Steve at In the Know Cycling says it better than I ever could so here’s a brief excerpt of his recommendations for riding during the COVID-19 crisis in our country. You can read the entire blog post here WHAT CYCLISTS CAN DO ABOUT CORONAVIRUS.

“Most stay-at-home advisories or shelter-in-place orders still allow us to go outside and ride. That’s one of the privileges of being a cyclist…

“But, do we all know what we should and shouldn’t be doing when we ride outside now…

“The obvious stuff: Ride solo or only with those we live with. Ride in uncrowded areas or at times when our routes will likely be less crowded. Refill our glycogen stores by eating healthy carbs like rice or pasta within a couple of hours of a ride to maintain our immune systems.

“The responsible stuff: Bring enough food and drink to make up for the cafe or convenience store stops we’d normally make during our rides. Be sure to carry the tools and tubes and supplies we need to fix something on the road. Ride closer to home, on roads and routes we know, around places we can easily and quickly return home from, and at times someone is available to pick us up if we encounter a mechanical or another issue that we just can’t fix en route…

“The get-real stuff: Now is not a great time to be going for it, setting personal bests, testing your limits or taking risks that we can’t recover from on our own. And don’t put another rider we might be passing or a car driven by someone stressed out about their health or job (or just normally distracted) in a position to have a close encounter of the wrong kind with us.

“Yeah, I know we’re all great cyclists and nothing is going to happen to us. But, get-real and recognize that if it does, we may put an extra burden on our family and on health care workers and a system that is increasingly burdened and perhaps won’t have the capacity to deal with us.

“We should treasure our time riding outside and, at the same time, treat it with the responsibility that goes with our freedom to ride.”