Velocity Cycling Club is following the lead of the Ontario Cycling Association (OCA) concerning cycling activities during the COVID – 19 pandemic.

Since March 20, 2020, the OCA has mandated that all in-person club or team rides/activities should be cancelled. The OCA will not sanction any in-person club or team activities effective immediately. This will be under on-going review and any changes will be communicated.

On May 29^th the OCA followed in lock step with the Ontario government which has now permitted group riding with up to 5 participants provided they remain 2 metres apart. The OCA subsequently provided directions to permit sanctioned group riding of up to 5 riders to begin on June 4^th.

While this is positive news there are many additional requirements be imposed and to be followed including:

• pre and post ride procedures for the club and riders to follow including social distancing including no touching, all rides must be discreet (no staggered starts) and no riders can be substituted during a ride
• PPE requirements for all riders to carry
• a COVID waiver is required to be signed and provided to the club for its record keeping

to name just a few. All procedures must be followed to permit sanctioned rides to begin and thus have insurance coverage available. Also, many of these procedures will likely remain with us for the remainder of the year and also should be considered when riding in your non-sanctioned rides of groups of up to 5.

Your board, with input from our Ride Captains, is currently evaluating whether a test of these new requirements makes sense by initiating 4 separate rides on Saturday/Sunday June 13th/14th to see how well the club and membership performs. One key aspect of course will be the selection of which members will be participating as we only have 4 slots available per ride (Ride Captain plus 4 riders). At the time of writing this message your board has not concluded on its decision and continues to evaluate the possibility.

So you will be receiving a further update as we work through the process over the next few days and determine if this is what makes sense for the club. If you are interested, you will be required to take action in advance to be admitted to a ride.

Further, the OCA has now committed to weekly updates on the progressive return to cycling. Feel free to read the current release below or await further update from the Board. We hope to have the new website live in the coming days and we will have a COVID tab there for everyone’s easy reference on this evolving issue.

Progressive return to cycling link:

May 29 2020 – OCA Return to Cycling