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Man, that was fun. Hour and a quarter faster than last year (got in at 0558), managed to get up the hill out of Finchingfield in the big ring without changing down* and my left knee, which was agony towards the end of the ride, seems to have settled down a bit overnight. Thank you gormley for being excellent company while I was in pain and I hope your legs have recovered likewise.
*An annual personal revenge on the hill - had to walk it the first year on the Dahon.
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Did you make all your bags yourself, Scott?
And I wonder whether, if the Dynamo keeps getting bigger, at some point one/some special train(s) might not be put on from Darsham--there seems to be ample capacity on that line on Sundays.
Someone on YACF who works on the railways did make some inquiries into chartering a cargo train on the Sizewell line back to London. Obviously didn't get far enough for this year, but could be a possibility for next year though.
If I do it again (and decide not to cylce back) I'd rent a van, put bike/booze/towels/food/stove/etc in it, drive it down to Dunwich Saturday morning, lock it up and cycle back to Darsham and get the train to London. Start the Dun Run as normal and have everything I need (including transport home) there when I got there.
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Long - Please ignore if easily bored.
That has to be the best DD as far as the riding was concerned.
Fuck up number one came with suggesting that if you just nip out round the back of the pub you'll avoid the massive train trying to leave. Only had to rejoin the train on the other side of the pub. Should have gone further out of the park and joined the ride properly at the rail bridge. Sorry, Hackney never was my part of town and isn't about to become so now.
Jumped on the back of hillbilly and Plagiarist to get towed at high speed out to Epping. Wish I could have returned the favour but the only service I could have offered you was to slow you down horribly. I owe you beer for getting me so far past the crowd and the Dulwich group.
Stopped at North Weald for a water fill and a lights faff. Promptly jumped on the back of the Dulwich group who were strung out in order of how seriously they were taking the ride. At some point I got dropped only for them to see how many times they could come past me before Great Dunmow. I swear they were throwing in loops for funsies. A quick stop out the far edge of Dunmow for food and another layer of clothing where I tempted fate by texting the gf to say all was going wonderfully, was having a great time and wishing her a good night. Fate responded with a puncture 10k on, shortly before Finchingfield (in the darkest place so far naturally). The cause of the puncture was fairly easy to work out as the tire had a small split in it where the inner had bulged through. Cue making a temporary boot out of a patched wrapped in some carrier bag.
Back on the road, fuck up number two came by following some people out of Finchingfield (thought the climb was a bit easy this year) and then overtaking them. Half a k down the road I realised no one was behind me so stopped to check the route and realised I had been a twat. Rejoined and continued onto fuck up number three when I overshot the one way system in Sudbury. Looped back through town over loads of broken glass but no punctures from that.
On the climb out of Sudbury I spotted a rider messing with his chain. Not the usual puncture repair stuff so offered help. One of the plates seemed fucked and I was too hungry to hang around more than a couple of minutes so lent my chain tool for him to play link removal games. Got the feed station and realised the collosal mistake as the area was swamped with riders and the queue was out to the road. Swiftly lamented the loss of my chain tool and prayed for mercy to the link gods. Prayers were answered when the rider bimbled into the hall caught my eye and handed my tool back proclaiming that he was amazed to find me among all the other riders wearing yellow.
Not wishing to wait an hour to be served on the beach I set about hunting down red lights and overtaking as many people as possible. All went well until my impromptu boot gave out with 50k to go. At least it was daylight this time so I made another using more patches and keeping the pressure down to 80psi. Watched people getting lost coming out of Framlingham and several missing the Fiddlers Hall sign. I shouted but only a few responded. Perhaps the upthread mentioned mini rainbow had distracted them. It was pretty.
Last stretch was a breeze, even the shitty By Road and especially the heath road.Pity I didn't meet more people. Alas I won't be seeing you again next year or beyond. While the riding is great, the ride itself has become to big. I estimate over 800 riders this year which negates any chance of a head of the queue feeding/breakfast unless I thrash it and don't want to do that. I remeber my first and second rides well where the make up of riders seemed 1/4 seasoned riders looking for a little summer madness, 1/4 mad riders looking for a little summer seasoning and 1/2 clueless, talentless riders on a massive adventure. Now it feels like to many clubs treat it like a training ride and too many others do it because they think they should, not for the enjoyment. I'm going to call that my last DD for now, in favour of it's smaller imitations. There's the Exmouth Exodus and I've heard of one ending up around Bournemouth.
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Ah, that was it--I half suspected that, as you'd said at Dunwich that you had a different GPS trail. You didn't go via Yoxford, did you?
My GPS route was based on this one: [ame]http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Dunwich-Dynamo-route-UK[/ame
[/ame]
GPS worked a treat. Shitloads of people had no idea where they were going and those that did have a routesheet ran in to the small problem of having no way to read it in the dark (get a Petzl headtorch). So many times we'd get passed by a group of 15 storming by, only to find them two minutes later standing at a junction with everyone pointing in different directions, we'd just zoom past making the correct turn. Eventually they just tagged onto the back of us and had to slow down to our pace.
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Do what I did. Get intructions from pocket, cue up a straight stretch of road and coast while reading the instructions and keeping an eye on the verge. No stopping required.
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what a nice but completely exhausting experience
we had a nicely balanced group of fixed riders for the whole journeyour little peleton numbering around the 8 mark swept through the essex and suffolk countryside
racing for the first 60 miles swooshing past group after group of dulwich paragon riders ( suckers !! ) and on to the feed station, thereafter things slowed a tad by the end we were all pretty much beat arrived on the beach for 6 ish watched the rain come by and then a great chilled out time snoozing and chatting on the beach until about 12 then the coach fiasco doh !
manged to get back as far as ipswich joined onto a londonfgss geared group for the last 10 miles or so thanks rob john keith caspar for dragging me the last bit
home has never seemed quite so sweetat 170 miles the most i've ever done continuously - ish ( in 24hrs - ish ) with a small nap in the middle if yuo know what i mean
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shout out to riding companions. Notably guy on a Pearson who'd rode from Croydon for the first leg and to the bunch I cycled in to Dunwich and on to Ipswich with. Fortunately they didn't mind my wheel sucking or my furious attempts to keep up with them on the downhills. Lovely bunch.
I really appreciate the sense of camaraderie on the ride
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Tremendous ride!
High point: full english, pint of adnams, cream scone, 99 flake and cappuccino at Dunwich.
Low point: falling flat on my face, very hard, in the queue inside the feeding station, whilst half asleep in the middle of the night, because of a reading-the-"beware undulating floor"-signpost fail. Got a round of applause though.
Saw a crowd from the forum but only really said hi to Clefty and Scott. Well done everyone. Esp girl on penny farthing. First two minutes of the cycle to work today hurt bad. Next year I might ride geared... -
Tremendous ride!
High point: full english, pint of adnams, cream scone, 99 flake and cappuccino at Dunwich.
Low point: falling flat on my face, very hard, in the queue inside the feeding station, whilst half asleep in the middle of the night, because of a reading-the-"beware undulating floor"-signpost fail. Got a round of applause though.
Saw a crowd from the forum but only really said hi to Clefty and Scott. Well done everyone. Esp girl on penny farthing. First two minutes of the cycle to work today hurt bad. Next year I might ride geared...i was standing just in front of you in the queue when that happened. made a horrible noise but the wave (and subsequent applause) was pretty reassuring. that floor was fucked. glad you were alright though.
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What a completely amazing ride. The mini-grupetto of me, Braker, Jonny, Sam, Soul and BigFatAl just trucked along. Thanks very much guys for the pace. I've never ridden that far that fast and it was tremendously personally satisfying to learn new things about my riding. I improved my time over last year by an hour and a half. Very good company gentlemen, it was an honour and a priviledge and bloody, bloody good fun.
Very good to meet so many new faces: Soul, Braker, Gralegav - you guys MUST make west beers in the future.
The day at the beach was fun, so nice to hang out which is really what the event are all about. Spag, JayGee, VeeVee, Fred, Clefy so much fun. My favourite line from the day was "Well of course I didn't being any fucking sunscreen, it's was a night ride!"
The coach and bike trip back was an organisational fail of amazing proportions. I got home over 12 hours after I got to the beach.
Thanks to BigFatAl for finding the fabulous and cheap pub with no queue and cold beer at Smithfields.
Next year priorities:
1) Separate forum transport back with a huge beer fridge built into the back
2) Forum cycling jerseys so we can recognise each other on the ride and at the end, so many posting that I didn't get a chance to meet.a kindly man's whisky flask.
You're very welcome. Glad that it perked you up. Hip Flask of Jameson's FTW! Best last minute idea ever.
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Explanation of transport problems and roundup from Barry here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southwarkcyclists/message/7627
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I loved the DD. My first time and it couln't have been better.
Perfect weather, perfect company.
Big thumbs up for all in our little group. Cinthia, Momo, The 2 Johns and the 2 Julians and the on and off the group Liz. Thanks boys for thaking care of the girls. I loved riding in such a mixed and lively group. Proves that girls can be strong too.
Average speed 16.1, we made in 7.20hrs, I was running 47/19
Only had a pwerbar bar and leaving the gel for the last 15 miles did the trick. I felt all made of plastic this stuff is awful. I think i may have turned into a barbie.I am really pleased!
bring on more miles -
there are plans afoot to have a londonfgss team coach to rival the dulwich paragon team bus ( nodders the lot of 'em !! ) heard a few people make the comments
complete with camping stove so no queuing for breakfast? freshly brewed coffee you say? i'm in.
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Do what I did. Get intructions from pocket, cue up a straight stretch of road and coast while reading the instructions and keeping an eye on the verge. No stopping required.
+1
Don't understand people who can't read from/don't know how to use a cue sheet.
Take junction - pull out route sheet - read next junction details - put sheet back in pocket - take junction - pull out route sheet - repeat to fade
Steff
Greenbank
The_Seldom_Killer
dicki
braker
Gustav
Olly398
hippy
Hovis_Brown
Aroogah
Soul
huge16
tika
Object
illy
Sam-
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About
2009-07-04 Sat - Dunwich Dynamo 2009
Posted by
@hillbilly
When I was growing up in the '70's, we had an old mini that was basically a rusty shell. There were rusty patched in the floorpan that let water in when it rained, so my dad drilled some holes to let the water out. It drained away and my dad was very pleased with himself. Of course, it meant there were even more holes in the floor, so next time it rained twice as much water came in.
SIlly sod