Owners offering traditional and rhythm-based spin classes in Marmora
MARMORA — Rhythm & Ride, a new business in Upper Township, aims to bring community members together and help everyone in their spin classes “breathe in positivity and breathe out negativity.”
At 74 Tuckahoe Road, Marmora in Wayside Village, Rhythm & Ride offers rhythmic and traditional spin classes.
The “rainbow baby” of Kiersten and Emily Gillian, the business had a soft opening in June and its official grand opening and ribbon-cutting Monday, July 17.
The couple, who have been married for two years and together for five, approached the business from opposite ends. Kiersten, who grew up in Scranton, Pa., and lived in Philadelphia before moving to the area to be with Emily, had been taking spin classes for a decade. Emily, on the other hand, was not a fan of the workouts but has become an absolute convert.
The backstory, according to Kiersten, is that it all started when they were trying to have a baby but ended up losing it. She called the business her “rainbow baby.”
Her doctors were worried about Kiersten and wanted her to get back in shape and start working out. She looked around the area for spin classes, but they were extremely limited. One place in Ocean City offered one spin class a day and wanted her as an instructor, so she got certified, but the timing didn’t work out.
She talked to Emily and said, “Let’s just do it.” In a month they scrambled and got the business up and running in Wayside Village.
“Ironically enough, I hated spin,” Emily said. “I wasn’t a spinner, didn’t go to classes. I did it when I was younger, but that was it. Now I love it. I come to every class.” Kiersten was the major influence for that, of course, but so was the music.
“It’s rhythm-based,” Emily said of the classes she prefers. “The spin classes are based on the music, how fast the beat is, how slow the beat is, which I really enjoy. It’s like dancing in class every day.”
“And it’s burning a lot of calories,” Kiersten adds.
“Now I want to go get certified so I can teach as well,” Emily said. “She got me to love it.”
Kiersten teaches the rhythmic classes. Rhythm & Ride offers traditional spin as well, taught by Carrie Merritt, who works at Ocean City Primary School with Emily, is a conditioning instructor and coach of the Ocean City High School softball team. Traditional spin has intervals and sprinting. Rhythm-based came out a couple of years ago and is music-based.
“With Carrie, you’ll be doing a lot of runs and sprints while I will be going with the beat,” Kiersten said.
Merritt has had classes for local high school athletes to get in shape for the fall season and the business recently held a private class for the Middle Township High School field hockey team in which all 20 stationary bikes were taken up.
For the rest of the summer, Rhythm & Ride is open Tuesdays through Saturdays with private classes Mondays. Come September, it will be open Sundays as well with five classes a day.
“We do all levels here. We treat everybody as a beginner when they come in,” Kiersten said. “In the past month I’ve been watching it and seeing so many different people who have never taken a spin class and now they’re in a spin class and doing way more than they thought they could be.
“We have one girl who was walking out the other day and said, ‘I can’t believe how much stronger I feel and it’s only been one month.’ That’s something that makes me so happy. They came in and I changed their life.”
Community connection
A priority in their business plan is bringing the community together, attracting people from different areas and helping support local organizations.
“It’s really cool all the types of people in the community that we’re bringing together. That’s what I want,” Kiersten said.
In addition to Upper Township residents, “we’re getting people from Cape May, Cape May Court House, Wildwood, Ocean City, Woodbine. There are people from all over coming together.”
“We are also supporting the community by taking different organizations from the schools or businesses to help them raise money,” Emily said. “The month of June is Pride Month, so we took the Pride Alliance Club from Upper Township Middle School and the Prism Club from Ocean City High School and we raised money. We had two donation-based classes and we raised $1,500. We’re going to split it completely in half and all the proceeds are going to them. We aren’t taking a cut.
“We’re trying to do something every month or every few months so if any organizations come to class that want to raise money, we’ll do it for them as well,” she said. “We’re just trying to bring everyone together.”
“And to give back,” Kiersten adds. “One of our biggest things is giving back to the community.”
Learn more
Rhythm & Ride offers five-class, 10-class, 20-class, monthly and three-month unlimited packages. The first class is free for people to try it out. There is a 15 percent discount for teachers, nurses and first responders.
To contact Rhythm & Ride, call or text Kiersten Gillian at (609) 425-6913. The email address is RhythmAndRideMarmora@gmail.com. Facebook page is Rhythm & Ride, as is the Instagram page where people can message them. The MindBody app is where patrons can see pricing and class schedules and buy all of their packages.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
