Our ride ethos…
No judgement. No comparison. No competition.
Explicitly anti-diet and queer-affirming, we believe that movement should be about celebrating our bodies, not punishing them.
At Ash Rides Ldn, the focus is on how we feel, riding with compassion for our bodies, and reconnecting with the JOY of movement!
Everyone’s individual body and identity is valid, welcome, and loved. Our rides are for folks who are usually excluded from fitness spaces. In our rides, we invite you to move and enjoy your body without any desire to change it. We have absolutely no interest in making you smaller and we do not expect a room full of bodies to all move in the same way.
We exist in opposition to the diet-culture-white-supremacy-and body hierarchies vibe that is typically upheld by the fitness industry and gym spaces. We hold space for you to exist exactly as you are, and we encourage you to leave societal expectations at the door. We are a community of radically authentic and badass babes, working to free ourselves of diet culture together. Come join us!
Meet Ash (she/they)
Hey, I’m Ash! I’m a a non-binary babe and I use she/they pronouns.
I am completely and utterly obsessed with riding bikes that go literally nowhere. I started spinning when I moved to London over 10 years ago, and what began as a personal passion, has now become the joy of my working life.
I trained as an instructor at Boom Cycle in 2020. Since then, I’ve realised I adore dancing at the front of rooms full of bikes, and it’s become my personal mission to remind us all that we have inherent value and worth just for existing, outside the typical narrative of “wellness”. I reject diet culture in every possible way, and I move from a desire to expand (not shrink) myself.
Every ride playlist is born from a deep passion for music, and a desire for riders to “feel their feels”. Gigs are where I feel most alive, queer bands have shown me the way home to myself, and I bring this deep musical passion to every ride. I live and breathe queer culture and this is reflected in my banging playlists which are all publicly available on my Spotify. You can listen/follow HERE, and a good “vibe check” playlist is THIS ONE.
I left Boom Cycle in February 2024, when I began teaching at a studio in Walthamstow called East of Eden.
Since July 2024, I have been running this little spin business with the love of my life, my wonderful partner, Lou.
Behind the scenes…
Ash Rides Ldn is an independent two person operation! We are Ash (she/they) and Lou (she/her) a queer couple, who run this tiny spin business together from our living room, in the company of our mini dachshund, Lavender.
We met on Hinge (classique!), but the love story starts a year before this. Lou started listening to Ash’s ride playlists, through the wall that separated the ride studio from the sports massage clinic where Lou worked. A detail that was uncovered during the first few weeks of dating, alongside an almost identical taste in music, and shared passion for gigs (we’d even been to some of the same ones before we knew each other!)
Since then, Lou has qualified as an osteopath, handy for a partner who relies on their body for their work, and she works out of clinics in Forest Hill and London Bridge.
We rent out spin studios, at various Gymbox locations across London, for now, and run classes separate to the gym’s own timetable. All classes are bookable through our Eventbrite page.