2013-07-20 Sat/Sun - Dunwich Dynamo DD21

As a massive roadie really enjoyed riding that fixed, 46x16 was sweeet.
Every year I think about riding it fixed (44x17) and every year I end up geared and kinda thankful in that last rolling 30 miles.
/weakroadie

That last impromptu snack stop was a life saver. I had my Taste the Difference sausage roll there.

It's because he had the dreaded 'distance to destination' field on his garmin. Like watching a bloody kettle boil :)

Change that, set garmin to off road so you do not get turn by turn only a vague it's that way to the end and if you were a crow it's this far. Then in the last 20 when you are heading at right angles or worse to the finish you can get really annoyed when the distance to the end increases.

Is Whatok a dickhead?

No - top bloke, would ride with again etc.

I was just baiting BN.

Not at all.

In fact, he's one of the nicest people I've met off of here.

Or this.

whatoks a cunt. kill him with fire.

I was just baiting BN, because he's really predictable.

:-(

I was only at the beach a short time so didn't get any great pics. Anyone have one that they wouldn't mind me using in a blog post? No cash but I'll make sure you're credited? Even a nice phone pic would be grand.

I'd forget my head... If you do, then ping it to matt.sparkes@gmail.com and include your name as you'd like it to appear.

I was undecided about whether to join the sharkpits or the darby & joan crew at the pub on the park, but the new railings made the decision for me. A pint of Wandle, plenty of chat between 7 and 9, and then a gentle roll out with a couple of other folk of my sort of vintage. It was all very agreeable up the A104, possibly due to it being a bit later.

Rolled on past the crowds at the usual pausing points, but stopped at Finchingfield and was treated to a delicious pint of Hop & Soul by Stedlocks, who told me about his foxscapade. Nattered with him and Wobbly John, watched the splendid sight of the front lights rolling onto the village green, hitting the pothole before the bridge (despite the locals standing by it with torches and shouting warnings) and then the red lights winding up he little ramp and out of sight.

With my 48/19 gear I was able to haul my excessive bodyweight and carradice up all the slopes but some of the really fun bits, as ever, were where I could attack the climb at a silly cadence, knowing they are all short enough. As the night wore on, that got harder to do, and by Sibton I was grimping slowly on every other incline, and I rolled into Dunwich at about 6.

Good to meet Soul at the pub, and to chat with chainbreaker and Hannah and to witness their comedy routine of sending wallet, coach tickets, house keys etc off to Huntingdon in Soul’s drug dealer car, and realising a few minutes later what they’d done. Conversation was a bit dominated by how bloody freezing it was, but of course we did discuss the Foffa sale thread and other such modern legends.

Mrs Ludd and two Luddlets joined me at about 10 and we lolled on the beach before walking up the coast to Walberswick, eating a fantastic burger and chips in the garden at the Bell Inn, where the sun came out, and walking back through the marshes (where I think we passed tricitybendix and companion with camping gear) and through the woods back to Dunwich for another spell on the beach. We piled into the car just after 6, got back to Forest Hill just before 10pm. Shower, gin, tortilla, bed.

You are quality! Hope the family was more sane than us!

If anyone was wondering who the first people to suss you could actually get through the barriers beside the Sible Headingham roadworks that was me and dommyracer.

Hope that sped things up for a few people.

If anyone was wondering who the first people to suss you could actually get through the barriers beside the Sible Headingham roadworks that was me and dommyracer.

Hope that sped things up for a few people.

I blazed that trail too. It was sort of surreal watching everyone climb that bridge.

I'd forget my head... If you do, then ping it to matt.sparkes@gmail.com and include your name as you'd like it to appear.

havn't got may either... here's the bike/beach though. will send on full res

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25489233@N04/9343291770/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25489233@N04/9343289672/in/photostream/

Thanks to everyone who took part, help organise, manned food stops and cheered along the way. You're all fantastic and helped make my first DD everything that I dreamed it would be. Really great night.

Hello to all the forumers I managed to speak with, and apologies to those that I was too tired to speak to [there were millions of you on the beach! :)]
Fun to put real names, faces and bikes to your avatars.

Hi Dglsrhn. Saw your excellent jersey at the start and yelled out "Diggerluhsurhun" about 4 times looking like a nutter until you turned around :)
Lovely to catch Jake and Theo again.
Fun chatting with the illuminated Mr. Drem, and Crispin and brother along the way too.

Thanks for the magic y'all!

My one regret is blazing past Chung with 40ish miles to go then arriving later than him after we took our detour.
Haha. Sucker! Very glad you brought the traditional shouty Eversholt "Chuuuuuuuuuuuung!" greeting with you.

One of my two Cree Q5 lights has a nasty habit of switching from low to flashing when I go over a bump.

This. Glad I didn't get any punctures but every time I hit a significant hole I'd get partially blinded by double strobe effects.

fell in a ditch whilst taking a piss at about 3am this morning, like an idiot.

Also did this. I've got a dodgy right cleat that I can't unclip/reclip easily. I resorted to a wonky, one foot still clipped-in, weeing stance. It wasn't the safest method.

well that was my first dynamo and on the whole enjoyable madness , oddly punishing at times , great to ride in groups and not worry about cars so much , tailing the red lights (mustnt lose the red light) ! slightly scary thru epping forest . yobs in cars shouting at us for "riding two abreast" not sure they knew the highway code . anyway i was too tired to shout back ....
later encountered more kids sitting on a wall shouting abuse , again it didnt matter , enjoyed the downhillers into the beer stops , and not so much the uphillers out again :)
i missed one food stop due to bacon sold out . by this time gagging for a cup of tea found one a little bit further on ! was riding with about eight others but by the time we hit lea bridge road , we were splintered already . so just went my own pace and met the others again somewhere in the darkness . hooked up with some nice people along the way but didnt meet any other forum riders until the very end ! mind you i took 10 hours

BTW I think the lfgss lot are fantastic. I love you lot!

I keep remembering people then forgetting then not. Surreal dream...

The lfgss stop was awesome. Amazing work boys!

did my eyes deceive me or was the first person seen doing the return journey hillbilly
i am sure i saw a big ginger beard passing as he returned to london

I was only at the beach a short time so didn't get any great pics. Anyone have one that they wouldn't mind me using in a blog post? No cash but I'll make sure you're credited? Even a nice phone pic would be grand.

Never remember to take many pics, probably 'cos I'm not very good at it, but I got a few at London Fields and 2 on the beach...

https://plus.google.com/110088572074771097695/posts/LdXknk1yLmZ

I just remembered one of the two guys who me and Ludwig met (quite some time) after getting lost and then rode down the A12 with was on a brakeless Mash... on here?

Sleepiness was the real killer for me at about 2am. Never thought I'd fall asleep whilst riding fixed but I was very very close a couple of times :s
That coffee stop was a life-saver.

I also managed to eat through this many bacon sandwiches. Omnomnomnom.

Anyone else see those rows of multi-coloured lights someone had put up on their front fence? Little beauties like this really made the ride.

I wrote this for someone else, so excuse the 'You had to be there, Man' feel, as you were there, Man...

Like a dick I decided to do this on my old Holdsworth and not the more sensible road bike. There's only one gear on this steely badboy and the saddle's made of leather. I stuffed as many tools as possible into a saddlebag, keeping my backpack for water and cheese sandwiches. I also took two powergels or whatever they're called, which came in handy in the dead of night.

Lighting was taken care of with a cheap rear flashing thing for a few quid and a Hope Vision One up front. This was perfectly adequate, I never had to use the full power function and generally kept it on 'low'. I'd also invested £8 in an ebay LED spoke light from China. Clipping into the spokes means that as it rotates it can create some quite nice effects, supposedly kinda space invader shapes, arrows, stars etc. I couldn't spin the wheel fast enough when stationary to see the images but assumed it was working as I got a few cheerful comments as I passed people, one big dude actually saying 'Aah, how sweet' which was a little strange. I'd fitted this glowing nightmare onto my front wheel, and I was finding it a bit off putting as it was constantly in my vision. At a feed stop I decided to change it to the rear wheel. Finally I could see what it looked like by lifting the wheel off the ground and giving it a hefty crank of the pedal. A mad glowing 'I ♥ YOU' came bellowing out of my wheel. Well, that explained the 'How Sweet' comment...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wate.....t-Type-/310707229055

For the first 40 miles or so I was on a roll, my gear ratio seemed about right and I was happily overtaking loads of people. Soon though I began to feel the pressure and found myself drafting faster riders to keep my speed up. I hitched a ride behind a couple of lads for quite some time, the leader was a big dude and we whipped along with a healthy pace. I was still tiring though and got dropped eventually. A hit of cheese sandwich saw me ready to go again.

The final 40 miles were hard. Really hard. I wasn't fast enough to hitch onto anyone, was being overtaken by hordes of people and I actually had a silly little hallucination whereby I thought I could smell the sea. I knew I still had hours to go. This called for a gel. So I had one, it was rank and made little difference. I wasn't empty of energy, it was more that I was knackered. The dislocated shoulder from a few weeks back had meant I've been off the bike for quite some time and I'd lost a lot of fitness. And I was aching too, my hands, wrists and shoulders were taking a bit of a pounding on the old bike and I had to raise the stem by about 2" to relieve a bit of the pressure. Weirdly the saddle was just fine, no discomfort at all. Maybe all of the Brooks Saddles hype was actually true after all.

It started to rain, misty droplets rather than hammering downpour, but it was enough to make my glasses useless, as when following a little blinking red light the drops of water on the specs caused a red Disco Fever effect, this hellish glitterball was fun to begin with but soon became tiresome. So I wanged the glasses into my pocket and stoically trundled on. With 20 miles to go I came upon a tea stop, and it was free! Awesome! There were bikers hanging around looking like zombies (me), some sitting gassing with a beer and a fag, others manically stuffing tea and egg sandwiches down as fast as possible before leaping back onto their race machines. I spotted a bloke I'd chatted to at the start line, how was he doing? 'I think I'm dying, mate' was about all he could manage. Ditto.

Refuelled by sugary tea I trundled onwards. I overtook the dude from the start line. He was indeed dying, but I was back on a roll, he hitched a ride behind me for a few miles but couldn't keep up with my blistering pace (oh LOL, this is so untrue, he was just more wasted than me). Finally I rolled onto the beach at round 6:30am. It was cold and raining. I took a pic of the bike on the beach and hid inside a boat to get out of the wind. There were three Northern lads already hiding in the boat. We had a forlorn little party based on my remaining battered cheese sandwiches, a couple of chewy bars and some water. Some mentals were going for a dip in the sea, I settled for a hot chocolate.

Maybe I'm painting this in a gloomy light, the Dun Run was an excellent adventure, hurling yourself deep into darkest Suffolk with nothing but your bike is a real experience. Being alone with thousands of strangers may not be to everyone's taste but for me it all added to the fun. Whilst I did have a couple of dark moments it turns out my legs don't listen when my head says stop, and my head doesn't listen when my legs say stop, and that's how you get to the beach.

Pic - At Dunwich Beach - Note stem height and forlorn party boat on left

yesterday i thought i will never do this ride again , today i am thinking "i cant wait" !

If anyone was wondering who the first people to suss you could actually get through the barriers beside the Sible Headingham roadworks that was me and dommyracer.

Hope that sped things up for a few people.

Us closing this door shortly after 23.00h again did not work then it seems.

Alkali - battered cheese sandwiches? Sounds ace. Was it you who explained to me, at the "free teas and coffees" stop just past Framlingham, that gravity increases as you get closer to the coast? Whoever it was had totally steamed up glasses and looked a bit like the chap in your photo above.

I just remembered one of the two guys who me and Ludwig met (quite some time) after getting lost and then rode down the A12 with was on a brakeless Mash... on here?

Yes, thank you for Yoxford whoever you are with the route written on the top tube. And Theo, not really sorry that I thought what was Framlingham was Wickham Market. That A12 diversion rocked.

Never remember to take many pics, probably 'cos I'm not very good at it, but I got a few at London Fields and 2 on the beach...

https://plus.google.com/110088572074771097695/posts/LdXknk1yLmZ

Checks pics for images of a well fed guy swimming in his bibs. Not there, as you were.