2011-07-16/17 Sat/Sun - Dunwich Dynamo DD19

That was such an excellent write up, you described it so well, I started to remember the ride as if it were yesterday, this mere description of the general feeling during the ride was spot on, this is to me, exactly what the Dunwich Dynamo is about;

Riding a bike a long way is as much a psychological test as much as physical; perhaps I’m reading too much into it. But I find that when you’re heading somewhere for the first time, to a place you’d not even heard of, without a device which measures distance remaining, it’s easy to feel adrift. There’s nothing familiar to look forward to, landmark wise, nothing suggesting imminent arrival. Just a bike underneath you and the knowledge that this will inevitably take many hours, and more inevitably still there’ll be patches good and bad, both physically and mentally. So you just keep turning the cranks. Soon enough there was total darkness, and nothing to look at whatsoever, save the flickering train of lights.

The coldness setting in is exactly why I didn't stop at the mid-point fuel stop;

While grateful for the stop, this one killed us. You don’t feel the cold so much when you’re riding, but once you’ve stopped for a decent length of time, in a warm village hall, going outside with the prospect of riding the same length again plus a bit more ahead of us was quite a downer.