Club approach to group riding in Tier 3 (from 2 December 2020)

As you’re aware, West Yorkshire entered Tier 3 from Weds 2 December which impacts group riding.

But all is not lost, we don’t have to ride alone because organised outdoor sport and physical activity can continue if we adhere to social distancing and in particular the Rule of 6.

Because our club is in Tier 3 and most of our members live in West Yorkshire, as a rule we should keep to Tier 3 restrictions if riding in a mixed household group.

The club wants to help people ride – our club aim is after all to get more people out on their bikes!

Our club position:

There will still be NO official club rides in any section (As, Inters, Bs, Social Series).

By ‘official’ we mean regular rides that are advertised on our comms channels (to either members or non-members) that we guarantee will go out, like we used to pre-lockdown.

Instead, because our club aim is to ‘get more people out on their bikes’, we’re happy for:

● people to ride informally, having organised meeting times and venues etc yourselves using whatever communication method you choose.
● people ride to informally using the Google Sheet circulated to members (in case they have no way of contacting club members to organise a ride).
We’re also going to be organising some Social Series rides if we can get rides leaders – these will be advertised as a Facebook event.

We ask that you refrain from simply posting a ride in the Facebook group thread, or creating random events in the Facebook Group.

Where can we cycle

The tricky point is that many of our normal cycling routes go into North Yorkshire which is in Tier 2. There is guidance about not travelling outside of your ‘area’ but it does allow ‘travelling through’ a different areas as part of a longer journey. So, groups should consider rides that don’t stop in Tier 2 for coffee…… Haworth, Wetherby, Thornton, Silsden are all good options as they are also Tier 3.

Coffee stops

If you find a cafe in Tier 3 that’s open you can have takeaways from there but we shouldn’t lurk in their garden areas either.

If you do find yourself having to stop for emergency coffee in Tier 2 while on a mixed household ride we still shouldn’t sit inside because:

1. Most of us are Tier 3 residents.

2. In Tier 2 only households can meet indoors in public venues – as a cycle group we are not all from the same household so we cannot go into cafes as a group and sit down on the same table.

Before you go…..

We hope you are able to get out on your bikes despite lockdown – exercise and social contact is so beneficial to our physical and mental health.

We appreciate the rules may seem harsh, but….please remember that if you’re wearing Otley CC kit you are representing the club even if it’s not an official ride, so please don’t do anything to risk damaging the reputation of the club. And the sooner we can get out of restrictions the sooner we can ride all together. Thanks!

HAPPY RIDING!

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