If you ride with mate, how did you meet them?

Did / do you know them away from riding and you started riding together? Meet through a club? Dogging / gulling?

Have been riding on my own for the last few years since I moved and getting a bit demotivated, but never got on well at clubs.

I don’t have riding mates. It’s lonely.

Went on facebook, found a local group and contacted them.

Masonic Lodge. Obviously.

Local Facebook group and chatting to people you meet on rides.

Was an out and out kayaker. A mutual normal person friend introduced me to some dudes she knew who did this mystical downhill mountainbike riding, they invited me to try one time at FOD and lent me a bike, the rest is radical…

Mainly through this place when it started up back in the day (thanks stw peeps!)

Picked the keys out of the bowl with a mint sauce keyring.

At college forced them to come out biking and they got hooked. And aload i met just riding in the woods.

Ride with two local groups. First i spotted when we first moved North and asked if i could tag along. All riders who live in and around where i live and many have become good friends. Mixture of MTB & Road.

Second group i met through a client who mentioned they ride from Hebden and invited me along. Top lads and glad i did.

joined a club. then we all left. 😀

I used to live round the corner from Terrahawk, all the other ones are from here on the MNPR.

They messaged me via my blog

On here! In hindsight asking for strangers who wanted to meet up in the woods at night might come across as odd to some folk…

I’ve known ChrisL since uni but not for riding… When I started riding, for therapy on my trashed leg, it just so happened he wrote to WMB and I saw the letter, so I got in touch with him and that was that really, he really helped me get into riding and I’ve thanked him by becoming better than him at bikes and making him feel bad 😆

Most folks, I know from trailbuilding at glentress, from racing, or the old Knights of Pentlandonia. The internets sometimes comes into it too but not usually by itself.

The vast majority through the MNPR rides on here. Two or three lads I worked with many years ago are riders too and we still meet up from time to time.

*looks up gulling*

well at least I know what to call it now

Met a few on here, picto met me a carpark on the chase in 2010 during the great taz tyre barter where I got rid of a german sexy clubs worth of rubber for beer at the singlespeed euros..he came for a ride and liked our style of FIFO (fit in or f.. off) and stayed with our bunch of single speed misfits. Some I worked with and loads from races. Thats the nice thing about the ss tribe, you can pretty much rock up anywhere in the world and you’ll know folks you’ve got mangled with somewhere to ride with and show you around/feed you/give you a floor to sleep on.

Only got 2 real riding mates. Met the longest standing one through a mate who is no longer with us, around 1990. Still riding with him & lots of others have come & gone. Met my other mate cos me & his Mum got married & he & his brother came along.
He’s 29 today!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/yrTm3G]Mark & me, Gunnerside, Oct 3rd 2015[/url] by jimmyg352, on Flickr

Grew up with them mostly, occasional old housemate who I converted, one or two from Southern Downhill back int’ day and a few from my old uni club.

I think they slipped something in my drink.

Already friends with some, a big list off here from days gone by and then met others through friends of friends.

Most the time I ride with guys I used to work with, one of whom has become a great friend since getting me out with him. Also started going out with my new neighbour as he’s just starting out, I really enjoy the social side of MTB !

From here

Met through work generally, I joined a team where all 5 of us rode MTBs. We did the odd team meeting out on the trails.

One non-work related one I met on my first organised road bike holiday. We were similar pace and got on well – have done a fair few trips abroad since and try and meet for day rides 2-3 times a year.

Swingers party ..,,,,,,,,,,,

At a funeral of a mutual friend, making small talk as you do…… got invited to go on a ride. That was 10 years ago, can’t really believe it

One lifelong friend, he dosn’t get out much at the moment due to work and family.
One from ski racing as kids,
One is my cousins husband, now and then. I think he is afraid of the dark, never night rides.

Started a trail building bike club in Delamere around 2003, can’t get shut of a few of them now.

I met a few through a club I joined back in 2005,after a couple of years I got bored of the club & over time so did a few others,we now meet up every few weeks
Went to Les Arcs last year & met some good people & joined their club when I got back,enjoying it so far.
I’m going to Antur Stiniog this weekend with one of my riding mates & I’ll meet her mates there so that’ll extend my riding circle again.

Met a bloke my wife worked with, and another bloke he played football with and we started going climbing, and playing cricket with another few lads. I already did a bit of mtb’ing but my main riding buddy didn’t like the idea of pedalling! Another bloke he knew from Glasgow uni moved down to Leeds and he was into DH. We convinced our mate to buy a bike and he was hooked. He even rides up hill now!!

The two most important – one is my brother, so his birth I suppose. The other I met through a mutual non-cycling mate.

Other guys who are more irregular include a childhood friend of my brothers and a couple of lads who used to be more regular, I worked with one and the other came along like a buy one get one free offer.

Surprising number through here!

30 odd years ago @ school!

Surprising number through here!

It was all a bit strange 15 years ago but seems perfectly normal now 🙂

I normally ride on my own. Used to ride with a club but only ridden once in the past year with others.

Few from here, met a group of local guys on a riding holiday in Spain and a couple of guys from work who decided to give mtbing a bash.

It was all a bit strange 15 years ago but seems perfectly normal now

I’ve met loads of people through a bike forum before but it was local so more geared towards meeting up. I’m surprised here because it’s national.

The old MTB-Wales site was great- I met loads of my riding mates from there.

When my work hours changed a few years ago I started a FB group to try to meet up with others in the area able to ride at odd times and met loads there too.

But my closest riding buddies- I’m married to one of them and the other I used to go whitewater kayaking with, back in the day.

The core of my group is my mates from school, 3 of use have been thick as thieves since we were 5, one other is a ‘new’ mate – I’ve only known him for 20 years or so 😉 he’s the guy I ride with mostly, twice a week, the other guys are more every other weekend due to commitments.

Then there’s a couple of people who work or worked with mates, mates of mates, neighbours, former neighbours and ‘lord knows where we found them’s – I think there’s 15 or so of us on a Whatsapp group, it’s rare more than 5-6 come out at once, but it’s rare any of us have to ride solo.

It’s a strange relationship really, I’ve got riding mates who ive known for 10 years, I’ve been on holiday with, sat in A&E with, spent countless hours chatting to on the climbs and sat on flights and long drives to the Alps. I know them really well, but I’ve never been to their house, don’t really know where they live, don’t know what they do, haven’t met their other half or indeed know any of their circle of friends unless they’re riders and vice versa. It’s a really strange partitioned friendship.