^
^
+1
My first was in 2007 (The wet one)
Since which time I've ridden it around five or six times, including four of us doing
Adam's battery powered version one October.
I think the last proper one I did was 2011 or 2012, by which time the appeal had, mostly, been lost.
Incidentally, I've said this before, but it was reading the late Barry Mason's FAQs for the Dun Run in 2006 that convinced me that I should buy a bike and get back into cycling, on the basis of 'This sounds great! I must do this before it gets too big and too out of hand, and someone with a large, decorated hat declares Risk Assesment! Method Statement! Insurance! Organisation!
And, sure enough, that's the way it has mostly panned out.
We are no longer welcome at the village hall in Great Waldingham or (latterly) Sible Headingham, for the half-way food stop where volunteers would serve up tea, cake and hot pasta dishes and you could sit in shelter at tables to eat and drink and recover your strengths.
Someone on Sible Headingham parish council is a petrol-head who doesn't like cyclists.
Allegedly.
Also, we left litter.
Allegedly.
Having been barred from using SH village hall as a half-way stop, (or having any formally recognised half-way stop) means that Patrick Field, of The London School of Cycling, no longer puts out the trail of lit candles in jars by the roadside, to guide you to your nocturnal feast.
The absence of these is a shame.
They were part of the attraction.
The flip side of the disappearance of the SH stop, and growth in popularity / notoriety of the ride means that each year more and more pop-up refreshment points have appeared.
From the Fire Station in Sudbury, to people serving up bacon butties or barbecues in their front gardens, to (one year, I noticed) someone had a yurt in their garden, offering massages (No, not that sort!).
Raising money for one charity or another appears to be the motivation behind this.
I'd say that this is mostly good.
In recent years, the advent of bluetooth speakers means that the attraction of the ride being mostly a silent one, is no longer there. As riders churn out their favourite motivational choons into the Suffolk night, it is little wonder that the ride is subject to some riposte from locals who's sleep is disturbed by cyclist's boom-boxes as the riders pass through rural hamlets.
IMHO sharing your fave choons, with locals who are sleeping is a bit of a shit and inconsiderate thing to do.
At Dunwich itself, The Flora Tea Rooms are now open from around 03:30 to welcome the sprinters.
The owners of The Ship pub have also got wise to the ride and these days they open early in the morning to serve a quality breakfast . They never used to open until normal licensing hours at noon. Booking your table is recommended.
And that last sentence, sums up everything about the direction in which the Dun Run has morphed.
Booking your table? Booking
anything?
It is (used to be) a turn up and go ride.
Incidentally, pitching up on Dunwich Beach one October morning, when the four of us had ridden Adam's battery powered version of the ride, showed us what a totally different place Dunwich is, compared to the day when a couple of thousand cyclists descend on the place.
The car park is usually, absolutely rammed with cars belonging to dog walkers and bird watchers. None of whom get a look-in on the day we fill it with half a dozen coaches, a handful of furniture vans and numerous cars collecting spent overnight riders.
I wonder if anyone still does my Bovinger diversion to Moreton? In order to
A) Catch last orders at The White Hart or The Nags Head and
B) Catch out novices following me, causing them to miss the Bovinger left turn and career into the inky darkness of the A414 towards Chelmsford.
ETA -Incidentally, if anyone (including Wikipedia) tells you that the ride is 120 miles long, they are wrong.
If they've clocked up 120 miles it is probably because they've been lost.
It's just shy of 113 miles from London Fields to Dunwich beach.