Friday 18th July: Lakwena for The Girl Effect

For the last week I have been cycling past the wall of The Village Underground in Shoreditch to see the step by step process of Lakwena painting one of her signature style murals.  Having just returned from completing one in Vienna, Lakwena took up residence and scaffolding in East London on commission for The Girl Effect.  The NIKE Foundation supported charity is holding a day of events on Sunday to highlight it's work in leveraging the unique potential of adolescent girls in poverty around the world for their families, communities, and countries. "It's about making girls visible and changing their social and economic dynamics by providing them with specific, powerful and relevant resources."  Head over to the website to find out more and head down to Hoxton to witness this joyous riot of colour specially painted for project to spread the word ................ THE POWER OF THE GIRL.

Weds 16th July: NIKE PROBRA

It would appear that my blog (and life) is becoming slightly fitness orientated!  Yesterday when I was out running with RunDemCrew someone shouted out from a pub "Get A Life".  Its weird because although I automatically felt sorry for them because I know I do have a life AND its gonna be much longer than theirs ........ I also remembered that I thought exactly the same thing until very recently!  Its only been one year since I discovered running and my life changed so completely and so much for the better because I now have a new untapped super power and finally get what all the fuss is about.  I can also spend the night sinking pints and smoking super kings but I also know that if I was to come into trouble on the way home, I could run and get myself out of the situation ASAP.  So who's having the last laugh?!

But back to the fashion bit .......... it might be possible to train in any trainers but there's no training without a sports bra!  So NIKE have acknowledged this fundamental piece of kit and spent 3 years developing the ultimate high-performance PROBRA solution after researching a broad spectrum of athletes feedback.  Yesterday I got to try it out at a bootcamp workout and breakfast along with a load of other London lady fitness enthusiasts.   We each received a personal bra fitting which is a service available in all NIKE stores so there's no need to wait at the lingerie concession of a department store.  Its a known fact that a high percentage of women are wearing the wrong size bra so NIKE have made it easy to get an update on that ever-changing subtle morphing dimension particular to a women's physique!  You'll see in the snap of mine above that the new variation on the regular crop-top design now has an elastic band in place of a regular bra clasp.  This flexibility moves with your activity and the thinner centre back strap has been cinched in to allow larger surface area of skin for freer flow for the shoulders.  The front has moulded cups built in (see photo of inside out) so it's possible to have exactly the perfect fit for support rather than just a bandeaux which squashes!  Here is a stylish and very feminine answer to your sports specific under-garm solution.  I confess I love a sports bra and now its just got even better!

Tues 15th July: Dunwich Dynamo 2014

Over the summer we ( BikeDemCrew) have been clocking up the miles on our road bikes, breaking out of our London commute routes and going on long distance journeys.  The outings have been testing our endurance and stamina in view of the ultimate challenge of an overnight ride from East London to the Suffolk Coast known as The Dunwich Dynamo.  This 120 mile nocturnal annual event draws London cycling enthusiasts to come together to race thru the night with lights twinkling in line along country lanes with pit stops at pubs along the way.  I love a challenge so I signed up and naively turned up amongst the lycra-clad, clip-pedalled professionals.  What was to follow became a 14 hour trek thru the night, seeing in sunrise, absorbing a Noah's ark amount of rain, losing circulation in my hands from the cold and many, many moments of crisis before finally arriving at the beach feeling so ecstatic to be stationary.  Bizarrely I won out on having a bum of steel as the only fool from our entire crew who rode without any padding - shorts or saddle.  But whatever remarkable talent I had for continued positive mental attitude to keep pushing forwards and summoning the sun out from the clouds .......... I was very low in the talent of actual peddle prowess ............ I got cages put on my peddles the day of the race and had never practised!  So there I was cycling in the pitch black night, not being able to see my feet to get them into the strapped peddles.  I nearly fell off so many times I was totally terrified and wondered why on earth I had ended up in this ridiculous position.  But then, after losing everyone and just about managing to hold back the tears, I turned the corner and there they were.  That is why I love our RunDem family and our united CrewLove.  That and the characters who comprise this community who absolutely crack me up and it's in that united humour that got us thru the hours and hours and hours of winding roads.  By the end we had certainly got to know each other a whole lot better than when we set off - like some survival challenge we clubbed together to help each other thru - waiting for each other to pee and literally taking the piss out of each other - especially Peigh's crepe protection technique of taping Sainsbury's bags over his flyknits.

After the tastiest bacon and egg butty I have ever inhaled and a dip in the ice cold North sea to soak our tortured calf muscles, we got on a coach back to London and passed out on each other's shoulders.  If anyone is reading this as research on what the hell the Dunwich Dynamo is all about, then I would say = I totally recommend it, just get EVERYTHING waterproofed and be TOTALLY at one with you bike before tackling this insane test!!  Sure there are jokers doing this on penny-farthings, Boris bikes and tandems but it is NO JOKE!!!!!!!!  You'll need some jokes to get thru!!!!

Big Ups Clarence for organising this mission and thanks to his mum for driving the lorry of our bikes back!

(All photos lifted off our various Instagram accounts such as Dani  , Peigh, Dougie, Alex Holley, Louis,  GhostPoet  )