Dunwich Dynamo - part II
As i mentioned earlier, I did this last year...

www.b3ta.com/questions/roadtrip/post1280824

So after watching it chucking it down all through Saturday I finally decided that I was going to do it again as the forecast said it would be dry overnight. Packed too much food and a few tools, caught the train to London (no point riding unless I really had to, right?) and cycled to Victoria Park. Then I remembered that the start was actually at London Fields so I cycled there instead. Four out of the five of us that were doing it this year had all done it last year, so we were brimming with confidence. My friend Justin had decided to up the challenge a little by doing it on a single speed and I’d decided to take it one step further into idiocy and do it on a fixed gear. The chap who did it last year in a butcher’s bike with a dog also decided to make it a bit more of a challenge this year by taking two dogs – one a very excited 13 week old puppy. After five pints or so in the Pub on the Park, we set off at a snail’s pace and slowly worked our way out of London with a mass of other cyclists and some very pissed off looking motorists. Stopped for another pint about seven miles in and bumped into the same people propping up the bar as last year. One of them owned a bike shop and has offered each of us free service that we’ll no doubt need this week, which was rather nice of him.

We carried on cycling through Epping as the sun started fading and got a little solemn as we passed an ambulance picking someone up who had presumably come off. As it got darker I turned on my 320 lumen front light and it decided to turn itself straight on to strobe more for a couple of minutes and then off completely. Bums. I was now cycling in the dark without being able to see where I was going. Inevitably I hit a massive pothole, managed to just about hold on, but got a flat front tyre. Simultaneously cursing the puncture fairy and thanking her that at least it wasn’t the back wheel, I swapped the tube over and caught up with my mates before rolling into Finchingfield. Lovely place, but I wouldn’t want to’ve lived there on Saturday night, far too many cyclists passed out all over the green. We went into the pub, but this time had a cup of tea with as much sugar as would fit in the cup. We were feeling fairly miserable at this point as the hills seemed bigger than last year and we were only a third of the way there, but my spirits were lifted an hour or so later when we were going through a little village and there was a mad old bugger outside his house ringing a big bell to urge us on – wouldn’t have wanted him as a neighbor. Round the corner there were a group of lads staggering out of the local pub/club shouting at everyone going past. One of them tripped up the kerb and landed on his face so hard that both of his shoes fell off – this made me grin and go a little faster.

I found myself bumping into the same groups of people the whole way along and always enjoyed the couple on the tandem in fancy dress turning up. They had a big sound system playing 80s classics. Nothing quite like zooming along a dark, empty country lane to the sound of Huey Lewis and the News. As the sun came up again I stopped to have a chat with the chap with the dogs again and give them a scratch under the chin (just the dogs, not the chap on the bike). He said he’d also ridden to Berlin with one of them earlier in the year, 700 miles in 7 days. Fuck. That. About 85 miles in an enterprising family has set up a bacon sarnie stall so we stopped and had a few gallons of tea and some charred meat in the yurt in their garden. At this point we called Justin to see where he was as he’d gone off ahead – turns out he was only a couple of miles down the road, so he turned round and came back for more brekkie. Five miles later we hit another bacon stand and stop again. You can never have too much bacon while cycling, I’m sure the Tour De France riders will agree with me on that.

I’d been fairly worried about the last 15 miles or so as I remember them being really hill which wasn’t good news with my single, high gear, I found a strategy of riding at them as fast as possible and hoping that my momentum would carry me up worked well. Handily it meant I’d generally pulled ahead enough to stop at the top and try not to be sick. Dunwich is a small, fairly unremarkable place and as such doesn’t really appear on road signs until you’re right on top of it. The first one is when you’re 7 miles away and some amusing person had used a bit of black tape to change it to 71 miles. Ho ho ho. We changed it to 17 as that seemed much more realistic, but still quite crushing.



Finally arrived, went for a swim in the North Sea for 20 minutes or so and got driven home by my mate’s missus (thankyouthankyouthankyou Roseanna). Needless to say, I had a pretty early night last night. I woke up to find that doing it fixed has shagged both of my knees, but I’m proud that I didn’t give in and use the freewheel. Might do next year. Actually I’m not doing it next year. Well, maybe…

Here's some guy's timelapse video until it gets dark and the very end:

www.dailymotion.com/video/xjyqf6_timelapse-dunwich-dynamo-2011_sport
(Alphabet Soap boshboshboshbosh, Mon 18 Jul 2011, 9:29, 1 reply)

Good work
Looks fun too, might have a crack at it one time!
(Blunt Logic, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 9:36, closed)