Kickstart these bike knickers + love your vagina!

I predict the cool new thing in 2014 will be Chamois Panties! Cham-what you say? Sham-wow? No, chamois is a roadie cycling essential- special padding around your special places to protect how special you are. But like most roadie items, they are usually ugly.

Whilst working for a special urban cycling capsule project for Lululemon, Namtron got a baptism in the wonderful world of chamois. We got to laugh and laugh and laugh at some of the competitor products she had to research. But then, in true style, she made something that was traditionally ugly and specialized for hard-core athletes incredibly pretty and functional for urban cyclists. Check out the pretty things she made for urban women cyclists here.

As we all know, Indie businesses always push the boundaries, and fill in the niches. Enter the Urbanist Chamois Pantie by Christiana Guzman from Austin Texas. These cute, well-designed, women's undergarments that aid in making your bike-rides more pleasurable, are DNS approved! Check them out and pitch into their Kickstarter!



On a serious note, women specific products that aid in a comfortable ride are important products to invest in if you are a rider who puts many kilometers on your bike each year. We all basically ride our bikes on our vaginas. Vaginas are both pretty cool and pretty important, so as female cycling culture grows and grows, it's an aspect of the mechanics of cycling we should be paying attention too.

"Bike seats are designed in such a way that body weight typically rests on the nose of the seat, which can compress nerves and blood vessels in the genital area." - Anahad O'Connor, NYT Article

Like many aspects of health, the effects of this have been widely studied on men, specifically around the erectile dysfunction this can cause, but studies around women have not been as prolific. However, the studies that have been done show that long term riding can damage nerves around the pelvic floor. Ladies! This is not a good thing! Damaged nerves can mean less sexy-time-feelings, and bladder control problems. While the urban cyclist revolution (think the Cycle Chic Movement) calls for wearing "everyday fashions" to normalize cycling, in the long term we should be aware of potential health issues such as nerve damage. If urban cycling becomes equated with erectile dysfunction and loss of bladder control, the bicycle revolution will be in trouble.

The Urbanist Chamois Pantie seems to tackle both the need for specialized clothing, while provide a super cute "normal" looking product for every day wear. BRAVO Christiana! Bravo!

Poor choice of bicycle seat.

P.S. Other ways to help prevent nerve damage in women is raising your handlebars (having an upright bike is great), and using a "nose-less" bike seat (even if they aren't that cool). Here is a great article from the Bike Radar on buying the perfect bike saddle for women.

Did you see the Bookman X DNS Lights?

If you haven't seen it on the internets, we'd like to introduce you to our first official collaboration with Sweedish bike light company Bookman lights! You can get them in our official gang colour Seafoam, or our other favourite colours Spoked Salmon, and Velo Yellow!



We were so excited about the colours we obviously had to make matching neon spandex outfits at the Make Den the night before the shoot. Nothing is better then staying up late with your besties creating and catching up over tall cans, except maybe spending the next weekend afternoon at the beach in bikinis making accessories from the left over spandex.



Big congratulations to Bookman for recently taking some steps to make their production more eco-friendly! Now they have USB rechargable lights, a recycled-plastic bike light in black, and do carbon neutral shipping! Rad. Good job guys.

Thanks to the Bookman team for such a fun projects. (Johan and Mattis- you Sweedish men are awesome!) More pictures from behind the scenes of our Photo Shoot to come soon! 

#DNSganglife

YNOT does Waxed Canvas!

By night I may be in a bike gang, but by day I work with the awesome locally produced cycling bag company YNOT. This week we launched our brand new waxed canvas line, along with this little promo video I shot - which mostly makes me wish summer will never end.

Muttonhead Warehouse Sale!

WoOt! It is that glorious time of the year, when fall fashions are rolling out to delight you and make your forget that it's going to be ballz freezing soon, and pretty summer fashions go on sale!

The Mutts at Muttonhead have your covered for locally made fashion in Toronto. Their warehouse sale starts tomorrow, and runs to the 25th. (That's August 21-25th, 12-7pm.)



Brands that are on sale at 40-70% off :
Naked & Famous denim > www.nakedandfamousdenim.com
Muttonhead > www.muttonheadcollective.com
SUNPOCKET sunnies > www.sunpocketoriginal.com
Topo Designs >www.topodesigns.com
Bather Trunk Company > www.bathertrunkcompany.com
Crown Shaving Co. > www.crownshavingco.com
Socking Behaviour > www.sockingbehaviour.com
LaTrE > www.latreruggedreworked.com

You're welcome.

xo

Introducing Pigeons & Thread

DNS's Big Red (aka Cat Essiambre) and the amazing and talented Kelly Henderson have made their relationship official.

Pigeons & Thread is a labour of love, sprung from the combined years of experience in various fashion production and styling capacities. Cat and Kelly are garment engineers, and have been making ideas come to life for such clients as Thomas Balint, Sartoria, Model Citizen, Paper People Clothing, and more. The studio is located in the heart of China Town, in one of Toronto's last remaining apparel production buildings.

If you have a fashion idea that needs production expertise to take flight, you'll want to contact Pigeons & Thread ASAP.

Women of Bike Polo London #mygirls 4 Adidas

Woot!

Big ups to the rad ladies of London Bike polo, and the Tornado Riders in particular! Lots of love to you ladies, keep kicking ass and taking names! Nice to see a mega brand pick up how amazing the ladies of bike polo in London are.



Big Love to Adidas Marketing Team!

To the production team at Adidas, they still have lots of work to do to be as awesome as this video is. The recently released documentary The Apparel Truth tells a story of the horrors of rape and abuse in factory systems- naming Adidas directly as a big company that produces out of factories such as this. No group of girlfriends wants to wear matching outfits that were made by hands that belong to a woman that was recently raped by her boss.

Gross, right? These things don't belong together, so while Adidas continues to be super awesome at supporting women on the front end, the pressure has to continue on supporting women on the back end.

One Love.

Craig Gives Back

There is a really good chance you are reading this post with a vision rate that allows you to do things that lets you be equally at ease with doing physical tasks. (Chances are if you are reading this blog, biking is a component of how you propel your life forward.) So what happens to a person when they loose the sense that lets them navigate the world with the most ease and independence?

CNIB, Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind and YMCAs are there to help.



When Nova Scotian Craig Aucoin lost his sight to retinitis pigmentosa at the age of 16 after being an active kid and teenager, it was the start of an unhealthy lifestyle cycle. "Over the next seven years, I battled depression, blowing up to 240 pounds, eating everything and anything in sight. I shut everyone out and kept to myself.” Accepting his eventual vision loss, making the decision to be healthy, and partnering with his family and the three above national organizations gave Craig a new lease on a life lived without sight. Now Craig and his and his training partner Lloyd McLean are currently day 8 into an 85-day, 8,200-kilometre journey across Canada to raise funds and awareness for the three organizations above that helped Craig.

"Inspired by the likes of Terry Fox and Rick Hansen, Craig wants to motivate Canadians of all ages to overcome their personal challenges and adopt healthy, active lifestyles."

Along for the ride is Flat Stanley, their partner in the trip and an adorable personal version of a travel gnome. So cute, right?

Quickest way to contribute is to donate 5$ by texting CRAIG to 45678. (Donation will be charged on your phone bill.)

 Now take a minute.


p.s. This is a sponsored post, but we would have written about the story anyway. MegO! worked for the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics and enjoyed that experience probably 100x more then the Olympics themselves. Read more about it at an old blog she wrote whilst working for ethicalDeal.

Skatistan

Empowering girls in Afghanistan through skateboarding.

Brilliant.

Skatistan has been rolling on now since 2007. I first touched the pages of their brilliant 320 page, full colour, amazingly tactile and captivating first book months ago at the very rad Antisocial Skateboard Shop in Vancouver, which happens to also female owned and operated. I'm a bit ashamed I am only posting about it now. If you've been like me and were somehow hiding in a cave on Mars for the past six years, I'd highly suggest going to their website, watching their videos, and feeling awesome about what these guys are doing.

I remember as a kid being told "girls can't do [this or that]." It made me mad and I would usually do that thing (climbing the tall tree, throwing to second from home base, push ups, algebra) as much as I could just to prove whoever said that wrong. The joy of accomplishment was immense. The sense of eurphoria and excitement from mastering something with your body and feeling an endorphine rush made all the bruises and sprains worth it. I can only imagine that under the circumstances these girls face, the joy must be x1000.

Afghanistan's Girl Skaters – Kabul 2012 from Skateistan on Vimeo.

I had words hurled at me for sure, as many girls did in North America, but none of us were ever shot at for saying: "I can do that too."

Show some support. Head on over to their store and throw down some cash for their amazing first book, or some other sweet swag.




SKATEISTAN: TO LIVE AND SKATE KABUL from Diesel New Voices on Vimeo.

Love, Love, Love...