious that most of us, including me, wanted it carved in stone but, of course, not in a way that would harm our own interests.
Might I suggest that this isn't possible. We are a nation of different localities. My nearest hospital is about 30 miles. Is that local? Nearest corner shop is a mile but I am not really wanted there as the owner quite sensibly wants to save his goods for local people who can't travel to the nearest decent super market 9 miles away.
I would regard a reasonable distance to be within a circle 15-20 miles from home. If my bike broke so terminally that I couldn't mend it I could walk home.
Might I suggest people quit trying to expect there to be a perfect hard and fast answer. The only one will be stay at home for everything.

Much law is targeted at a minority. Murder, for example. Most of us don't need law for that.

mattheus wrote:

simonhill wrote:Was anyone fined for 'going too far' under the previous iterations of restrictions/tiers/lockdowns? I think not, but could be wrong.

NO - THEY WERE NOT!!!

This is why it's even more important that we publicly SHAME such people online. Official law enforcement has let us down!

CORONA-SHAMING - you KNOW it makes sense. For the COMMON GOOD!!!

I am assuming this is irony .....

mattsccm wrote:I would regard a reasonable distance to be within a circle 15-20 miles from home. If my bike broke so terminally that I couldn't mend it I could walk home.
Might I suggest people quit trying to expect there to be a perfect hard and fast answer.

Personal responsibility ... cycle, alone, go out, come home. People usually demand hard and fast laws in order to find the escape routes around those laws. As was pointed out in parliament today a number of the laws are pointless and futile, un enforceable and undermining of the intent. Lets see how that pans out.

simonhill wrote:If a court were asked to define it 'in normal parlance' then I do think 100 miles would fall out of the regular exercise category and into something more extreme - maybe training? The only guidelines I can think of are the NHS type daily recommended amount of exercise, which fall woefully short of what most of us do.

I'm not sure. I've regularly done 100 miles (or near enough - big loops from home not stopping in settlements seem more naturally 80-95) the last few years and I still don't think anyone wants us to be less fit than usual right now.

The NHS exercise recommendations I found are minimums ("at least"), not how much they think you should do. Have I missed them?

I think you are far more likely to be pulled for breaking the other rules - number, association, etc, so don't do that and as I said, I wouldn't worry.

A footnote: Give me some weather when I actually want to cycle more than a few miles, please.

Amen to both, especially the footnote!

landsurfer wrote:I have 3 regular circular rides of 28, 34 and 38 miles which and start and finish at my house.
At no point am i ever more than 5.2 miles from my house as the crow flies, i ride by myself ... and will continue to do so.
So still local ...

I couldn't hack riding in circles like that for long. It would send me loopy. It seems like one step up from one of those indoor cycling machines. So far away from touring as to be a different activity.

foxyrider wrote:Clearly there is a large amount of 'interpretation' in regard to this issue, in Scotland there are specific guidelines (iirc its no more than 5 miles beyond your local authority boundary) but for the rest of us its a guessing game.

I'd be happy with that, but only because our local public health authority is Norfolk, so the nearest border is about 9 miles away but the opposite one is nearer 90

[...] And just a thought, you are more likely to attract attention wearing a club strip from Exeter (for example) whilst riding around Brumm than if you wear plain or more anonymous stuff.

I think you're more likely to attract attention from the lockdown zealot covidiots than officialdom, even then. That's still worth avoiding IMO, so I didn't wear my West Norfolk t-shirt when I went to collect a package from Peterborough in the last lockdown, for example.

mattsccm wrote:" banning an activity completely due to the illegal acts of a tiny minority, and cherry-picking which activities it is done to, is an ugly precedent with an obvious danger for cycling."
Won't be the first time . A much less harmful activity, pistol shooting was banned. So is knife carrying.

Both are still allowed in controlled conditions and the bans were after more and worse crimes than car park drinking, but I think I know what you mean. We don't want cycling to be limited to special reserves.

It is obvious that most of us, including me, wanted it carved in stone but, of course, not in a way that would harm our own interests.
Might I suggest that this isn't possible. We are a nation of different localities. My nearest hospital is about 30 miles. Is that local? Nearest corner shop is a mile but I am not really wanted there as the owner quite sensibly wants to save his goods for local people who can't travel to the nearest decent super market 9 miles away.

What an odd way to run a shop. I agree about everywhere being a bit different: my nearest hospital is probably 5 miles but the one with the specialism I actually require is 50 miles away - but fortunately they are teleworking and I'll only have to go there if it all goes wrong and then very fast transport with blue lights on will probably be arranged!

I would regard a reasonable distance to be within a circle 15-20 miles from home. If my bike broke so terminally that I couldn't mend it I could walk home.

That's probably a good rule of thumb, but I still think it would lend itself to up to 30-40 miles from home, depending when you next had to be at work.

Might I suggest people quit trying to expect there to be a perfect hard and fast answer. The only one will be stay at home for everything.

Amen.

Oldjohnw wrote:Much law is targeted at a minority. Murder, for example. Most of us don't need law for that.

I feel that's rather different because the act of murder itself is criminalised, not all acts that could be used to murder.

landsurfer wrote:Personal responsibility ... cycle, alone, go out, come home.

Again, that would drive me crazy. Chatting is a great aspect of the freewheeling style of cycling, whether it's with family or one friend. Otherwise, like the song warns, the sound of your own wheels can drive you crazy.

People usually demand hard and fast laws in order to find the escape routes around those laws.

Or maybe they just want to make sure that their harmless variation is permitted?

I work on the idea that should I be stopped I would bite my lip and agree. My defence if push really came to shove would be that reasonable for me is a normal ride. Eg a Sunday short morning ride is around the 50 miles. Could prove that easily. If I tried to say that 150 was reasonable I might struggle a touch. Should it ever come to court I feel that it would be hard to prove that this 50 was OTT. 100 miles a week would see my fitness/health drop off.
However my main attitude is the old saying, "Don't be a D***".

Advice from the Scottish Government, for those of us north of the border states

‘local outdoor recreation, sport or exercise, walking, cycling, golf, or running that starts and finishes at the same place (which can be up to 5 miles from the boundary of your local authority area) as long as you abide by the rules on meeting other households’

mattsccm wrote:I work on the idea that should I be stopped I would bite my lip and agree. My defence if push really came to shove would be that reasonable for me is a normal ride. Eg a Sunday short morning ride is around the 50 miles. Could prove that easily. If I tried to say that 150 was reasonable I might struggle a touch. Should it ever come to court I feel that it would be hard to prove that this 50 was OTT. 100 miles a week would see my fitness/health drop off.
However my main attitude is the old saying, "Don't be a D***".

If you were stopped and questioned 25 miles from home and your explanation that a 50 mile round was normal for you was not accepted and you were issued with a ticket, what then? Would you stump up or ask for the case to go to court?

Have to admit, the matter is all fairly academic. Wouldn't even think twice about heading for a 50 mile ride, the probablity of enforcement action being taken, being zero. Aside from the fact that I'd never be further than 25 miles from home, there's no liklihood that I'd even come within sight of another human on a 50 mile ride (Nb. Other than passing 1-2 pedestrians when leaving town, or having 3-4 cars/trucks passing when out on the road).

OK, I had 1-2 disapproving looks on the initial lockdown. Whoever was on duty would probably note me on a run first thing, followed by a ride and then probably an evening walk down to the beach. But they knew, as I did, that it'd be absurd to suggest that I was endangering either rmyself or anyone else, when the chance of even coming within sight of anyone on a 5-10 walk, 50 mile ride was zero. And anyone who's ever served in an enforcement role, will be fully aware that discretion is a key part of any enforcement process! (