One Year Later

Its been one year since the COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic. This past Saturday I lead a ride out of Mercer County Park with most of the Insane bike posse. It was a similar ride to the on I led about a year ago. The pandemic turned out differently than I expected both in a good and bad way. One of the good things was that nobody I care about was directly affected by it which is one of the main things I feared. The bad was that it has lasted a lot longer than expected and killed over half a million people in the US at this point. 

Back when it started there was a hope that shutting things down and using some common sense measures like wearing masks, washing your hands and social distancing would bring it under control. Those measures did help at the start when people started to understand how bad this disease was. However not everybody followed the guidelines and not everybody believed that the disease was as deadly as it was. This lead to a number of surges that make the suffering and death toll worst than it had to be. 

Even though I call the people I ride with the Insane Bike Posse we were very rational about how we handled this threat. For a few weeks we road apart but then eventually as the understanding of the disease improved and how it was transmitted we found ways to ride together safely. This mostly meant riding further apart, carrying all the food and drink we needed instead of going into stores and wearing masks if we did go into somewhere. 

We were all a little anxious when this all started but eventually got use to the new way of things. One other thing that we did was to start doing Zoom meetings like most of the rest of the world. In the beginning it was to talk about how to ride safely but then it became just a way for us socialize. These meetings became a part of my Friday night and helped me stay connected with my friends. These Zoom sessions were somewhat therapeutic and fun and I think helped us stay a little more sane. I know this last year was much easier because I could keep riding and share my fears and anxiety with the posse. 

In this year we have learned that we can ride together and do if safely. Now fear has been replaced by hope. There is now three vaccines that are effective against this disease. Half of the posse have gotten at lease the first shot of the vaccine and I expect the rest of us will be vaccinated by the end of May. Although I think there will be lingering affects from this pandemic both medical and sociological I am more certain of what the coming year will be like and it should be a place where it will much safer to get together. 

 We may never be 100% back to the normal we use to have but I see a possible bike vacation in my future. So it has been a long year but the future is looking better.