Updated
29 August 2015
Dulwich to Dunwich
From
Dulwich to Dunwich (and back) 8/9 July 2006
by James Lyon
120 miles through the night from
Hackney to Dunwich on the Suffolk coast, 9pm depart. No fees, no
support, and very little organisation, the Dunwich Dynamo has actually
been running for the last 14 years; I’d done it a couple of times early
on in it’s life when it was a proper organised thing run by Mosquito
Bikes with full support and an all important broom wagon too. It’s now
become a sort of cult, almost underground, event similar in style to
something like the Critical Mass.
However, this year it seemed to be getting a fair
bit of publicity on several cycling forums and Sam Fensterheim had put
up a thread on the De Laune notice board asking for any other fools to
join him. I fitted it in around a trip down to London and Ross Fryer,
Jayne Wadsworth and James King joined us too. Unfortunately, Sam was
taken ill the day before the event which knocked the numbers back down
to 4.
For reasons best known only to me, I’d elected to
ride the Dynamo on my singlespeed road bike, a Specialized Langster
fitted with an 81” gear. Ross and Jayne turned up on their all-singing,
all-dancing carbon Tarmacs, while JamesK turned up on his winter
training bike, something for which I was thankful…it meant he was less
likely to be setting a silly fast pace! We met up in Dulwich Village and
rode up to the starting point at The Pub On The Park in London Fields.
There were hundreds of bikes lying around the place of all shapes and
sizes...recumbents, tandems, couriers' fixies, high zoot road bikes,
touring bikes, cheapo mountain bikes (they'd be in for a tough ride...)
even two nutters on unicycles!
I bumped into a few friends I knew from Beastway
and also from one of the cycling forums. Jenn Hopkins, the solo winner
of the recent Mountain Mayhem 24hr was also there, she was riding a
battered looking fixie road bike. Bill Wright also turned up to wave us
off, he’d been working just round the corner at Eastway. We sat around
on the grass for a bit and consumed some all-important nutrition kindly
supplied by Ross from behind the bar of the pub. Crisps and a Coke, the
food of champions! At about 9pm, as if by some unseen signal, people
started drifting out of the park and setting off. We waited until about
9.20 before setting off but we were by no means last. Getting out of
town was a little mad, streets clogged with bikes and cars; bemused
locals, some derisive and some supportive, cheering us on our way. Once
we got into Epping the roads were amazingly quiet, just a line as far as
we could see of little flashing red lights. We were rolling along at a
decent clip, helped by the tailwind and we passed a couple of hundred
riders, all settling into their own pace.
We’d picked up a printed sheet of directions but I
remembered some of the route from many years ago and there were enough
other riders in front of us for us to simply follow the trail of lights.
We pushed it along pretty steadily, pretty flat to slightly rolling
hills took us out to the roughly half-way point where a village hall was
opened up for us with some refuelling laid on - £3.50 bought you a plate
of pasta salad. So far things were going well, even the singlespeed
wasn’t particularly hard work, the gear was ideal for the slightly
rolling terrain.
40 minutes later, suitably refuelled, we set off
again. By this time my super bright headtorch was beginning to die, and
it had started drizzling slightly. We put on showerproofs and continued
on our way, tapping along at a steady rate. It wasn’t cold so even the
slight dampness wasn’t a problem. However, we rounded a corner sometime
later and found that a car had gone off the road on a wet corner,
smashed into a tree and caught fire, it had only just happened because
the scene was complete confusion. The Fire Brigade turned up a few
minutes later followed by the police who promptly closed the road and
directed us another way around. Ross managed to slip past the burning
vehicle but Jayne, JamesK and I were turned back, we almost immediately
got lost, my light died then James’ swiftly followed. We established
contact with Ross and after a few minutes of faffing, retraced our
steps, found that the road had now been re-opened and we met up with
Ross again a mile down the road where he was sheltering under a bridge.
A quick break later while Jayne shared out a pack of Jelly Babies and we
were once again on the way, threading our way through the dark lanes and
sleeping villages of Essex.
As we approached the coast there were a few more
serious little hills. The legs were starting to feel it a little more by
this stage and the on-off rain showers had dampened our enthusiasm
somewhat. By this time, it was light and we found our first signpost for
Dunwich. The final few lanes passed in a blur, we could smell the sea
ahead of us and we arrived on the beach at about 5am. We’d ridden 120
miles in exactly 7 hours. The little beach café had opened especially
early for us and we were among the top 50 or so people there so there
wasn’t much of a queue. In no time we were sat in front of a steaming
pile of sausages, eggs, beans, fried bread and bacon, while 2 cups of
coffee kept the tiredness at bay for a while longer.
We had been planning to ride back home (what idiot
thought of THAT plan?!) but on setting off from the beach we quickly
discovered why we’d made such good time on the way out. The tailwind
that had pushed us there was now a persistent headwind and, to add
insult to the conditions, it started properly raining. A quick debate
under the shelter of a tree followed and we all quickly agreed to ride
to Ipswich (a mere 35 miles away…) and get the train home.
We tucked our heads down and slogged away. After
an hour or so, the rain eased off, the sun came out and we made better
time. Jayne punctured by the side of the main A-road into Ipswich and a
completely shattered James King made the most of the 5-minute break by
curling up on the wet grass and falling asleep while Ross and I fixed
the puncture. Eventually, we rolled into Ipswich at about 8am and spent
the next 20 minutes trying to find the station. After several missed
turns, we pitched up at the station, bought a ticket for the next train
and Ross bought the entire contents of the stations coffee bar. We also
met up with my forum friends, they’d cunningly got a lift to the station
in a friends van. The train journey to London passed quickly, James fell
immediately asleep, and the rest of us shared stories from the ride.
The entire trip was 150 miles, 120 to Dunwich then
30 miles from there to Ipswich. We’d done the ride in bang on 9 hours.
From Liverpool Street station we split up, Jayne heading off to Elephant
and Castle; Ross, JamesK and I went south via a McDonalds (essential
post ride food!) back to Dulwich. An excellent night out!
