mrs_o and I had a fantastic time.
I bumped into clarion, Butterfly and TGL at Liverpool St. who were waiting for wowbagger and CrinklyLion. I nipped off to complete my shopping (Jelly Beans and wine at M&S, pasties from the Pasty Shop).
We (mrs_o, our friend Andy from Witham and myself) set off for Hackney, a bit before wow arrived, since mrs_o had never ridden in London traffic before so I thought we'd better build in the possibility of stopping / re-routing if necessary (and she wanted to get it over with ASAP).
We milled around with an increasing bunch of yacfers in the usual corner. Drinks were had, hands were shaken, acquaintances made (and re-made). It was nice to see Andrij and coll_coll at the start, who I'd ridden so much of the middle/latter part of last year's ride with. (Once on the road, the sound of coll_coll's freewheel brought it all back!).
I also spotted James Bowthorpe (chap who broke Mark Beaumont's round the world record) complete with belt-drive Santos bike, just next to the Pub.
We set off with Team Slow at some time after 8:30, after a couple of drinks to fine-tune the pre-ride carbo-loading regime. The group strung out a bit through the outskirts of London, but re-grouped at the 24hr garage @ 12 miles. mrs_o and I decided to set off a bit ahead since we definitely wanted to reach the pub in Moreton with time for a drink before last orders.
We got there in good time and were supping when we saw most of Team Slow (and the guy with the dog) ride through (I cheered wow+CrinklyLion through with a cry of "Go Team Slow!!!"). I didn't realise for some time that Team Slow had all stopped a few yards down the road. I stopped for a quick chat on our way out of Moreton. We went on ahead, on the grounds that we expected to be Team Stopping A Lot, and so would probably get swept up by the Team Slow peloton at some point later.
mrs_o and I separated from our friend Andy, somewhere between there and Finchingfield. We had come laden with picnic options (well one of us was laden!) and decided that at the top of the hill in Finchingfield would be a good spot to stop. We sat under a tree on a bench just outside the Three Tuns (which was shut, but the pub in the centre of Finchingfield was open when we went past - I don't remember that from last year) and enjoyed the first instalment of our picnic watching the stream of riders going past.
From here on, we passed an increasing number of navigationally challenged souls, who we put right whenever possible. We stopped at the village hall to refill bottles and have a loo stop, where I bumped into Martin, also resplendent in his KOTM jersey - that was, I think the 5th I'd seen that night - Myself, Feline, rogerzilla, darkpoint, Martin). We didn't partake of the food there, but it did seem that the queue was less daunting than last year's (although I got the impression there were more people at the halfway stop this year, catching 40 winks on the grass all around).
Several Essex and Suffolk village residents had stayed up with drinks and deckchairs to cheer us on again this year.
At some point, we spotted man+dog both asleep on/under a park bench.
Also, some enterprising soul has, I see, cottoned on to the marketing opportunity this year - a sign appeared "Dun Run - Bacon Rolls 2 miles ->". They seemed to do a fair old trade too. Pity that the twit who decided to stop in front of us to have one decided it was important enough that he had to stop at the point of the road most narrowed by people already stopped, completely blocking the way through and slowly faffing in the middle of the road for his money, totally oblivious to the others wanting to ride on through.
We managed two more picnics en-route too, one at ~91 miles the other I don't recall.
We arrived at Dunwich at around 08:15 to find the most superb sight. The wonderful pixieannie had set up a base-camp of epicurean delights. There's a serious danger that the write-up of the food and welcome at the finish might end up longer than the write up of the rest of the ride.
The moment we arrived, a flame-haired pixie started running around, offering drinks (tea, coffee juice, water, alcohol,....) breakfast (bacon rolls and beans - yum
), seats, blankets and indicating the table of delights to nom in the meantime. the olive foccaccia was absolutely wonderful. Cashew nuts hit the spot too (I'd lost a little salt and protein travelling through the matter transference beam).
Already there were RichForrest (reclined on a blanket), Andrij (sitting under one) and one chap whose forum name I forgot to get. Several others arrived to the same welcoming flurry of pixie activity and food production.
Some fantastic pictures upthread -- I'll upload mine later and edit this for a few links. I even got a couple of pics of the chap+dog arriving at Dunwich.
I'm
very impressed with mrs_o, who managed it superbly. That was the first time she'd been more than ~56 miles (and at a rolling pace a bit higher than she'd done that too - I think we managed a moving average of around 12.5 mph in the end). I did get curse a bit on a few of the hills towards the end (although mrs_o stated somewhat embarrassedly that she was in her granny ring, she was still overtaking blokes on road bikes up the hills).
