Highlights from the Dunwich Dynamo

At the start

Saturday evening I hooked up with Tom, Dmytro, Jessica and her boyfriend Mark, along with probably 1000+ others, to kick off the Dunwich Dynamo, the annual semi-organized slightly-scary 120 mile overnight bicycle ride from London through Essex and Suffolk up to Dunwich beach.

The range of cycles and cyclists was striking. Real Cycling! describes it best: “All London bike life is here, from team whizzkids with kit the colour of rainforest toads, to tribally tattooed and pierced radicals on fixies. Most though look like Sunday leisure riders out for a pub-lunch spin on their everyday bikes. “

My bike

I rode my 2007 rust-red Langster. A single speed, but un-fixed. I attached a rack and bag to the backside (the contents of which did not deviate too much from this list), two water bottle cages, and re-wrapped the handlebar tape for extra padding. Also was using a pair of grippy bar ends taken from my old mountain bike. And I used my trusty clip-in shoes.

Personal Highlights

Today the web is bubbling over with full reports, photologs, video and shoutouts, so if you’re thinking of riding next year you’ll have all the factual description you could ever possibly want or need. For me, this was a evening of firsts. First time riding in a “critical mass” type of event. First time riding more than 60 miles in one day. First time riding through the night. First time in seeing Suffolk county. So instead of adding to blow-by-blow reports, I wanted to jot down a few highlights that made this ride particularly memorable for me.

Flat tire in Epping Forest!

We started off from London a little early, around 8:30pm, at a very slow, relaxed pace. There was a fair amount of car traffic, plus we had been advised against overexertion at the beginning. The excitement really hit at around 9:30pm when pace-setters from the “official” 9 o’clock start caught up to and overtook us. Woooosh wooshh wooooshhhhhhhh. Traffic is less of an issue now and we gradually pick up the pace to a comfortable quick speed until — *fffsssssss* I run over a nail. Jess, Mark and Dmytro are champions for sticking with me while I repaired the flat. In 5 minutes we are back on the road.

Stop-points along the route!

It was constantly made clear that the Dunwich Dynamo was not a race but a chilled-out group ride. Everyone’s meant to settle into their own pace, or with a group, or mix it up freely with others, make friends with strangers, encourage each other along the way. Sometimes, though, you get separated from the pack, and when you’re traveling in the dark, seemingly alone, it was truly awesome to turn a corner and see the bright lights of a pub approaching. And not only were these pubs open, they were overflowing with fellow cyclists taking breaks. Locals loved us, encouraging us to keep on going. It was really amusing how the further out into the country we got, the less likely the locals knew what the hell was going on! “We saw one bicycle, then two, then 10 more, then they just kept coming. What a peaceful whirring to emerge from our house to hear,” was a typical reaction. After explaining what the deal was, people were universally impressed and inspired. A friendly old man, returning home from a dinner party with his friends, exclaimed his admiration.

We are actually doing this!

I think around 1:30am it started to hit home for me that this was actually happening, that we were really doing this. We were past the halfway point and therefore more effort would be required to turn around and go home than to continue to the beach. It was pitch black outside now. Zero traffic. Very few sounds of nature. The peace and quiet was startlingly off-putting. A sobering moment: a man who had an accident was taken away by an ambulance. Friendly chatter ceased as we all focused on our task. At 70 miles in, we weren’t terribly tired, but much effort was expended on staying focused on the road and fellow cyclists. A normal night we might have been in bed. Red-eyed, faces and legs gritty with the grime of the open road, it was time to focus.

Breakfast!

Consumed at least 5000 calories over the weekend — before, during and after the ride. This included a massive pasta plate, 6 PowerBars or similar, some fruit and nut bar, some cured sausage, a full traditional English breakfast at 7:30am at a small cafe in Framlingham, an ice cream, some chocolate, fish and chips, two cans of cider, and a burger. The highlight was the breakfast in Framlingham. We were 95 miles into the race and in need of a physical and mental recharge. We took a good hour to sit, drink coffee, throw down our plates of eggs, bacon, sausage, mushroom, tomato and beans, and laugh about the trials we’d endured thus far. Like Jessica getting lost for half an hour. And the PowerBars making me fart something fierce. We had a quick look at Framlingham caste and then rejoined the ride.

This was primarily a challenge of mental endurance!

And the reward…