2010-07-24 - Dunwich Dynamo DD18

Brompton Train: made me think of Jack's audioboo last year for the Bike Show. There's definitely a distinctive 'whir' that the Bromptons add to the aural mix. I suspect it is the two little roller wheels humming along at the same time.

Once my dad had made it to the end he couldn't stop telling me how nice everybody was too. Definite upper echeleon stuff.

Hehe, when I asked him how he felt now that he made it he said "I don't".

120 miles on an almost brand new Brooks was also not a great idea, though not unbearable.

Did anyone else see a man jogging barefoot at around 3am in the middle of nowhere in Suffolk? May have been a hallucination, but I'm pretty sure I did.

Mmmm... Brooks broken-in to one's own bottom. That's not the lightest, but the best. I offered the big-guy-on-a-Brompton a swap for his proper vintage Brooks wool jersey with button pockets, but I think he wisely noted that we were several sizes apart.

The jogging man might possibly have been 'man with dog'. He kept giving the dog (and his legs) a break from his cargo bike, and each time the dog seemed to notice some rabbits or summat, and he had to run and look for it.

That coach pic says it all :-)
I'm not sure I'd do it again. The bicycle is not a sensible mode of transport for going 112 miles.
Niall

I strongly disagree. This ride shows that such a distance is easily feasible for mere human beings. Bikes are quiet, affordable, discreet, fume-free* portable and relatively light-weight and safe. Since they were invented, they have been a nice, independent way for people to enjoy the countryside without disrupting it too much or spoiling it for other people. And your bike uses the same fuel that you do. Imagine doing that kind of route at that time of night on motorcycles, or with the Mini Club UK or something. Then you would hear about complaints.

If all you know about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunwich is the ride, it used to be a very important place, back in medieval times - a big port big enough to have up to 18 churches before it all fell into the sea.

The Heathland, the ruined priory in the run down to the sea and other historical and/or beautiful parts are also well worth exploring, if you make the time/your legs permit. There is currently a project to reveal the 'lost' city with high-tech underwater cameras. You can also walk a very long way on the beach in either direction.

My infant 'DD18 Long Ride Report' thread's been deleted, so I'm going to post my long and boring ride report here. Sorry. I did try to keep it out of the way. Please pm me anyone, if you know what breach I committed that got it pulled, cheers.

*damo excepted

Was he on a green fixed? He passed us near the end with nothing but a small bottle of water in his jeans back pocket. Nutter (again in a good way)

I saw him towards the end around 5:20. No bag and no visible supplies, not even a repair kit, wearing black jeans and t-shirt. Asked him to do a skid but he just laughed. Nutter (plain nutter)

Right, back from Dunwich today.

The ride itself had loads of great and a couple of low moments.

It kicked off with loosing everyone after the first gas station outside London. Then just drafted groups and sometimes went on to the next one. At some point I followed two forum folk that I didn't know but have seen a couple of times on pix here etc. Believe it was Digger and another guy (and didn't get talking to them really). Passed them on a descent with the words "This is too much fun!" and then blasting away.

At some point I stopped for a banana, and someone offered me cripsy oat and nuts cookies. At around 40 miles one of my spokes snapped. Undid the rear brake and went on.
The feeding station was jsut good for me to wolf down two of my three sandwiches and a muesli bar. Put the leg warmers and the second jersey on, and off I went.

At some point met two Australian roadies that I drafted for a while. Really nice chaps and driving a good pace. Then pushed on a bit faster than them, to recognize 6pts dad and have a little chat at around the 70 mile mark.

What followed was a classic case of hitting the wall. At 80 miles I promised myself to have the last sandwich at the 90 mile mark, just that the miles in between never seemed to end.
Passed the bacon butty stall at 87 because I was 3 miles short. At around 93 miles I stopped together with another guy (truck driver) who really was feeling it as well.
Then my knee started playing up, and the pace was somehow slow.

Found myself pretty alone on the road once the light came up. Thanks god I got the garmin.
Finally ran into a guy who was blasting past me, then asked me which way. Then blasted past. Then came back to the next junction and asked me again???

The last couple of miles I met Sparky and machineisbored. Suddenly it wasn't so hard anymore.
Great to get there with you guys.

The morning was made by 6pt and his cinnamon danish, dozing, damos wife giving me a beer, meeting oliver and knowing there wasn't any bus action for me.
G/f got there around 12.30 or so, and the pub was right round the corner. Waited for ages for the meal, I nearly slept on the table, but by the time we've eaten I could crawl into the nice comfy bed and sleep until dinner, then sleep some more.

Today I feel pretty fresh, my knee seems to be a bit annoyed but not totally angry at me.
Great breakfast and nice chatting to a couple of people on the train today.

Annoyed that I pressed "start" on the garmin again and fucked up http://connect.garmin.com/activity/41910549 by recording the way to the station this morning.

Chatted to the guys on the left and right at Darsham station (sorry didn't catch your names). How/when did you get back to London?
We took a taxi from Darsham to Ipswich in the end, £15 each, well worth it! There is no way we could have cycled another 30 miles along an A road at that point. Straight on the train in Ipswich, was home by around 13.00 and had a nap before watching TdF.
Loved the ride, but my left knee is not loving me right now. Will definitely do it fixed next year.

I strongly disagree. This ride shows that such a distance is easily feasible for mere human beings. Bikes are quiet, affordable, discreet, fume-free* portable and relatively light-weight and safe. Since they were invented, they have been a nice, independent way for people to enjoy the countryside without disrupting it too much or spoiling it for other people. And your bike uses the same fuel that you do. Imagine doing that kind of route at that time of night on motorcycles, or with the Mini Club UK or something. Then you would hear about complaints.

But it took me 11 hours.
And I was barely recognisable as human at the end
And I was definitely not fume-free. I was mainlining sweets and baked beans :-)

I kept imagining doing it on my motorcycle. I'd have been there by Midnight, though you're so right about the noise!

I drove the route on Friday to get the car up there and, as a by product, check the gps route for errors. Car actual average was only 1.7mph faster than my pedalling one due to crappy traffic getting out of london etc.
And I enjoyed the pedalling way of doing it an awful lot more.

(a motorbike is another matter entirely though)

Fluff got hit by a giant bat/moth/bird

probably a small bat, or giant moth. just to clarify.

Chatted to the guys on the left and right at Darsham station (sorry didn't catch your names). How/when did you get back to London?

That's me on the left, Sparky in the middle and benjaminbunny's on the right.

We were trying to get back to Norwich, but in the end gave up on the trains and got back on our bikes. The extra 30 miles were painful and stop-start, got into Norwich at 1, had my customary post-ride Guinness and then treated myself to a taxi the last 2 miles home.

Was a proper farce at Darsham - the train on the other platform was held up for 20 mins or so while the driver argued with the riders onboard - not sure what the gist was but I'm guessing it was along the lines of "why the fuck have I got 40 bikes on my train all of a sudden, gtfo".

I was going to write a big turn by turn account of the ride but I'm not sure I can be arsed and even if I could I can't imagine it would be worth reading, so here's a few snippets cut and pasted from my failing and fading memory.

Sasmon, 6pt and Friday screaming down the Lea Bridge road, seeing that I had no doubt sub 6 hrs was yours, either that or we'd find you all blown up and passed out in a field before Sudbury.

Hopping a late appearing pothole, did shout as soon as I saw it, but too late for Braker. The noise from you hitting it dead on at speed convinced me you were a goner, very surprised your tyres survived it.

Seeing Damo and Marco putting the hammer down early doors and thinking; "I'll get in on that for a bit". The bit turned out to last all the way to the beach. Pleasure and privilege riding with you fellas.

A shout in the dark from wools and his mate who were having a late night roadside picnic. Moments later Furious Tiles and the Bromptoneers rolled up, must say you gents travel in style.

The magic tea stop. Magic cos it appeared out of nowhere just after we'd had a straw poll and decided the tea was the best drink in the world ever and we'd probably sell, if not an actual grandmother, at least a reasonable close relative for a cuppa.

Bunny rabbits. Tho we had to get a bit lost before we found them.

Just over 15 miles to go and my whole body is screaming STOP. I beg the Damo train to pull up for a sit down and just as I'm recuperating with a handful of nuts and a fag the Dropout Express charges in over the horizon. There was much rejoicing as Irn-Bru and Prosciutto were passed around. With lifted spirits, and despite running on fumes, it was an excellent charge to the end and we hit the beach with a nice LFGSS peloton.

Of course I cannot leave it without adding my thanks to all those involved in the van and coach setup, Velocio for arranging and co-ordinating, and TSKs amazing job of sitting in Sudbury for Six hours with only an iPad for company, save for the odd fleeting visit from little groups of whinging fixie skidders.

An excellent if slightly insane and occasionally painful way to spend an evening.

Just back from a long weekend on the Suffolk coast. Highly recommended - I took a look at the Flora queue and decided I could ride to Southwold for breakfast quicker -probably rightly. Only mistake I made was not hiring a beach hut for the day to sleep in before g/f arrived/hotel left us check-in.

Loitering at Sudbury waiting for the tete de la course to roll through.

Mr Killer, you are a gentleman & a scholar - having not found the food stop, I was almost out of water and in my sleep-deprived state thought I could make it to Dunwich on less than quarter of a bottle. Thanks for the directions to the all-night petrol station - I found it!

• what you experienced - longest ride I've ever done, bitter demoralisation (did i just make that word up?) after cycling about 2 miles into Dunwich Forest following a group of about five others having missed the turning to the beach and then having to stop and sit down, my third moment of getting lost on the ride.
  
• how you felt - great until I realised at about 90 miles that there's another larger and more painful wall shortly after a person physically and psychologically hits the first wall.
  
• what you ate - mix of flapjack, sweets and horrible sandwich (pretending to be sun-dried tomato but was actually just mixed peppers) at town hall half-way stop. pretty much failed at packing good food.
  
• what you saw - lots of impressively fit ss and fixed riders, a small group of which I attempted to ride at the back of for a short while until they out-paced me.
  
• your pre-ride prep (or lack thereof) - erm, nothing fitness-wise.
  
• your bike - one of the four or so langsters I saw on the ride, mine with very noisy sprocket, green with white-wrapped bullhorns and 48x16 gearing (incidentally a monumentally crap gear for tired legs and hills).
  
• your pics - http://flic.kr/p/8mBP45 <-- Me, sweaty, tired, just dropped bike pump, which several kind riders pointed me back to. camera ran out of batteries by the time sun had come up, so vainly this is almost the only pic i have :(
  
• if you could ever imagine managing London-Dunwich-London - with friends to pace myself with, a better gearing (44x16 / 46/17?) and some nicer food I can just about imagine this being possible.
  
• strange Essex people - I went to school in Essex so they seemed pretty normal, nobody believed the bunch outside the pub directing people to the town hall and they seemed genuinely upset that they didn't seem trustworthy!
  
  

Note to the (blond?) saffa cycling (geared) alone having seen his own party of seven slowly whittled down who got me back on track the second time I got lost, you were very patient and so thank you!

Right, will all you bastards stop posting these stories. Last year's stories are the reason I really wanted to do it this year, and despite all the knackeredness and pain and swearing I'd never do it again yesterday morning here I am on Monday evening realising that the pain has all gone away and I'm fondly remembering it and wanting to do it next time. Bollocks.

Maybe we need to HTFU and do what Nick did (maybe a bit slower).

wow. epic. my first DD . so i was single speed all the way.. i'm glad i flipped from fixed for the occasion, but wow, it was still hard slog to say the least.

i left pub on the green at 8 with some people i half knew from years back, but soon after, they sped off on their geards. i was a little worried in the back of my head about being on my own. however, it wasn't long before i was relishing the mediative solo pedaling.
i chatted to lots of fine cyclists here and there.

i can't really think of any lows.. there were some dodgy points. examples; was behind a lady who clipped an invisible curb and took a nasty fall on one of the very dark downhills. me and another managed to swerve and miss, then stopped to help. she came out of it with a badly gashed knee. us three stayed together from that point on. then we were affected by the nightmare that was tacksville. well i somehow managed to avoid them but the lady who came off before, pulled out two from her tube.

i must thank those two hugely.. they kept me going at a good pace and waited for me to catch up at any junction/change in direction until about 110, when i let them go on and i really slowed down.
thank you thank you thank you.. for being my compass, waiting for me, pepping me up with malt loaf at 80 miles and topping me up with jelly babies at 100 and all the good chat in between.

one of my my funniest moments was being too weak click out of my pedals at 90 miles and falling into a hedge only to crack up laughing.

next time: more light. less luggage. forum bus home.

thank you to everyone for making it wonderful.

BlueQuinn
Right, will all you bastards stop posting these stories. Last year's stories are the reason I really wanted to do it this year, and despite all the knackeredness and pain and swearing I'd never do it again yesterday morning here I am on Monday evening realising that the pain has all gone away and I'm fondly remembering it and wanting to do it next time. Bollocks.

haha same.

We were behind you for the last few miles (red Soma and black Cannondale)

I vaguely remember that - Pascalo was chatting away and we had to go off-road for a moment!

The last couple of miles I met Sparky and machineisbored. Suddenly it wasn't so hard anymore.
Great to get there with you guys.

You too chap - you and your Garmin glided us into Dunwhich nicely.

Chatted to the guys on the left and right at Darsham station (sorry didn't catch your names). How/when did you get back to London?

I'd ducked out - missus picked me up, but she only has a Ka and I had to abandon the others. Sorry!

No problem mate, if it hadn't been for you I wouldn't have been there in the first place. Jolly good ride auld chap, here's to the next.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m35/blackdice23/e98bfb1e.jpg

Had a great ride this year on 49/18 ratio, except for one brief lapse of concentration when I went to close to the edge of the tarmac while chatting to someone next to me and dropped the front wheel into a big ditch. Oops.

http://tinyurl.com/39qhp6s

Would be great if it were an AA vans.

But it took me 11 hours.
And I was barely recognisable as human at the end
And I was definitely not fume-free. I was mainlining sweets and baked beans :-)

I kept imagining doing it on my motorcycle. I'd have been there by Midnight, though you're so right about the noise!

Right, will all you bastards stop posting these stories. Last year's stories are the reason I really wanted to do it this year, and despite all the knackeredness and pain and swearing I'd never do it again yesterday morning here I am on Monday evening realising that the pain has all gone away and I'm fondly remembering it and wanting to do it next time. Bollocks.

That's excellent, Niall, so glad you've got the bug!

So did anyone figure out what happened with accidents and stuff?
There was talk about a road block that made 300 people stop. I hope everyone came out of it ok?

I circumnavigated a car where the lady driver waved us around it, a guy with a massive gash on his head sitting behind it on the kerb and several people with him.

I also witnessed a van nearly killing people by overtaking in a bend, then pulling right into a single file of riders when the inevitable oncoming traffic came round quickly.

While I kept pointing out potholes, shouting "car back" and doing the hand signals and all that, I think no one got it. At least no one formed a single file to let the cars pass, and some drivers got pretty irritated when people were riding 4 abreast and just ignored them.

^
yeah. there wasn't a lot of warning or thought about cars approaching from behind.

and lots of people meandering all over the road.

i remember passing an ambulance that was attending an accident, cyclist appeared to be sitting up.
I also heard talk of the guy at the feed station who probably had concussion. given that it was a night ride and given the distance, i'm gladdened that there were so few incidents.