Since I qualified as a mountain bike leader, I've spoken to many more people about mountain biking and I've been keen to find out why so few women are mountain bikers. One big surprise is the number of women I speak to who are regular roadies, but think that mountain biking is too dangerous. I do both. Mountain biking is my first love, but I also commuted to work by bike for years, first in London, and then in rural Devon. More recently I also bought a proper road bike and fi

You love mountain biking. You're out on the trails after work, at the weekend, maybe for most of your holidays too. Mountain biking has become such a passion that you've become a bit of an evangelist. You want your friends to get the bug as well. And wouldn't it be so much fun if your nearest and dearest loved it too? Then you could go shredding together... But are you the right person to enthuse them? Or will you scare the pants off them, and guarantee they never get on a mo

This month's Mountain Bike UK features my local stomping ground of Woodbury Common as one of this month's rides. As always, when your area is featured, I was curious to see where they had been and whether they'd chosen my favourite trails. They were shown around by the guys at a local bike shop, so they had found some brilliant singletrack. The problem is that navigation on the common is complicated, so that they have only been able to fit a 45 minute circuit onto the route c

Isn't it a bit sexist to have women only rides I hear you ask. Surely we're all equal now and we don't need any of that nonsense? Well I disagree. As someone who's been mountain biking for over 20 years I've spent plenty of time in the minority. Last year my husband and I went on a mountain biking holiday in Spain. There were 24 riders there during the week we stayed - and I was the only woman. I used to do Polaris Challenge endurance events. It's the only place I've ever bee

I'm worried I'll hold you up is something I hear regularly. It's almost a mantra. It may sometimes be an excuse, a reason not to come for a mountain bike ride. But I think that often it is a genuine concern. So why are people so anxious about holding others up? While I have heard stories of cycle clubs that drop people who can't keep up, most mountain bikers I know are pretty chilled about waiting for people to catch up and keen to encourage others to take up the sport we lov