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damerell at 03:08pm on 23/07/2013
damerell at 03:08pm on 23/07/2013So I did the Dunwich Dynamo again this year, the 115-ish mile overnight ride from Hackney to the sunken village in Suffolk.
I followed the official route out of London but the pack just ahead of me went the other way around, so I immediately lost the various forum types I'd seen at the start. I ended up riding quickly for the first 30 miles, so I stopped for BEER at the 20 and 30 mile pubs in the hope that some of the other people would turn up. In the end all I saw was a friend of a friend of a friend, who'd discovered her tyre had a hole in it; I offered a boot, but on inspecting the tyre - worn down to the cords - took the boot back and offered my spare tyre. "Can you change it for me?" I confess I rolled my eyes a little, but I and a chap she'd been riding with got it changed, and on we went; I rode with them until just before the feed stop.
This put me in the awkward position that I'd ridden quickly, which if you are not all that fit has its revenge later (and it did), but was also quite far back; I skipped the BEER in Finchingfield, not fancying too many hours in the doubtless blistering heat the next morning (ho, ho).
At the feed stop, nothing but bread and tea left; I was going to get hungry, which was especially vexing when I got to Dunwich and realised I'd carried five hard-boiled eggs all the way from London. I set off well, riding with - oddly enough - two anaesthesiologists on a tandem, wearing the British Anaesthesiologists' cycling jersey (which apparently is a thing that exists) over full-body tight leopard-print garments. After a bit, though, I started to feel the lack of food, and they dropped me as tandems will. At 60 miles I ate three fig rolls, put in the headphones, and resolved to grind the next ten miles out and repeat; those ten miles were a pretty bad patch, especially with the cold wet mist - did anyone expect cold wet mist? - but each subsequent ten miles was better until I found dry shelter just after 90 miles and had a proper sitdown and the last of the fig rolls. Somewhere in here I blew a headlight bulb, which is always slightly annoying.
Finally it started to get dry and slightly lighter, and there wasn't much to say about the last miles to the beach save the usual vexation with banzai overtaking cagers on the final road. Massive queue for the cafe and no-one I knew around except a bloke I used to know from Rocksoc who I'd seen at the start, so I hopped back on the bike and rode to Darsham. This year they've been sensible - station staffed, hourly services Southbound and the usual stock swapped for Class 170s which they are cramming completely full (I saw more than one facing pair of double seats filled with stacks of upside down bikes), but it was no skin off my nose to go North via Norwich, so I did that to keep me out of their hair; chatted to some other Dun Runners to Norwich, and got some kip on the Cambridge train.
I got to the beach about 0845 - just better than the magic 15kph, for what it's worth.
I followed the official route out of London but the pack just ahead of me went the other way around, so I immediately lost the various forum types I'd seen at the start. I ended up riding quickly for the first 30 miles, so I stopped for BEER at the 20 and 30 mile pubs in the hope that some of the other people would turn up. In the end all I saw was a friend of a friend of a friend, who'd discovered her tyre had a hole in it; I offered a boot, but on inspecting the tyre - worn down to the cords - took the boot back and offered my spare tyre. "Can you change it for me?" I confess I rolled my eyes a little, but I and a chap she'd been riding with got it changed, and on we went; I rode with them until just before the feed stop.
This put me in the awkward position that I'd ridden quickly, which if you are not all that fit has its revenge later (and it did), but was also quite far back; I skipped the BEER in Finchingfield, not fancying too many hours in the doubtless blistering heat the next morning (ho, ho).
At the feed stop, nothing but bread and tea left; I was going to get hungry, which was especially vexing when I got to Dunwich and realised I'd carried five hard-boiled eggs all the way from London. I set off well, riding with - oddly enough - two anaesthesiologists on a tandem, wearing the British Anaesthesiologists' cycling jersey (which apparently is a thing that exists) over full-body tight leopard-print garments. After a bit, though, I started to feel the lack of food, and they dropped me as tandems will. At 60 miles I ate three fig rolls, put in the headphones, and resolved to grind the next ten miles out and repeat; those ten miles were a pretty bad patch, especially with the cold wet mist - did anyone expect cold wet mist? - but each subsequent ten miles was better until I found dry shelter just after 90 miles and had a proper sitdown and the last of the fig rolls. Somewhere in here I blew a headlight bulb, which is always slightly annoying.
Finally it started to get dry and slightly lighter, and there wasn't much to say about the last miles to the beach save the usual vexation with banzai overtaking cagers on the final road. Massive queue for the cafe and no-one I knew around except a bloke I used to know from Rocksoc who I'd seen at the start, so I hopped back on the bike and rode to Darsham. This year they've been sensible - station staffed, hourly services Southbound and the usual stock swapped for Class 170s which they are cramming completely full (I saw more than one facing pair of double seats filled with stacks of upside down bikes), but it was no skin off my nose to go North via Norwich, so I did that to keep me out of their hair; chatted to some other Dun Runners to Norwich, and got some kip on the Cambridge train.
I got to the beach about 0845 - just better than the magic 15kph, for what it's worth.