Dunwich Dynamo 2017.

JakeJ

Hi all,

So tomorrow me and two mates will be attempting the Dunwich Dynamo, which is roughly a 120 mile ride from Hackney, East London to Dunwich, Saxmundham.

It's a night time ride which throws me a little as it means I pretty much have to start setting myself up from this evening in preparation to not only stay up all night tomorrow but to stay up all night cycling.

I've been road riding for maybe around a year and a half now and do the 30 odd mile club ride every week as well as a fast 6 mile commute to work, but so far the furthest distance I've cycled in one hit is about 65 miles, so this is damn near double the furthest I've ever cycled, I've not really done much in the way of specifically training for this ride other than the above mentioned short rides.

I feel pretty confident in the way I'm sure I'll complete the ride, but really I'd like to complete it comfortably without hating life after the first 100km.

So I feel the only thing I can do is make sure my body has all the right fuel for the job.

Gels, energy bars, ect..

What should I eat tomorrow leading up to it? What times? How many gels should I take, how many energy bars? I'm going to take two bottles of water and I'll probably put an SIS quick energy tablet thing in one of them & there's a stop at about the 55 mile mark, so should I run out of water before then I'll be able to fill up there. So I'm not particularly worried about water, it's just food, I'll only have the pockets on my jersey, so can't exactly take a whole quiche with me and I'll be stuffing a gilet in one pocket and an inner tube, tyre levers and a multi tool in another, so really I'll only have one pocket for food stuff is also something to take into consideration.

All help/criticism is welcomed.

Ta,
Jake

fenix

Bung your gels in a water bottle and add water to taste. That way you dont need to waste time with sticky wrappers. It's messy and tricky.

Get a bento box for the top tube and put bits of flapjack etc in there. Much cheaper than 'energy bars'.

https://www.evanscycles.com/topeak-tri- ... 0PEALw_wcB

Every 20 mins or so have a bit of flapjack or squoosh of gel, or sip of energy drink. Don't wait until you're hungry - its too late then.

Take it easy and sit on the wheels as much as possible. Its a long way to go if you're not used to it.

Have fun and have lots of lights on you.

arthur_scrimshaw

I've done a few long night rides, often straight from work. I've never felt sleepy until I've finished the ride, that's when it hits me - normally a nap for an hour sorts me out and I stay awake for the rest of the day and then get a good nights sleep.

mikpem

There are a few places where you can stop for food (and beer). I tried and failed to get a decent sleep last night so will just be powering through and hoping to sleep lots tomorrow.
Best tip is to take it easy and eat little and often, it's so easy to get excited at events like this and go too hard early on and forget to eat so be conscious about that.
I'll be one of the guys there in jerseys designed by a 5 year old

lettingthedaysgoby

Get a small saddle bag for your tubes/multitool etc - frees up an extra jersey pocket

hypster

My daughter and I are doing it tonight starting out from our village in Essex and joining the route after about 20 miles. We are riding back from the finish in Dunwich as well which will amount to a round trip of 200 miles. Should be a decent challenge!

hypster

I just thought I would share our experiences of the Dunwich Dynamo in case anyone was thinking of entering in the future.

We left home at 21:00 and rode from our village in Essex about 11 miles to join the route at Moreton. When we got there at about 21:40 the place was heaving with cyclists and the two pubs in that village were in full party mode. We joined the gaggle of cyclists and proceded to the Dumow Road in the half light on a nicely warm evening with just a very light breeze.

The myriad of blinking red lights from a stream of cyclists was a magical sight and we managed to find a group moving along at a nice pace without going mental. There were several groups passing ours that were hacking along at a decent pace although we were conscious of the fact that we were proposing to ride back from Dunwich so resisted the temptation to go mad. Almost every village and pub we passed by had something going on and the support for the ride was incredible with several groups of spectators out on the road cheering everyone on.

Everything seemed to be rolling along really nicely and the miles seemingly flew by until we arrived at Sudbury which was 48 miles on my Garmin. The route passed a local cycle shop - Torque Bikes who were open for business and selling coffee so we stopped there and they also had a proper toilet which was useful. As it turned out just around the corner was the local fire station which was also open for refreshments and many cyclists had stopped there also although the queue can be lengthy apparently.

Carrying on we then found that the number of cyclists on the road from that point on seemed to have thinned out considerably. I don't know if this was because many had stopped or even if we had been left behind but we definitely found it difficult to form any sort of group. Still we carried on but about 2 am and maybe 25 miles from Dunwich the temperature started to noticeably drop and luckily we had our gilets with us so we stopped and put those on. My Garmin was reading 8.6 degrees though which was not something I had anticipated at all and we were definitely on the uncomfortable side of cold having started at about 16 degrees in short sleeves.

We reached Dunwich at 3:50 with the light just starting to appear over the sea and the sight of several hundred cyclists at the Flora Tearooms which was obviously doing a thriving business. We had a pot of tea and a bacon roll and then got ready for the lonely slog home with the great red ball of the sun magically rising out of the sea.

Leaving at 4:45 I was quite unprepared for the number of cyclists still riding towards Dunwich. It was almost 3 hours before we saw the last of them and they still had about 40 miles to go and some of them looked decidely unhappy! )

My daughter and I arrived home at 12:45 having covered 197.5 miles in 15 hours 45 minutes including stops and although we were shattered it will probably be one of the most amazing cycling experiences of my life. I don't think I would do the "double" again but I would definitely do the night leg again and probably make arrangements to be picked up at Dunwich.

Even though there were a lot of cyclists on the road, especially in the first 50 miles or so, I didn't witness one problem or an evidence of crashes etc. Everyone seemed to be riding very considerately even those moving faster were giving plenty of warning they were coming past. The route was mainly 'B' roads and country lanes that were very quiet and very pictureque although we could only appreciate that fact on the way back!

I would also say that in a group you obviously need less light but I was amazed at how puny the lights some people had on and travelling so fast. I was running a 200 lumen light early on in a group but switched that to 800 lumens when were were on our own to check for road defects and that was more than enough.

rollemynot

Great review... try the Scottish version called Ride to the Sun...