We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alison Brien. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alison below.

Alison, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

The process of creating Ritual started as a slow hunch, a whisper of an idea I cultivated until it started to take shape and gradually became a reality. That hunch began after walking out of a local cycling class. I had entered the space expecting to experience something magical and leave feeling fulfilled. Instead, I left the class more anxious and on edge than when I had entered. I didn’t feel seen, the instructor talked at me versus riding with me. It made me wonder what it would look like to merge high-intensity movement with a deeper, more intentional mindset. Could a class like that create a greater sense of purpose & connection and not wreck our nervous systems in the process?

I started by imagining the space. It was important to me to have an intentional space that feels like a ‘welcome home’. The concept of a Third Space — somewhere to convene outside of your home but not at work. A place where real community takes place.

The next part was the hardest – a moment many entrepreneurs can relate to – when the artful vision you’ve created for this business, this idea you absolutely fell in love with, must pass through the gates required to make it a reality – financing, building out a space, go-to-market, and scale.

Enter the land of commercial real estate, wrought with acronyms (NNN – what?), landlords and contracts that made purchasing a home look like a walk in the park. Finding a dream location at 6th and Garrison was such a gift (although signing that paperwork invoked just a little anxiety) but it was an empty shell of just 4 walls, requiring a full build out.

After vetting and partnering with a firm for the construction, it was on to permitting, another realm of regulations and requirements that bordered on the mystical. Months and months went by as we watched our financial projections look a little less optimistic and our planned opening slide from the summer of 2024 to early 2025 (yes – 7 months!).

Along the way, another bombshell. Our bike manufacturer announced they were closing their operations and if we wanted a chance to secure the bikes we needed to open, we’d have to move fast and come up with a lot of money in a hurry. Dive back into the spreadsheet and bank accounts, come up with a plan, problem solve, and tell ourselves it’ll be ok!

Bikes and permits secured, we (finally) started construction, a delicate waltz of sub-contractor alignment, new issues, and scope creep. We try to be good neighbors so soundproofing was a thing. The HVAC units on the roof of our space were vandalized and completely destroyed. Hadn’t thought of this, didn’t think of that – bring on the change orders. But throughout all of this, the vision began to take physical shape. Adobe walls, arched doorways, a studio room ready for community. With each challenge, there was also excitement.

If the space was critical, the people were even more important. Thankfully, we were gifted a magical group of humans as our founding instructors and we got to work building the product together. Our instruction method requires extensive training and without a studio space, we partnered with our CrossFit Common Fortitude (our neighbors!) to host training for 6 new instructors. We set up a payroll and HR system, onboarded our new team members, and spent summer weekends laughing, crying, growing, and refining our craft.

As we forged a community of instructors, we also set out to find a place in a community of riders. Farmers markets, festivals, pop-up rides – weekends filled with load-in, load-out, U-Haul rentals, and trips to the storage unit. Lots of work but lots of new faces and encouraging conversations with new friends looking for a place to ride and be seen.

And now, here we are – a few weeks out from opening. This part of the journey has been marked by a series of crash courses, filled with setbacks, delays and apprehension, but offset by a group of friends, family, and strangers (now friends!) who cheered us on every step of the way. Our business partner, Bevin, was all in from the very start and gave us both the confidence and resources to move forward. Her advice and encouragement was invaluable. What we’ve taken away most so far is resilience and community. There were days we thought, “This is it. We need to back out.” And yet, in each of those moments, we found a reason to take another step, to set aside the fear and move forward.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Before starting Ritual, I spent 14 years in various software companies as both a Technical Program Manager and Product Manager. At the same time, I’ve always worked in the fitness industry as an Instructor, movement has been my medicine my whole life.

As an indoor cycling instructor, it’s been fascinating (and a little alarming) to witness how the practice has evolved over the last 10 years. It has gotten more and more popular to go as fast as possible out of the saddle and do crazy upper body movements during a class. The music has gotten louder, the instructors yelling more abrasive, shocking the nervous system and leaving riders drained.

Ritual was born to be a more intentional, inclusive, and grounded practice. We don’t use metrics or monitors in class. We want you to feel the rhythm of the music and use resistance, not choreography, to challenge yourself. We prioritize form and athletic performance to ground you in your body and safely ride at your best.

We offer both a rhythm-based class with some purposeful choreography to support upper body training as well as a more traditional, cycling-only class focused on power & resistance training with no choreography. Our mission is to reconnect you to yourself while providing a safe space to connect with others.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I was living in Wilmington, NC and on New Years Day, 2021, I decided to take a cycling class at a new studio in town called Recess. With COVID in full swing and gyms everywhere struggling, Recess had set up outside, under a giant tent in a mall parking lot. I thought it was brilliant for a startup to keep it simple and work within the environment they had to get their product out into the world. Teaching the class that day was Recess founder, One Tree Hill actress and former SoulCycle instructor, Bevin Prince. The class was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It honored the full human experience — we laughed, we cried, we high-fived and we were connected as a community. I left feeling full.

After class, I got an email from Bevin asking if I was interested in teaching at Recess. It was equivalent to going to a professional baseball game, catching a foul ball, and the coach asking if you wanted to start on the team the next day. I was so deeply honored!

I trained with Bevin for 2 months and eventually became an instructor at Recess. It was the greatest joy of my life to get to help build a business and more importantly – a community – from the ground up. Now, I get to replicate that magic here in Denver.

Have you ever had to pivot?

A pivot is happening right now for me! I have spent the last 14 years working in software and I have had a pit in my stomach when I think about doing that for the rest of my life. I’ve always been passionate about branding & marketing and coming from several generations of entrepreneurs, I’ve been eager to find a way to combine my creative brain with my business brain through building my own business.
It has been both terrifying and so wildly rewarding to take the leap and work for myself. There’s a real aspect to isolation in entrepreneurship so I am grateful for the incredible network of other entrepreneurs and friends in Denver that have already supported Ritual whole-heartedly. I really cannot wait to bring a more intentional form of movement and space to the Denver community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ritualindoorcycling.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ritual_indoorcycling/