When will it end?

With parts of the world coming out of the grip of Covid19, riding for recreation purposes has only just been reintroduced in QLD.

Riding to work, shopping, medical reasons or to visit other people’s homes was allowable under previous restrictons however the police presence and obsession with picking on motorcycles was not worth the trouble.

The amount of conflicting and vague information put out by the QLD premier, QLD health minister, chief health officer and QPS was utter bullocks. Motorbike FB groups were not much better.

CHO directive – around the start of April, in effect when our 14 day self isolation had ended.

1. No definition of ‘exercise’ however walking and cycle were considered acceptable.

2. No definition of proximity limits

3. Despite this, QPS that I queried after an interaction with a motorcycle cop on Mt Nebo, advised it is local exercise only. This is not part of the directive and when questioned their sheepish admission was that what is determined exercise is arguable (I provided reasoning that riding burns more calories per hour than walking) and that the ‘spirit’ of the directive was ‘implied’.

I’mmmm sssooorrryyyy, I don’t work off spirits and implications. The danger of rushing directives means the amount of ambiguous interpretation is going to be pushed at every opportunity.

Despite being what I considered within my rights to ride as exercise, I elected to stay home although it did cross my mind to use a friend’s faraway address as someone I was visiting, also within the directive and clearly stated as acceptable reason so long as you abide by the number of guests and other social distancing measures while there.

So last weekend we made the most of our 50km radius as the crow flies to head up and over Mt Nebo > Glorious > brief stop at White Cedar Park to thaw out > Fernvale for a hot drink and home. A fuck of a lot of bikes out and nods from near every bike we saw even folks parked next to the road.

The mood was high. Disappointed to see some riders not following social distancing but that sounds like a them problem.

Accidental funny moment while stopped at White Cedar Park. Due to the number of other bikes already parked under The Tree we parked where the cars usually go (the actual parking lot near the driveway entry). We moved up near the fence / road to get a bit of sunlight on our frosty bodies.

As we stood up there thinking we looked rather inconspicuous minding our own business I noticed heaps of bikes heading from and towards Glorious slowing down. Oh they must be pulling in. Nup kept going.

Took me a few minutes to realise it was us making them slow down as they thought we might be cops picking on bikes on the straight. There was a lot of talk on the FB groups that the cops would be out in force being the first weekend we could all ride again.

My bad famz if you were one of these bikes. I just trying to warm my butt! In fairness, most of the bikes would have been pinged before they had even registered a cop standing there anyway 😂

Restrictions are further easing this weekend with 150kms radius limit and groups of up to 10. If I had 10 mates, that would sound awesome lol. Happy sticking with Mr for now, see how we go.