We ask all prospective members to complete two intro rides before they join us. These can happen either on or off-road. The reason for the two rides is to make sure prospective members (as well as the members they come out with) get a good sense of what the club is like. We try as best as we can to make the ride a good proxy for what a typical club ride is like.

Our intro rides are often oversubscribed, so we thank you in advance for your patience. Once those two rides are complete, we will share with you the next steps to pay the membership fee and join us.

£30 per year

Our dedicated intro group rides tend to be on the road, but there are exceptions - we recognise that some people will only ever ride off-road, for example, and in these cases two off-road rides would suffice as intro rides. We also occasionally organise shorter hills rides during midweek evenings or early morning Regents Park laps as intro rides. People can do these as one of their intro road rides, but their other ride needs to be a longer hilly lanes ride, as these are more representative of our typical club rides, in terms of the elevation and distance.

These longer hill lanes rides are the most common intro rides that we run. They tend to be around 50-60km at an average speed of 20-22kph (13mph). While they can vary depending on the nature of the group on the day. We usually meet in Crystal Palace and ride out into the Kent lanes (as do most club rides, but also into the Surrey Hills, Windsor and other places too) - this route is a good example. These rides normally take place on Sunday mornings, occasionally Saturdays, depending on who's around and the weather. How long this takes depends on the group, if there are any issues or how long people stay at the cafe, but normal meeting time is 8:30am, aiming to be back around 1-2pm.

See a couple more of our intro routes here: BCC Intro (Chartwell), Longer Newbie, Standard newbie

Our intro rides on the road are ideally suited to road bikes (with drop handlebars and gears / freewheel) and clipless pedals. We don’t take out flat bar, single speed or fixed gear bikes out on intro rides in the interest of rider safety, and keeping the group together. We recognise not everyone is comfortable with or is currently using clipless pedals, however - so we are happy to welcome those with flat pedals on our rides too.

We do ask everyone to be mindful of the typical distance of our road rides, as well as the fact that Kent is quite hilly, so while we try and make our intro rides as inclusive as possible, we want to make sure everyone has a good experience. We stick to the average speed mentioned above as close as we can, but wherever possible, our intro rides operate at the pace of the slowest rider, are non-drop and there is a rest-stop around the halfway point at a cafe or similar.

We run these at certain points in the year, when it’s not too muddy. To be nearer the start of the trails and gravel paths, these usually meet in Penge, or Beckenham. From there, the routes are between 40-50km, suitable for cross/adventure/gravel bikes, with a coffee stop around the midway point.

We are using a free app called Spond to organise the intro rides. It’s available as iOS and Android apps, as well as in the web browser. Our members volunteer to organise intro rides, and they post events on the app to which prospective members are invited on a first come, first served basis.

Please drop us a line at road.captain@brixtoncycles.cc sharing a bit about yourself, what you’re looking to get out of riding with us. If it sounds like our rides are right for you, we will share the link to our Spond group for prospective members. Once we’ve granted you access, you’ll be able to see and join future intro rides.