2009-07-04 Sat - Dunwich Dynamo 2009

It's nearly as reflective as jonny's shoes.

we just needed music and that would have been a mobile disco out there. i think braker had some tunes going for a while.

I shouted do a skid at you when you rode past me on the way back and didn't get one!

hey clefty, was really cool to see you arriving. and fred and a few others. sorry to miss you on the beach but had to get on to the final little leg of the journey.

if you are at souths later i have a book for you.

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.

aw bless! we were there when you fell over and there was this sudden hush in the room as everyone thought that something awful had happened, the cheer I think was muchly in relief when you stood up in good style.

Good ride, I'm glad I did it, and lovely to see so many people, even if briefly (I wonder how I missed so many more though?) Next time I'd like to do it a bit quicker and be on the beach for dawn. Me and Matthew mainly just rode together at our own pace, which did slip slower as the night drew on and those last 25miles dragged out in the rain. Possibly due to our combined reluctance to use all the sport food we had with us - it took us 15 minutes to agree to share an energy gel, and I brought the rest home!

Would have liked to spend more time at Dunwich to savour the achievement & see folk but that rain threatened to squash my morale so had to leave, shivering, before I refused to ever ride again.

Happy days!

ITo label riders as 'talentless people out on a great adventure' is really out of order.

I think I was the first person to comment on "talentless riders on a massive adventure" and I don't for one moment see it as out of order. Talentless means just that, an absence of talent, a descriptive word that is accurately applied to some of the people on the DD. Just because a word is commonly associated with pejorative usage, doesn't mean that this is always the case. It's neither always good word or a bad word, sometimes its just a word.
In fact, in my post I cite the density of these people on the ride as one of the elements that used to make it really good. I love the fact that so many of them use this occaision as a chance to aim way above their usual comfort zone and general skill level. They may well benefit from some better gear discipline, road tires, saddle height, pacing and so on, but that they get to the finish despite these obstacle is wonderful and to be celebrated.

Just realised. I didn't even see the beach this year.

That is all.

That was ACE. I owe several beers to the guy on the Cervelo who lent me the brake bolt (Alby I think?), you have saved me countless hedge injuries. (I did slightly deliriously announce 'oh well, maybe I'll get really good at riding brakeless and be able to ride my Panasonic to Herne Hill' but after the first downhill was massively steep and had a lovely sign saying 'blind descent' or something I changed my mind and decided throwing myself into a hedge was a preferable option.)

No problem, happy to help out and pleased to hear it got you to Dunwich ok. I wasn't going fast enough to warrant one brake let alone two! :)

Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

£25 a head x 50 Forumengers (approx count this year) = £1250

I'm quite sure we beat that and lower the per head cost.

I did a quick pricing with Streetcar (hiring one VW Transporter van and one VW Touran MPV). 3 people in the van, 7 in the Touran. Bikes'n'shit in the van.

25 hour rental for both, with 250 miles worth of fuel (they charge per mile and rental is 8 quid per hour capped at 70 quid per 24 hours) comes to £245 total. So almost bang on £25 a head all in with 10 places sold. This assumes a 2.30pm van/car pickup, quickly load up stuff (booze, towels, bag drops, and driver's bikes), drive to Dunwich, dump van in car park, get bikes out and bimble over to the 5.38pm train from Darsham getting to Liverpool St for 7.45pm and up to the park for a swift pint. Do Dun Run and leave at about midday, vans/cars have to be back by 3.30pm. Does require 1 in 5 people remaining sober enough to drive though.

Almost certainly economies of scale (cheaper per head) with a bigger van and a minibus rental.

Many many thanks for this totally 531 ride! Not sure if I had enough miles in my legs, but supported by a superb gruppetto which formed after the feed we positively bowled along. 120 miles fixed - longest ride I've ever done (108,000 pedal revolutions on a 70 inch gear).

Chapeau to everyone who finished (and apart from the coach debacle) a fantastic event.

A super huge thank you to our little group of riders, you know who you are - all gentlemen!!!!

Reading all this has got me geared up(excuse the pun) for the next one :-)

Ha! Finally some evidence that the blue reflective tape on my rims really works :)

i was thinking what the hell that tape was for...?

i must admit did it was a bit of a strange dd this year....
the first 1/4 was going at such a rate of knots that i could hardly see
the second 1/4 was cruising with a good group - until we dropped then all (i now know due to jonny's bladder leakage)
the second 1/2 well we never made it...just turned around and cruised home. great riding with regulars claus (that drive up the last, and only, hill was epic!), tim (for dragging that steal italian bike so far!), bmmf (solid as always) and gav 'new powerful lights' polkingtonhorn.

aw bless! we were there when you fell over and there was this sudden hush in the room as everyone thought that something awful had happened, the cheer I think was muchly in relief when you stood up in good style.

I can tell you I was releived - immediately after being very surprised - too. I genuinely had no undertanding of what happened, except one second I was moping along rustling in my jersey pocket for some change, and next second I had been body-slammed by an invisible hulk hogan. Apparently my cleat-shod feet were scrabbling frantically at the little lino hillock for a good second or two, which attracted everyone's attention pre-decking. Comedy.

Just realised. I didn't even see the beach this year.
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you're not the only one.

haha, those lino hillocks are apparently the legacy of the horribly wet DD in 2007 - i heard the kitchen people talking about it whilst filling up on water.

(108,000 pedal revolutions on a 70 inch gear).

Haha me and my mate tried for about 5 mins to work this out on the coach home but we were too dun-tarded. Now I know what to brag to my wimpy pals ;-)

Maths fail.

A 70" gear means you travel pi * 70" for each pedal revolution. (70" is the equivalent diameter of a penny farthing wheel).

108,000 pedal revolutions of a 70" gear is about 603km.

You want about 34,400 pedal revolutions for a 70" gear.

Stick this into google and it'll calculate it for you (adjust to suit distance and gear):-

185km / ( pi * 70 inches )

Maths fail.

A 70" gear means you travel pi * 70" for each pedal revolution. (70" is the equivalent diameter of a penny farthing wheel).

108,000 pedal revolutions of a 70" gear is about 603km.

You want about 34,400 pedal revolutions for a 70" gear.

Stick this into google and it'll calculate it for you (adjust to suit distance and gear):-

185km / ( pi * 70 inches )

Good point. Maths fail is mine, not Al's. But when working this out with Al I did remember that a mile is 5280 feet. I have no idea why.

Al - at least we know what "development" is now....

First time i've done the Dunwich and it's probably the most fun I've had on a bike for many years. Riding at night through the early hours to sunrise was incredible.

Big thank you to all at Grobag towers who put me up for the weekend. The carb loading meal on the Friday night was brilliant. Hillbilly the Saturday morning breakfast was awesome.

For the actual ride itself I rode with Scott not Scott and Tricitybendix. I was brilliant riding with you guys and thanks. The brake issue was pretty funny as well and probably could not have happened at a worst point. After attempting a bodge we decided to press on with Tricitybendix now brakeless on 48X16. Soon after we hit on of the steeper and longer down hills.

The feed station was also quite amusing queue was massive but it didn't matter Scott whipped out his flask filled with sausage and beans. I had to make do with a sandwich.

The last little I was certainly flagging a bit and we had a breif stop to scoff some gels and bars.

At Dunwich we caught up with the other half of Grobag towers Hillbilly and Plagiarist. Which was brlliant. Hillbilly was stomping around with Plagiarist still asleep in the cafe.

Coach orgainisation was a bit crap and non existant. I was beaten back by the rest of Grobag towers all of whom had got the train.

Thanks to all the guys at Grobag towers it was an awesome weekend. See you in a couple of weeks for Brick to Brix.

haha, those lino hillocks are apparently the legacy of the horribly wet DD in 2007 - i heard the kitchen people talking about it whilst filling up on water.

Really? In that case, the people refurbishing the village hall last year (the reason why the feed was moved to Lavenham in 2008) must have done a very poor job in not noticing them and doing something about it. Surely they can't have arisen after they laid down the new lino but must have been there before? Or didn't they have enough money for a new floor?

Greenbank -thank you. Aroogah, I did the maths again today and came up with the same result as you did yesterday. Good to know about gear development though. In any event, my knees felt like they'd done 108,000 pedal revolutions yesterday afternoon.

I decided this ride was a good idea on thursday, sealed it with a dangerously easy-to-book paypal coach fare.
Longest thing i've done and it was amazing.
I've got a grim feeling I fall into the inept first-timers category, no grasp of shouting back or the word-map page, it'll come to me.
thanks to MJS for the photo of me unconsciously burning my calves on the beach, had to take my feet off the pedals on the way to work this morning to avoiding bending. gotta be particularly milky to get burnt on a nightride.
"Hi" to anyone I rode with, struggling to put internet names&tiny little avatars to real life names&faces, but i've got a big blue bike with odd rims and find it slightly awkward starting conversations with "I've seen you on the internet"

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Really? In that case, the people refurbishing the village hall last year (the reason why the feed was moved to Lavenham in 2008) must have done a very poor job in not noticing them and doing something about it. Surely they can't have arisen after they laid down the new lino but must have been there before? Or didn't they have enough money for a new floor?

hi oliver, i used the word apparently as like i said, it was the kitchen staff talking about it. i wasn't really in the mood for engaging them in an indepth conversation about the refurb plans ;)

shame i didn't get to say hello but i did catch a glimpse of you look very determined jumping back on your steed for the return leg. sorry to hear about your spoke nipple problem but much respect for getting that much time in the saddle in.

Just some more sentiment here. First DD for me and I really enjoyed it, thought I'd struggle a lot more than I did but apart from a bit of a DarkTime early on it was fine.

Would've been nice to finish earlier but really I'm just chuffed to have completed it. Great riding with Pinks, Sarah, Alb, Dave, Pete, Sparrow and Leon with the sporadic appearence of Fred and with Sasmon, Brun, Marco and Jung during the earlier stages too. It was strangely reassuring to see a lot of other forum folks along the way; Clefty, Jaygee, VeeVee, Scott, Tricity, Jimbilly, Fiddy, Texas, Polkinghorn, etc.

Already looking forward to the next one.

...
thanks to MJS for the photo of me unconsciously burning my calves on the beach, had to take my feet off the pedals on the way to work this morning to avoiding bending. gotta be particularly milky to get burnt on a nightride.

I did exactly the same... have been scouring Camden for cheap aloe...

well done all for getting the DD done, particularly plagiarist who i know sorely missed it last year
Just seen this comment. Thanks for talking me out of it last year, it was far too soon after that broken collarbone. x

I'm happy that my first dunrun was spent in the company that it was and on such a nice night, I'll be forever grateful that I missed 07's rain

I'm currently trying to work out a decent 200 route for Jim and I to do. The long ride bug is a bitch.

When is the next event like this planned?