2009-07-04 Sat - Dunwich Dynamo 2009

when the headlights are on it must shine spoke patterns on the road :D

I hope the wheels went round in the breeze as it drove along.

Love these pictures of Charlotte and her bike:

And Wobbly John wobbling off:

Love these pictures of Charlotte and her bike:

Fucking awesome that!

looked awesome.

Well done on completing this. I admire your commitment. x

Congrats, how was it second time around?

As Emilie pointed out, both myself and Tricity Bendix did do the Dunwich dynamo there and back on Friday/Saturday...6 days after doing it there and a little way back the previous weekend.

I was so disappointed with myself for not riding there and back fixed...it was something i had to do.
The following ride report is very long, but then so was the ride...the longest ride i've ever done.
Hopefully this report won't bore you too much. :)

I tried my absolute best to have EVERYTHING sorted beforehand this time...i put two GPX routes on my Garmin, bought an AA battery pack charger for it too...fully charged both batteries for Tricity's light...even got a normal map just in case.

We finally set off at 5:30 on Friday evening into the traffic...i felt absolutely crap, like my legs were filled with lead...but we carried on thinking, oh well...only another 230 miles to go. :)

We get near epping, and the Garmin beeps at me to turn right off the road we're on...we do it and continue straight into a town where we are faced with a T junction, but no info from Mr Garmin...we take a right turn....30 seconds later, Mr Garmin says "do a U turn as sson as possible"...ggrrr......we turn, go back the way we came, then get told to "turn left"....at the top "turn right"....straight back onto the bloody road it told us to turn off!
we try to forget that little hiccup and press on.

After a while my legs eased in and we felt better, although we still didn't seem to be covering ground as fast as we'd have liked...possibly due to the bloody headwind we had all the way there and back. :(
We stopped at a pub just over 40 miles in to get a proper meal because we knew it would be the last chance to get food for at least 12 hours as everywhere would be closed.
I ordered salmon and chips for me, and vegetable lasagne for Tricity...the food finally arrived almost an HOUR later...Tricity takes one mouthful and says "this is beef"...yup, sure enough they'd made her a beef lasagne instead...so i took it back to the bar, they insisted they'd make her a veggie one asap...we finally left there about 1.5 hrs after stopping...with our legs freshly seized up again.

Not much further down the road i get a proper blowout on my front wheel...chalk cloud and everything....my bike starts snaking all over the road with its 49lbs weight while i try my best to gently apply my embarassingly noisy front brake...the sound of an entire flock of angry geese fills the quiet village air. We stop again so i can fix the puncture...at last we get moving again.

30 mins later we stop again to turn on our lights...i connect the freshly charged battery to Tricity's light, turn on mine, and we're off.
2 mins later and Tricity says "is the red light meant to be flashing?"...shit, no it's not....must be dodgy connection. We stop and disconnect and reconnect...no flashing red light, and we're off...for another 2 minutes...FFS!
Right...forget it, next battery.
2 mins later...I WANT TO DIE!!!
The second battery had also failed to take the charge...despite me triple checking they were both charging. :(
The only option left is to remove my extra LED light and zip tie it to Tricity's non working one.
Not very bright, but good enough.

We finally set off with our morale at an all time low.

The next few hours go by really slowly, the darkness sapping our morale even more...we stop occasionally for food in the desperate hope that we'll get a sudden energy boost, but it never quite happened.
We grind out the miles, all the time knowing that we still had to ride back too to complete our goal.

Eventually the sun comes up and we realise just how long it's taking us, and we're still miles away from dunwich...we start to notice signs saying IPSWITCH...err....ok, maybe it's pointing out the way towards the motorway that leads you to ipswitch? WRONG....we're in fucking IPSWITCH!!!
It's at this point that we realise that the person who uploaded this GPX route onto the worldwide web had actually just recorded his ride on the Dunwich dynamo (including his mistakes) and so we were now following it. We decide it's best to just carry on following his route as by that point we were heading back towards Dunwich....we then rejoin the same road where his detour started litterally 5 miles further along, having just added a good 15 miles to our total. :(

Eventually we get to Dunwich...about 13.5hrs after setting off...not very good, but we remind ourselves that we had just ridden there 6 days previous and then don't feel quite so bad.

The cafe of course isn't open as it's too early, neither is anywhere else. So we literally get back on our bikes, turn around, press 'Go home' on the Garmin, and wait for it to calculate the route home...and wait....and wait...and wait some more. It's not happening.
Ok, lets try again....calculating...calculating...calcufuckinglating!
Nope....we have no route...out comes the map.
We head home....completely dead...but hoping the journey home can't possibly be as bad...right?

We end up on the narrowest 'A' road ever, with a 50mph limit, and a traffic jam of cars backed up behind us...fuck this!
we decide to go down a farm track and follow some parallel country roads.
The Garmin is giving us some kind of route by this point so we just grind out mile after mile after aching mile.
Upon getting to a village we spot a sign saying 'Air museum'...where i try to lighten the mood and boost morale by informing Ms Bendix of how the museum is famous for its collection of 'Air'..."They have a whole jar of Air that was once breathed by Hitler"...."they also have a jar of Air that was found at the scene of Elvis' death in front of the toilet...it's suspected that it was his last breath ya know"....morale goes up by about point five of a percent :)

We eventually arrive at Framlingham (i think?) where we get some proper food, attempt to stock up for the rest of the ride home...Tricity goes to the co-op first where i watch the bikes...about 25 mins later she comes back looking really pissed off...i ask what's up...she replies "they wouldn't fucking serve me cigarettes!...they asked for my ID and then wouldn't accept it"....pretty good for someone who's almost 24 :)

As flat as the Dynamo is supposed to be...those 'rolling hills' are a killer on tired legs.
The hill out of sudbury that nearly killed me on the way down it 2 years ago in the rain is a damn good hill to ride back up...if you're perverted enough to like climbing :)

We carry on and on grinding along slowly...by this point Tricity is pretty much dehydrated with a good 5 to 10 miles till the next village/pub...i give her all the water i have left and somehow we make it to the next village where we plan to stop for our last proper food stop...i manage to get the garmin to sort the route properly and it says 45 miles to go...not too bad i guess.

The torture/ride is taking so long that another nights worth of darkness begins to set in...oh joy!
Mr Garmin says "turn right onto london road"...only problem is, it wasn't london road...it was cambridge road....heading to fucking CAMBRIDGE!
We get lost for a bit, try to figure the best way from the map, then eventually ask someone to point us to epping...which is thankfully in the direction we decided to go..."you better hurry though or you're gonna drown".....oh how right he was!

Then cometh the floods!
We get lost a bit more trying to find our way out of the town....i finally get the route sorted again on the Garmin and we head off...at which point the Garmin decides we don't need a backlight anymore and shuts it off. :(
I change to new batteries in the charger pack and it comes back on.....phew.....then it goes off...then back on...then off...FOR GOOD!
We're heading back to Epping in the pitch black with no way of reading what the Garmin is telling us to do each time it beeps.
Then more fun as my front light decides to cut out too....oh great!
We just plod on all the way home...in the driving rain...for what seems like an eternity, due to getting lost in the dark literally 10 miles from home....too tired and demoralised to even think straight due to it being over 30 hours since we set off, and riding the last 45 miles or so in the rain.
We eventually figure the way...i've never been so happy to see Wick Road in my life!
Due to all the detours and problems, and stops, we ended up riding a total of at least 260 miles,not sure exactly as i forgot to restart the Garmin twice after turning it off to try and sort things, and riding at least 10 miles both times before realising...we were gone for about 32 painful hours in total.

The sense of achievement was made even greater by the fact that we felt so shit right from the start....then we realised that we had basically ridden the Dunwich dynamo three times in six days and added approx 50 miles on top.
I now know just how far it's possible to push yourself if you want it bad enough...and as tired as my legs feel right now...i couldn't be happier.

@Tricity....i couldn't have asked for a better riding partner...you were amazing!
Just 6 days earlier, Tricity was walking up nearly all the climbs on the Dynamo...this time she rode up EVERY single climb, there and back...including the big one out of Sudbury. An amazing effort over that distance. Can't wait for the next epic ride!

Scott not scot.

Damn....sorry....didn't realise it was THAT long :)

holy crap, Scott! that sounds like an epic ride. massive applause to both you and TB!

it was fun to read. you two are hardcore.

Fuck... my weekend looks really lazy now. Must HTFU

Well done.

well done guys... a bit of determination goes a long way.

i know how you feel about Ipswich.... i did the same damn thing.

Moral of the story...... dont trust GPS!

sounds completely mad, well done.

O. M. G. !

cancels Garmin order

well done guys... a bit of determination goes a long way.

i know how you feel about Ipswich.... i did the same damn thing.

Moral of the story...... dont trust GPS!

Was that your fucking GPX file i uploaded? :)

Moral of the story...... dont trust GPS!

Oui ca c'est bien compris, eh Veevee? ;)

BTW....when the Garmin was working properly it was amazing. All the way there it worked perfectly....the problem was the persons route we used. it was only on the return journey it started to go wrong.

Damn....sorry....didn't realise it was THAT long :)

Nothing wrong with that--some things just have to be done properly!

Excellent report, and chapeau for such an epic ride! Blimey, those Garmins aren't all they're cracked up to be, are they?

Hopefully this report won't bore you too much. :)

Quite the opposite.

Tricity takes one mouthful and says "this is beef"...yup, sure enough they'd made her a beef lasagne instead...

Euurrgh.

Eventually the sun comes up and we realise just how long it's taking us, and we're still miles away from dunwich...we start to notice signs saying IPSWITCH...err....ok, maybe it's pointing out the way towards the motorway that leads you to ipswitch? WRONG....we're in fucking IPSWITCH!!!
It's at this point that we realise that the person who uploaded this GPX route onto the worldwide web had actually just recorded his ride on the Dunwich dynamo (including his mistakes) and so we were now following it. We decide it's best to just carry on following his route as by that point we were heading back towards Dunwich....we then rejoin the same road where his detour started litterally 5 miles further along, having just added a good 15 miles to our total. :(

That is a real hazard--I think I looked at three supposed DD routes before the DD this year, and they were all wrong, some more so, some less. Bad luck that you picked one that veered all the way to Ipswich.

Eventually we get to Dunwich...about 13.5hrs after setting off...not very good, but we remind ourselves that we had just ridden there 6 days previous and then don't feel quite so bad.

The cafe of course isn't open as it's too early, neither is anywhere else.

At what time did you actually get to Dunwich, then?

We end up on the narrowest 'A' road ever, with a 50mph limit, and a traffic jam of cars backed up behind us...fuck this!

The A12 (it has some narrow bits, e.g. where it goes through Yoxford)?

We eventually arrive at Framlingham (i think?) where we get some proper food, attempt to stock up for the rest of the ride home...Tricity goes to the co-op first where i watch the bikes...about 25 mins later she comes back looking really pissed off...i ask what's up...she replies "they wouldn't fucking serve me cigarettes!...they asked for my ID and then wouldn't accept it"....pretty good for someone who's almost 24 :)

Er? This seems bizarre, but it's pretty funny at the same time. :)

As flat as the Dynamo is supposed to be...those 'rolling hills' are a killer on tired legs.
The hill out of sudbury that nearly killed me on the way down it 2 years ago in the rain is a damn good hill to ride back up...if you're perverted enough to like climbing :)

Surprisingly even gradient, even if it does go on for a bit.

Due to all the detours and problems, and stops, we ended up riding a total of at least 260 miles

Can't wait for the next epic ride!

Brilliant stuff. That's 430 kilometres. You've just done a 400 and then some. Off you go to join AUK and start training for an SR series and then PBP and LEL. :)

I reiterate my earlier comments.
Truely admirable.

TB, post something so that I can com you. :)

Ms Bendix is at the seaside visiting her folks in Devon...i'm sure she'll comment upon her return, maybe about the moral dilemma that was the beef lasagne :)

Was that your fucking GPX file i uploaded? :)

Ha!.... hell no.

i am a man, and therefore, i don't use GPS.

clearly being a man makes you no more unlikely to get lost then :)

Ha!.... hell no.

i am a man, and therefore, i don't use GPS.

+1. It's map folded into a sandwich bag in the back pocket or nothing.