{"id":206262,"date":"2025-10-17T09:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206262\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T09:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:53:08","slug":"i-went-on-my-first-group-ride-and-its-changed-how-i-feel-about-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206262\/","title":{"rendered":"I went on my first group ride, and it’s changed how I feel about cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a Cycling Weekly writer, it might surprise you to hear that I had \u2013 until yesterday \u2013never been on a group ride<\/a>. I\u2019m an A to B kind of girl. I love the satisfaction of a long ride followed by a camping trip, or a long lunch with friends. For that reason, I tend to ride solo.<\/a> But, emboldened by the opportunity to go on a lunchtime ride with my colleagues, I took the plunge, and realised that the whole business of group riding is more complicated than I could ever have imagined.<\/p>\n

The group ride started long before we mounted our bikes outside the Cycling Weekly office. I changed out of my clothes and into some cycling shorts, a baggy top and a jumper, only to find my colleagues transformed into streamlined cycling creatures, cleats clipping, heart monitors <\/a>ticking.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Undeterred (slightly deterred) I followed the guys as we trickled out of the office and onto the road. Fellow writers Tom<\/a> and Adam<\/a> hung back as I adjusted to the blinding speeds we were clocking up (relative to the constant conversational speed I usually measure my rides by), while Jamie (the face of Cycling Weekly\u2019s video content) and Aaron<\/a>, our newest tech writer, and semi-pro rider, led out ahead. Eek.<\/p>\n

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I found a happy middle ground between Adam and Tom, Jamie and Aaron, listening to what trickle of conversation wasn\u2019t whisked away by the wind and roaring cars. Happily eavesdropping, I could concentrate on keeping my speed up, as I pushed full-pelt on the pedals, heart racing.<\/p>\n

Adam had, throughout the ride, been hanging his arm off the handlebars at intervals throughout the ride, hand waving slightly to his left. I thought it was a subtle way of showing off his gorgeous blue nails, but it turned out to be a warning \u2013 watch out for potholes. The message rippled through our small peloton to the rider at the back. This was good news for me, as I continued to operate on half a brain cell as my body fought to keep up with the group.<\/p>\n

At 8 kilometres in, I cursed my lack of pockets – without a phone, I had no way to navigate back to the office alone. I was exhausted, and I wanted out. Then came the first downhill, and against all odds, I found my stride.<\/p>\n

My breakthrough was aided absolutely by Adam and Tom, who dropped back to keep me company every so often, pointing out a cloud of crows taking flight from the orange field to our left, or to stare lovingly at the hill ahead (someone explain to me this love of hill climbing<\/a>?), peeling my eyes from the constant drum of the road and into the day.<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

One horrendous (but fortunately, brief) hill later, and we were back in Reading\u2019s winding roundabouts, on the homeward straight and heading for a delicious lunchtime spread courtesy of our magazine editor, Simon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It took a while for my body to readjust back to office-pace after our ride, but the gentle endorphin release after an hour of max-capacity riding carried me through the rest of the day. I\u2019m someone who struggles to push past \u201cmonkey brain\u201d – that voice in your head saying, chill! Take a break! But riding with Adam and Tom, Aaron and Jamie forced me to push myself, and realise just how capable I am.<\/p>\n

It would certainly have been a totally different story had I been riding with people intent on riding fast \u2013 I\u2019ve been there before, and it\u2019s horrendous, and indescribably off-putting. But I was made to feel welcome, and celebrated, and capable. I\u2019m now set on finding a riding group<\/a> local to me, and embracing the art of riding for the sake of it – as long as there’s a coffee stop along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a Cycling Weekly writer, it might surprise you to hear that I had \u2013 until yesterday \u2013never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-206262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}