What brings you here today?

OK so we all come for the marvellous mountain biking but inspired by the fact that 2 new riders joined us today because they found us on the blog I thought the theme for today would be what brought you to ride with Nirvana Cycles?

Today Chris joined us as he's on leave from the RAF having just got back from Afghanistan and being a northerner down south he doesn't know how to find the great local mountain bike trails that he has heard of via the grapevine. He chanced upon this blog and here he was riding with us and having a lot of fun just having a go at some of the jumps and singletrack we regularly ride. He'd have never found it without us and now armed with his maps from the shop he has a better chance of finding it again. But I'm sure he'll be back for more group rides.

Guy also found the blog and came along as he wants to train for his holiday tour riding across the highlands of Scotland this Summer. He's here to improve his fitness and had not ridden such technical trails before but hopefully he'll be back for more and will not only improve fitness but gain some more technical skills to beat his buddies on that ride.

Then again there are the long termers- Richard used to play Golf but wanting to lose some weight he started road riding until he bumped into an injured mountain biker in A&E and decided that looks like fun. So he came and joined the Nirvana rides. There was no turning back and I'd guess that his mountain biking love has surpassed his Golf nowadays. The bikes have also gradually upgraded from that £100 secondhand heavy weight clunker to a svelte plush 5" travel Turner 5.5 spot- and wow what a difference the bike makes eh?

John and Chris started out on a guided ride with Nirvana and borrowed some demo bikes, John loved his Lapierre Zesty so much he phoned the shop to reserve one before he even finished the ride, now he's a regular weekly rider. And as for Chris- well just look at him on the video and you just know he has the bug!

As for me well I was a competitive netballer always trying to find time to play on my bike between matches (and not get injured!)- but eventually the netball commitment got beaten down by the freedom and thrill of riding my bike when and where and with whom I liked. I bumped into the Nirvana Group on holiday in Morzine in 2001 and was thrilled to find out they had singletrack trails in my backyard of the North Downs- wow!

Whatever your reason for riding- you're welcome on the ride as I'm sure we'll infect you with this bug and convert you to a regular or as a minimum show you some awesome local trails to ride.