I think it is fair to say that the Dunwich Dynamo is the Silly Ride to End All Silly Rides - at least, in the realm of amateur cycling. The Tour de France is pretty silly, but lots of people love watching it and the participants get paid to do it, so they have a genuine motive. But the Dun Run: overnight, so it buggers up your sleep patterns for days; 113 (ish) miles, so it's quite hard; and it finishes at Dunwich, which is a silly place to go. There are much better swimming beaches, it's really quite difficult for the coaches and furniture vans to compete with the everyday "seaside" traffic on the narrow roads, no-one much lives there and the nearest viable railway station is over 20 miles away. So a couple of thousand people meet in London Fields and snake their way to Dunwich at a wide variety of speeds. Because it is there.
I had two possible plans in the pipeline for this year - short of acting my age (65) and being sensible and staying at home. The first was to ride on a tandem with my lovely friend Rebecca (NOTP) and the second was to take camping gear and ride back over 2 days with my lovely friend Jane (OTP). The second of those plans bit the dust pretty early on when Jane revealed that she had to work on the Sunday (Jane is one of those amazing retired people who are at least as busy since retirement as they were when they had paid employment); and the first fell apart because Rebecca does have employment and a family young enough that abandoning them for a couple of days to go cavorting off to the coast with elderly gentlemen has repercussions. So I was back to doing the ride on my solo machine. But I did that 2 years ago, was on my own for most of the time and it was boring and, to be honest, not original and therefore not silly enough.
That was when I hit upon an idea. My dear wife is currently reading a book entitled "Take a Seat!", written by some loon who cycled from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego on a tandem offering lifts to people as he went. I thought that just turning up at London Fields with a tandem and trying to recruit a stoker on the night stood a very slim chance of success, so I advertised the job, on here and on Facebook, and on Wednesday last week held the interviews, from a shortlist of one, and so it was that Bryan (NOTP) was appointed to the role of Hon. Stoker for the night. Dez had been booked quite some time ago to come and collect me from Dunwich, and Bryan already had a ticket booked on one of the coaches back. So the Silly Quotient was adequately met.
Bryan met me at Lpoo St at about 6pm yesterday and we set off for London Fields. I tend to gather cyclists around me at moments like this because none of them seems to know the way to London Fields and for some reason they think I do. At the last minute, I had added the track for that section to the Garmin so I could find my way, and it was not that long before Jurek and Gattopardo were welcoming us and we were drinking beer. Jane turned up to say hello - even though she was not cycling to Dunwich, she had led a ride from Lewisham for those who wanted to participate and some others who just wanted to see the others off, and she came and found us for a brief natter. Damarell also arrived, on an ancient Triumph very similar to one we bought for a colleague of mine who retired in 1980. The pub was selling burgers, so some of us had one each, and around 7.50 Kim arrived. Numbers were thinning out, so at about 8.30 we decided to set off.
The Lea Bridge Road was OK. There is a (mostly) good cycle path alongside it these days, although some of the time it was necessary or desirable to mix it with the traffic, and in what seemed to be a pretty good time we crossed the North Circular at Whipps Cross. Then came the slog up through Epping but Bryan and I just breezed through it. Epping came and went, without incident, and we eschewed the Jurek manoeuvre and approached Moreton from the north. This was unprecedented because we were at the White Hart, buying beer, before 10.30pm, which augured well for the rest of the night. We had a chance encounter with some of the stalwarts of Lewisham Cyclists and there were hugs & selfies.
We carried on at a decent speed and the weather remained warm enough for just shorts and top. Bryan was still powering away and we were through Dunmow at around midnight. This must have been close to 2 hours ahead of my normal speed. We arrived at Great Bardfield, and The Bell supplied us with coffee. I ate a marmite butty and handed round the rather soggy flapjack I had made, and Bryan looked a little the worse for wear.
We carried on and as we did so there were Noises Denoting Discomfort coming from behind me. Clearly, Bryan's saddle did not agree with him. After Dunmow, the ride becomes decidedly rolling and the uphills were a battle. As we rounded a bend in Sible Hedingham, there was a knot of cyclists on the far pavement, one of whom was sitting down in the manner of one who is not at his best. As it turned out, he had taken the corner at some speed and and hit the deck quite hard - possibly as a result of an encounter with one of the two large metal manhole covers that were in the vicinity. The people who were with him had phoned an ambulance, but it seemed that there was a very long wait for one.
Bryan and Kim immediately took control of the situation. Bryan, it seems, is an experienced first-aider and he assessed the situation well, made sure the guy was as comfortable as possible, and Kim produced, in that manner that only Kim can, a space blanket from her luggage. Brian had asked me during yesterday whether I had a first aid kit on board, and I replied that I didn't. He brought one with him and I don't know what he used from it, but suffice it to say that the patient had messed his hands up quite badly, with a deep cut and clearly broken or dislocated finger. Since Bryan was now so clearly in control of the situation we had to wait for the paramedic, and around 3.30, after we had been there about an hour, one arrived. During this period, Damarell, who was beginning to get cold, quite reasonably pointed out that he was doing nothing useful by staying, so he carried on. I put extra garments on and we all set off again, but much more slowly than we had been doing. Just before the long 40mph descent into Sudbury, it started to rain.
Of course the fire station was closed - possibly because they had had to attend to a massive haystack fire just north of Castle Hedingham, but also possibly because they had run out of food. We climbed out of Sudbury and gradually the north-eastern sky began to blush pink, Various advertised food stops were clearly abandoned and we saw no other cyclists for a long time. Although we had been delayed, I didn't feel that we were nearly slow enough to be the lanternes rouges, but later, whilst at the Flora café, Kim was speculating about the fact that these days there are very few genuine BSOs on the ride., so it is quite possibly that the ride is populated by more accomplished cyclists than used to be the case.
Poor Bryan was still suffering greatly. I have to say that I wasn't in the greatest of comfort as I was having to do considerably more than 50% of the work to get us moving, and the great pain that Bryan was feeling through his arse and gonads were making stops frequent. When we restarted, we took it very gently. Gradually we whittled the miles away and made it to Needham Lakes. There the Sausage God smiled on us and Brian and I had pretty much the last two hot dogs to be sold before the stall was closed. We continued in more and more pain until Sibton and the The House of My Mate Terry hove into view, and there were smiles, tea and chocolate cake. Bryan went to sleep and I needed to give him quite a shake to get him woken.
At the end, we hacked along the A roads and reached the beach in plenty of time for Bryan to sort out his place on a bus. I had some marvellous fish & chips and a natter with Kim, and Dez arrived around 1.45. The tandem fitted easily into the car and we drove home.
Edit: I just looked at the Cateye and our average speed was 10.2mph. We must have been near to 12mph in the first 40 miles.
