Dunwich Dynamo - advice

CiB

Cafewanda wrote:

I'm looking forward to this. Will offer (a) sacrifice(s) to the weather gods for a dry night.

£500 deposited in my numbered Swiss a/c guarantees you good weather on or about that weekend. Promise.

Cafewanda

£500 :shock: . It was £50 and a smile last year :P.

CiB

Cafewanda wrote:

£500 :shock: . It was £50 and a smile last year :P.

I've given up smiling. Pay up or get wet.

EKE_38BPM

I was going to do it last year, but decided not to at the last minute. The next week I was riding locally and my frame snapped. It it had happened on the DD, I would have been stranded.

The God of Cycling was looking out for me I guess.

Cafewanda

CiB wrote:

Cafewanda wrote:

£500 :shock: . It was £50 and a smile last year :P.

I've given up smiling. Pay up or get wet.

Grumble. Grumble. Mutter. Mutter.

Wanders off to search for large empty bottle to begin Weather God payment saving

CiB

I wimped out last year due to the logistics of getting to the start and then back home from Dunwich. It works fine if you live close enough to either but it's a trek from most parts of the country not called Suffolk or That There Lunnon.

CW - you're little a ray of sunshine. Don't worry about the weather - have one on me.

HebdenBiker

There's a bit of a write-up and some pics from last year on my blog, if anyone's interested. I'm definitely on for next year, and seem to have sold it to several friends, too, so Team Hebden will be there in force

phy2sll2

Not long to go now...

Those who are going - what are you taking to keep yourselves warm while waiting for your ride home?

CiB

If I do it, OH has promised to be somewhere near the beach in the car by about 6:30. That'll do for me.

tetm

A caravan. No, really.

phy2sll2

tetm wrote:

A caravan. No, really.

That's made me think - what happens if one is caught short? Should I pack TP?

anonymousblackfg

if doing it in a group, wear some lights either not red or white, ideally just use a coloured sweet wrapper in a white light, else you'll loose each other if you stray more than 10 feet.

Cafewanda

Once my long lasting battery pack has arrived (tomorrow), I'll be ready. However I'm doing the FNrttC to Southend so I'll have to see how I feel when I get back to London on Saturday afternoon.

iPete

Feck, didn't see this one coming! Was planning a long solo ride but this should be way more fun! I've got a garmin 800 and extra powaaaa, no excuse not to go uber long!

Saying that, not sure I can be arsed to cycle 130+ miles home. Any ideas? don't fancy the Ipswich train, sounds a gamble. Can pay good money to be quiet and sleep in the back of someones car

Could risk a bus ticket being being free on the night.

EKE_38BPM

Carry a bottle/can of you're favourite tipple to open triumphantly on the beach. Extra incentive.
When swimming at the end, try to ignore Sizewell nuclear power stations a few miles to the south.

Gizmo_

phy2sll2 wrote:

Not long to go now...

Those who are going - what are you taking to keep yourselves warm while waiting for your ride home?

There's a pub, yes? Serving foaming beverages?

optimisticbiker

Still thinking on this one... the logistics of getting back are proving problematic.... and not sure I fancy riding a 120mile return trip...

tordis

OptimisticBiker wrote:

and not sure I fancy riding a 120mile return trip...-

The next best option to buying the coach ticket is riding to Ipswich and catching a train from there. Granted, the 30 extra miles may prove painful, but it's still better than 120.

pangolin

I might be up for this, only just noticed it's this weekend! So who else is doing it?

Gizmo_

To my huge shame and certain regret, I'm not. I was going to be up until earlier this week, but I've been working stupidly hard all week and getting very little sleep, plus I'm going to the cricket tomorrow. It's not sensible (nor even "what's the worst that could happen!?") to ride three times further than my current record, overnight, in those circumstances.

optimisticbiker

tordis wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

and not sure I fancy riding a 120mile return trip...-

The next best option to buying the coach ticket is riding to Ipswich and catching a train from there. Granted, the 30 extra miles may prove painful, but it's still better than 120.

Spoke to Greater Anglia today...they laughed when I asked about space on the train back to London... 6 bike spaces per train, all full from 10:43 until late pm. Apparently there was space on the 10:05 or something... I'd lost interest by then in that idea...

and 30 after a break isn't that hard... its pretty flat there...

I think I have persuaded Mrs OB to come and get me in return for lunch in Aldeburgh or somewhere... the restaurant at Southwold Golf Club is nice, stayed there once and they forgot to charge for the wine

So unless something else happens I may see you there... Not going to try and break any records... 8 hours plus stops will do nicely...

phy2sll2

That was fun! Got to the beach at about half 3 - the sun was just about to appear.

Disappointed I didn't manage to get a dip in, but the pub was just too tempting!

CiB

Half three on the beach? That's a good effort. I left at about 8:20 and rolled onto the car park at 4:15, with the computer showing 6:48 for the 113 miles.

Cracking ride and the tailwind was welcome. There's not much to say about it; set off mid evening, pedal for a some hours with occasional breaks for snacks, beer & coffee, then roll up on a beach at the end of the world's longest lane - the never ending run from the last cross roads to the beach.

optimisticbiker

Well done all...

8:30pm start for me, rolled onto the beach at 4:30 just in time for the sunrise, almost dead on 8 hours elapsed. Computer showed 7:04:55 run time so looks like I didn't stop as long as you did CiB and well chuffed with that as I'd planned for 8 hours run time. Ate/drank on the move mostly apart from a 20min halt on the bridge in Sunbury and a 30 min halt for a cup of lukewarm brown stuff reputed to be tea at the Milk Bikes pit stop near Barking (was only that long cos the two guys I was sharing the work with wanted to queue for a bacon buttie), so if I wasn't being so altruistic I could have done it 30 min quicker! (but it's not a race I hear in the background )




Did anyone find the food stop supposedly 1/2 way but in reality at 78km? - no one I spoke to did so.

One of the highlights was the 40km/h+ descents in the dark with no lights... scary or what! (my Cateye HL-EL600 supposedly has a 6h charge life, died at 4h so all I could do was hop on the wheel of someone with a decent beam)

At the finish I hung around for 45min and gave up queuing for a cuppa. As I was starting to feel cold I rode to Saxmundham where MrsOB had decided to put herself up in a hotel for the night (at my expense - so much for a 'cheap' event). Lovely quiet country lanes across the wildlife preserve; saw deer, rabbits, a weasel-like thing, got buzzed by two owls after I disturbed them feeding on a baby rabbit and the birds were singing and the sun was shining... magical!

Arrived in Saxmundham at 6am, put the bike in the car and had a nice hot shower, 3h kip and a lovely breakfast. Then dozed in the car while she drove to Norwich ("I've not come all this way just to go home again"), mooched around there for a couple of hours, had a bite to eat and she drove home while I slept.

Total mileage for the 'day' - 137 miles

CiB

The half way food stop is hidden away down a side street, I missed it when I first did this a couple of years ago; this year I opted not to bother doing the slight detour as I felt good and fancied carrying on and instead stopped for a quick pint at Castle Hadingham.

The coffee & burger stand was a bit naughty I reckon - the recognised coffee stop at 90 miles raises a lot of money for charity but when I rolled past it early this morning it was near deserted, presumably because everyone had stocked up at this new arrangement. Anyway. A minor quibble.

The descents in the dark are superb, and so is taking a corner at ridiculous speeds alone in the dark with only the vaguest idea of where it might go. As Ari Vatanen (world rally champion) once said, the road has to go somewhere, so a bit of push & hope did the job. That said there was the occasional huge peloton that fairly motored along. They're good for a while till it becomes clear that the front guys are constantly holding back - each to their own but it was easier to move to the front and then find out that no-one's followed. More solo work then. I seemed to spend a lot of time between groups and did large chunks of it solo.

I rolled onto the beach to spy my car with OH asleep in the back. Always a welcome sight but doubly so today. We had a cup of tea & toast then set off home at about 5:30 and were home by 9. That's a huge improvement on my last DD where I finished at 6:30 then had to wait around till about 11 for la famille to arrive.

Cracking ride this year's was. Really enjoyable.

cornerblock

Dunwich Dynamo advice? Do it. Probably the most pleasurable 100+mile ride you'll ever complete. Riding into the sunrise on quiet country roads, which at times gives it the feeling of a closed road ride, with all manner of bike riders and a pub open when you get there. What more do you want? Can't wait to do it again already.

optimisticbiker

One thing I wasn't happy with....

This is billed as a fun event - but a certain club ran 50+ riders, came past like a train and cut in very tight, nearly causing slower riders to crash... unnecessary and dangerous... it's not a race!

Anonymous

Genuinely gutted not to make it. Only myself to blame, as well.

cornerblock

OptimisticBiker wrote:

One thing I wasn't happy with....

This is billed as a fun event - but a certain club ran 50+ riders, came past like a train and cut in very tight, nearly causing slower riders to crash... unnecessary and dangerous... it's not a race!

What? One thing you're not happy with is that some people wanted to ride it quicker than you? I am sure they had 'fun' riding at their pace. The only dangerous riding I saw was from people choosing to stop just after a corner or bend in the road. One guy decided to stop in the middle of the road after a sharp turn, in the dark, talking on his mobile! :roll: What's good about the Dunwich is that it attracts all types of bike riders, live and let live.

optimisticbiker

Cornerblock wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

One thing I wasn't happy with....

This is billed as a fun event - but a certain club ran 50+ riders, came past like a train and cut in very tight, nearly causing slower riders to crash... unnecessary and dangerous... it's not a race!

What? One thing you're not happy with is that some people wanted to ride it quicker than you? I am sure they had 'fun' riding at their pace. The only dangerous riding I saw was from people choosing to stop just after a corner or bend in the road. One guy decided to stop in the middle of the road after a sharp turn, in the dark, talking on his mobile! :roll: What's good about the Dunwich is that it attracts all types of bike riders, live and let live.

No, you misunderstand me.. I am more than happy for people to ride quicker - I wish I could! I am less happy that a certain club, on a particularly twisty and tight section of road, didn't do what we all - as cyclists - argue for; to slow down and take care.. If they'd been a car we would be slanging them off for not doing a wide enough pass. In this instance a train of at least 20 bikes in close chain gang came past a gaggle of slower riders and there were a number of near misses. It just wasn't necessary...