Ride Sheffield

Mountain bikers have a reputation as anti-establishment types; individuals with a lust for gratuitous self-amusement and scant regard for rules. This isn’t completely untrue. Mountain biking does attract those with a certain mindset: thrill seekers, explorers, pain addicts, outsiders, eccentrics and recluses – you have to be wired a certain way to enjoy riding a bike off-road. Equally, this rebellious reputation has come from mountain biking being a relatively new sport, one that’s trying to work out what it really is and what it can be. Like a teenager, it’s made as many bad decisions as good, kicked against the pricks, upset the status quo and just as often sulked when things haven’t gone its way.

But as riders have gotten older, and the sport has developed, attitudes have changed. Approaches have mellowed and the teenage rebellion has been tempered with a more mature and considered approach to, not just how we are perceived, but also how we get what we want. One group that has led the way in this transformation, from a scattering of disparate outsiders to a force to be reckoned with, is Ride Sheffield.

NORMAN IS A DO-ER, ONE WHO CAN GALVANISE, ORGANISE APPEASE AND DISRUPT

Ride Sheffield doesn’t