a little r’n'r

Saturday morning I wake quite late, wishing I didn’t have to wait all day to start the ride. Step one, stuff myself with carbs, step two, shoot up to the shops to buy some supplies finally step 3, panic and contemplate the ride ahead.

For those of you who have not heard of the Dunwich Dynamo, it’s cycle ride that starts at London fields, Martello St, E8 and ends at Dunwich 120 miles ish later. The ‘dynamo’ bit is for the fact that it starts at 8pm and around 500 people cycle with only one real break right through the night. Read more about it here…

So this is my first Dynamo and I have the pleasure of cycling with Joe who I’m sure will pull me along at the bitter end of the 120 miles. After some more carbs and stocking up on everything I could possibly need we leave Barbican heading to London Fields for about 7:30pm.

As we arrive there are hundreds of bicycles and people on the green of all shapes and sizes. We linger about until the guy with the maps arrives and then we loiter by the starting point waiting to find someone that knows the way to go.

Suddenly a rush of people start to go and so we join a convoy of more than 100 people. The peloton dominates the road moving swiftly and decisively towards Epping forest. There was a nervous laugh about 4 minutes in when someone said “does the guy at the front know where he’s going or did he just nip out for a carton of milk”. Traffic waits bemused as we move from cycle paths to roads and before I know it we’ve thinned out into a long line of people huffing it up the first hill.

The first 35 miles or so felt pretty fast and very fun; I hardly noticed the sun going down. We arrived at a T junction with 30 or so cyclists all pausing and debating the route which very quickly became 60 (I was quite happy to wait to follow the largest consensus). Eventually someone who knows arrived at the back and yelled ‘right!’ and we set off again.

I guess around 45 or 50 miles in Joe and I found ourselves needing a pause at the side of the road for some food and a loo break. Our aim was to get to the kitchen before all the food was gone though I wished I’d taken a little more time to stretch because my back was very tight. Arriving at the kitchen, around mile 65 I’m told, wasn’t a moment too soon and knowing it was a little over half way made the thought of continuing much less daunting. After everyone got stocked up with food (I, not feeling my best, could only stomach a power gel thing which I realise sounds harder than just eating but at least I didn’t have to chew) and lots of water we were on our way again. Our hour and a half break felt like 10 minutes and were it not for wanting to get to the end I might have stayed there forever.

We set off with extra layers including leg warmers and our waterproofs which we’ll later realise aren’t as waterproof as we’d like them to be. It’s a nice easy/steady/slow pace after the feeding station whilst everyone finds their feet pedals and not 400 feet on I hear “car”, “car” from behind and as I pull in I realise that actually, there is a curb and pavement and it’s far closer than I expected so have to break hard. It’s too late, I’m falling and Joe is crashing into the back of me! Yup, I took a tumble, quite embarrassing but no injuries and very caring by passers ask “are you ok?” and “what on earth happened?”.

Back en-route and this bit gets hazy, I’m not really sure where the pockets of the route end up in my memory but it’s not at the front. I recall studying Joe’s back wheel as my light focuses on it whilst I sway side to side trying to stay as close as possible to piggyback on his hard work legitimately draft without crashing into him. We tick away at the miles, sometimes by ourselves but still joining the odd group here and there. For some reason I need the loo every 2 minutes so I guess we took far more breaks than was necessary in the last 55 miles and probably could have arrived a lot earlier at Dunwich.

The night was a strange feeling with everyone quite quietly working at chipping away at the miles and occupying their minds with thoughts of food or being somewhere warm and dry. The FAQ’s were right, the memory of flashing lights really does linger. The sun never arrives in the fashion to in which we were promised but it does get lighter and it does it fast. We join another group around dawn who keep me very entertained for I guess 10 miles or so. After we lose them for another loo break and a chance to stretch, Joe’s completely in charge of all directions as I can’t multi-task at the best of times, let alone after 90 miles. Weaving through the final country lanes in very heavy rain we slowly and surely grind away at the miles and reach a sign post that says 7 miles to Dunwich. Seven miles sounds like a very short distance but it takes forever to get to 4 miles and that last run to the beach feels like the same again.

We’re there! Safe! Finished! 120 miles later having started at 8:30pm on Saturday I’m shattered and very cold but very pleased with our progress to arrive at 7am. I guess we rode for about 8 hours 15 minutes at about 14.5 miles per hour with 1.5 for ‘lunch’ and 45 mins for pee breaks along the way (that’s me trying to bump up our average speed so I feel like I worked harder).

I will do it next time for sure (28^th July 07), here are my tips:
Tips for next time:

• Wear proper cycling shorts with padding
• Do a little more training – fitter would be good
• Get brighter lights (something about lumens)
• Eat more frequently whilst riding
• Bring a change of clothes so I can be toasty warm when it rains that hard

My photos and everyone elses

Finally, I learned some very bad news at the end which I didn’t want to believe and until I read it remained hopeful that it was a story that had changed via the Chinese Whispers from group to group along the route. A rider was hit by a van and killed. Southwark Cyclists can tell you more but I’m sure that all 700 participants are thinking of Andrew Rawling’s family and friends.

1. Richard Fiske Says:
   April 13th, 2008 at 6:47 pm

   Can you let me have the website of the organiser please. Great trip by the way

2. r0b1 Says:
   July 19th, 2008 at 9:39 am

   sorry for the late reply Richard but the ride is organised by southwark cyclists as I hope you’ve already discovered because the ride is today the 19th July 2008!

   Hopefully see you there!

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