Last Sunday, we teamed up with the Cycling Instructor for a 4-hour cycling session with 10 of our cycling group members. This was an extension of our summer cycling sessions and this event was organised to challenge our members and but also to discover the beautiful countryside of north Surrey.

We started off at 9:30am at Croydon Arena and cycled through Addiscombe,  West Wickham and Biggin Hill on our way to Warlingham. This was a tough route with us having to tackle a number of hills, but it was a really scenic and enabled us to appreciate the beauty that is just on the doorstep of Croydon.  Once we got to Warlingham we stopped off at the very lovely Almno Café for a short break and some light refreshments before making our way back to Croydon through Chelsham,  New Addington, Addington and Addiscombe.

This was a really fun day out and in total, we cycled for  3 hours and 56 minutes,  covered 41.6km, burned over 500 calories and had an elevation gain of 354m (oh those hills!).

A big thank you to the Cycling Instructor for leading the session, to Croydon Council for funding this event and to everyone who attended.

Our cycling group have had a great time over the past two months building up their confidence to cycle on the road, learning cycling techniques, getting some exercise and discovering new and interesting places in Croydon.

Since our last update where we shared our experience cycling from Croydon to Catford we’ve had quite a few cycling adventures. We started off with a lovely 16.3km ride through South Norwood, Beckenham and Crystal Palace.  This route saw the group take on quite a few hills and busy roads as well as beautiful parks like Crystal Palace Park where we discovered the park’s Darwin and the Dinosaurs trail, a collection of life-size dinosaur models created by leading scientist Richard Owen.

Our second cycling adventure was a 16.4km route from Croydon Arena to Central Croydon and then on to Lloyd Park, Addiscombe and South Norwood Country Park. This was a really lovely route taking us through some beautiful, quiet neighbourhoods and along a number of green spaces.

Our most recent adventure was a 14km ride to West Wickham this was a challenging and sometimes dramatic ride as we battled scary roundabouts , rush hour traffic, and numerous buses.

These last three cycling sessions were great fun. Altogether we cycled 46.7km and burnt about 600 calories and we look forward to next week’s adventure.

In this week’s blog we speak to Paul Lowe co-founder of Cycling Instructor, a bikeability organisation that we’ve teamed up with to lead our summer cycling sessions. Our cycling sessions run weekly over the summer months and are open to everyone.

Can you tell us about the Cycling Instructor and why it was started?
Cycling Instructor Ltd was set up by Michael Poole and myself in 2005.  We had both worked for another cycle training provider and thought we could start our own business doing the same thing.

Can you tell us about the work you’re doing with Croydon Council?
We provide Bikeability training in Croydon borough schools, for adults over the age of 16 and various special projects with voluntary sector groups, such as The Lake Foundation.

What has been your favourite cycling project so far?
We really enjoyed the bench opening project with a local school and sustrans.

 How long have you been cycling and what do you enjoy most about cycling?
I have been cycling since I was about 6 and what I love doing is cycle camping or youth hostelling by bike.   After a few days on a trip the world falls away and you enter a ‘bubble’. Also due to the exercise your physiology changes and you can eat as much as you want all the time.

What advice would you give to anyone new to cycling in terms of equipment, technique and building confidence?
Just get a good second hand bike, get a lesson and a map and get going.  You learn about cycling by doing it.

Where can people find out more about the Cycling Instructor
There is lots of information about us on our website:  www.cyclinginstructor.com

Our summer cycling sessions have been running since the beginning of July and we’re now half way through the sessions which will run until the end of August. This year we’ve had a lovely group of people come along to the sessions; all very friendly and eager to build their confidence in cycling and get some exercise.

Friday’s session was excellent. We had ten in the group and were led, once again, by Brian from the Cycling Instructor who was supported by Matthew.

In previous weeks we focused on cycling technique and riding safely on the road and this week it was time to put it all into practice with a ride from Croydon to Catford and back (about 9 miles).

Our journey to Catford took us along Route 21 which is part of the UK’s National Cycle Network  and is a 94 mile route from Greenwich to Crawley and then on to East Bourne via East Grinstead and Heathfield.

We began our journey at the beautiful South Norwood Country Park and joined Route 21 at Elmers End. The cycling path took us through the picturesque green spaces and quiet neighbourhoods of  Beckingham, Sydenham and Lewisham and included riverside cycling along the Waterlink Way.

This session was a lovely experience. The weather was perfect – sunny and mild, and the beauty of route was really impressive.  Many South Londoners, myself included, are certainly missing out on the beauty of our city as the pressures of city life mean we aren’t able to take the time to explore and appreciate the beauty that is right on our doorstep. Cycling really addresses this as it creates endless opportunities to explore the city of London in a fun way.

We encourage everyone to give cycling a try, you’ll be surprised at how fun and relaxing it is and at the journey of discovery you can have; you’ll see your city in a whole new light! And we love it because it provides you with a great way to get some exercise. It’s a win-win.

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Joins us next week Friday at Croydon Arena, all are welcome. For more information visit our events page or email events@thelakefoundation.com

Last Friday, we were absolutely delighted to be back at Croydon Arena for another round of summer cycling sessions.  We started these sessions last summer after teaming up with the Cycling Instructor with support from Croydon Council and as it went so well we decided to run the sessions again this year.

Friday’s session was the first in a series of four sessions which will run once a week throughout the month of July. The aims of the sessions are to improve confidence in cycling, prepare attendees for road cycling, teach basic cycling techniques and introduce people to an enjoyable way to get some exercise.

This first session was great fun and it was nice to see Brian from the Cycling Instructor again, he led the group last year and did a fantastic job so we were happy he was back with us again this year.  We were also really pleased with the turnout, there were ten of us and it was a really mixed group in terms of age, ethnicity and cycling ability, plus everyone was really friendly;  all the right ingredients for an enjoyable session.

After a round of introductions it was on to the serious part of the session, technique. We learnt how to check that our bikes are road worthy and then were instructed on the proper way to get on and off a bike, maintaining balance, braking properly,  riding with one hand (preparation for signalling) and cycling slowly (to prepare for cycling in traffic).

We were all given plenty of opportunity to practice all these techniques making this a very informative but practical session, and at the end of the two hours we had cycled several times around the track so we got some good exercise too!

The next session will be on Friday 10^th July at 6pm at Croydon Arena.  Please email events@thelakefoundation.com to register or call 07440 146 645, and you can download our flyer below for more information.

We would like to say a big thank you to the Cycling Instructor and Croydon Council for giving us the opportunity to run this cycling group.

In this week’s blog, Abi Begho discusses her Walk to Work Week challenge.

Last week was Walk to Work Week and I got involved by walking part of my journey to and from work all last week. This was a great opportunity to get some much-needed exercise and I was amazed at just how much I was able to achieve by making some very simple changes to my journey to work.

I started off on Monday 11^th May. I was heading to central London and decided to substitute the 7-minute tram journey from Addiscombe to East Croydon train station with a lovely early morning walk.  This was a great way to start the morning, it took about 25 minutes, and along the way, I had the opportunity to see my neighbourhood in a whole new light; the lovely houses, the cute kids heading to nursery and the shopkeepers getting ready for a day of trading.  When I got to East Croydon Station a quick glance at my pedometer completely shocked me, I had racked up 3,977 steps! Whey hey!

During the rest of the day, I made a conscious effort to walk as much as I could so I walked to meetings, took a walk at lunchtime, walked up stairs and walked part of my journey back home. At the end of the day, a final glance at my pedometer informed me I had walked 12,087 steps! I was very pleased as the recommended number of steps we should take a day is 10,000.

The rest of the week was much the same although some days were not so good. I peaked at 15,173 steps on 12^th May due to a trip to Birmingham that saw me doing a lot of walking as I opted to walk between train stations and skipped the taxi journeys I would normally take and walked to and from my meeting. My low point was a terrible 3,268  steps on the last day of Walk to Work Week. On this day I was working close to home and because I was carrying my heavy laptop I jumped on the tram, but I did walk up 5 flights of stairs!

I really enjoyed my little Walk to Work Week experiment and I’ve decided to introduce more walking into my commute to work. I’ll be skipping the tram and walking to East Croydon station from now on. I’m going to force myself to do 10,000 steps a day.

We’re so excited to once again team up with the Cycling Instructor with support from Croydon Council to provide free cycling sessions over the summer. This is a fun way to get fit and active and can be a journey of discovery of the beauty of south London as we cycle through the many hidden green spaces along route 21.

This group has been organised as part of our drive to improve the health and wellbeing of the black community and it aims to: provide members with the opportunity to learn how to cycle; provide tips on cycling technique; improve confidence in cycling; prepare attendees for road cycling; and introduce an enjoyable way for people to get some exercise.

Last year we had a great time with our sessions being led by very experienced and friendly instructors from the Cycling Instructor. Our favourite sessions were the off-road cycling sessions where we discovered beautiful locations like South Norwood Country Park, the Waterlink Way and Riverpool Linear Park.

We’ll be starting on 3^rd July at 6pm at Croydon Arena.  Please do get in touch if you’d like to join us. You can email events@thelakefoundation.com  to book your place and to find out more. Our leaflet below also provides more details.

Wednesday was our last session of AfroFit for the season. We had a great six sessions and now it’s off to evaluate it and see how we can make it bigger and better for, hopefully, the summer season.

Wednesday’s session was great fun and our instructor Eunice focused mainly on muscle toning. After  our warm-up Eunice brought out some resistance bands which we made use of for a series of strength training exercises. Resistance bands are not something that I have used before when exercising and it was a great addition to the workout. This very simple piece of equipment was very versatile and allowed us to perform a variety of exercises that worked our entire body. They are in effect a simple and cheap way to strength train without going to the gym or using weights

Our series of exercises included band squats, band lunges, leg lifts, biceps curls and much much more. This was a painful yet effective workout.

After the core part of the workout we cooled down and then went on to my favourite part, relaxation. Lovely!

We’ll be back with AfroFit later in the year and would like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended and a very big thank you to Eunice Adu-Appiah for leading a great set of sessions.

See you next time!

On Wednesday we were back at Christ Church Methodist for another fun AfroFit session. We might have been low on numbers but we were high on energy and motivation being joined by a lovely 15 year old who kept us on our toes!

We started the session once again with a African style warm up and then moved on to circuits where we had to take part in a selection of intense exercises for 30 seconds each. These included lunges, squats, ab wheel rolls outs (double ouch!), plank, push ups and skipping. After doing two rounds of these we were well and truly tired and were so glad to move on to our cool down and relaxation – whoopee!

This was another great session by Eunice, our instructor, who is so upbeat and  really keeps us motivated.

We’ll be back next Wednesday at 7pm. Please do join us. We’d love to see you. For more information and to book a place please email us

On Wednesday, we were back at Christ Church Methodist for another fun session of AfroFit. AfroFit is led by Eunice Adu-Appiah a health promotion professional with ten years of nursing experience. Eunice is extremely knowledgeable with years of experience in fitness training having been an athlete herself (sprinter) in university. She’s absolutely fantastic, explains everything and is really friendly and approachable.

Wednesday’s class was really fun with a slight variation to the previous week’s session. After our funky warm-up and stretch we did a selection of circuit training exercises to improve our mobility and strength. These exercises included plank, lunges across the room, spider lunges across the room and ab wheel roll outs. Once complete it was on to floor work and then our favourite part, cool down and relaxation – yay!

This was another great class by Eunice. The circuit training made it very challenging but with the great music and Eunice’s passion we were motivated to keep going.

We’ll be back at Christ Church Methodist next Wed at 7pm. Please do join us in our drive to get our community fit and healthy.

For more information and directions click here.