Dunwich Dynamo 2009

Better late than never - here's my Dunwich Dynamo report for 2009. A depleted Team Badger consisting of just Spratticus and myself made it to this year's ride. We'd both done a lot less training than last year though I was at least buoyed up by the prospect of putting my new bike through its paces. After a mid week pep-talk on the phone we were starting to feel a bit more gung ho and having loaded up on pasta and watched a bit of the prologue at Beho,we set off into the sunny late afternoon for London Fields, feeling positively up for it. In the park we hooked up with fellow Resonancer DJ Original Bear and his team, Clare and Jodie. They were all Dynamo debutants but had put Team Badger to shame by clocking up an impressive amount of miles in training for the ride.

The customary pint of Adnams and last minute fiddling with the bikes attended to, we set off. The increase in numbers on the last couple of years was evident from the get-go and at times the ride out of London had a distinctly Critical Mass atmosphere. As usual this year's ride was a very broad cycling church - a mix of road bikes, hybrids, cyclo crossers (including me!), bromptons, single speeders, tandems, recumbents and a few tricycles, which I don't recall having seen on the ride before. There was even a penny farthing, which I believe should more properly be called an 'ordinary'.

First half of the ride went fairly well and without any major incidents. The sheer number of riders meant that there was never a point at which you couldn't see another bike - it was like a continuous line of cyclists stretching from Hackney to Dunwich. Pretty amazing. As usual we resisted the temptation to stop off at any of the Essex pubs en route but it was interesting to note the increasingly inebriated condition of the locals walking the street in each town we rode through as the night wore on. It must have been about 1.30 when we reached Sudbury and saw a bloke walking though the streets without his trousers on. He was carrying the pantaloons in question in his hands and I imagine that there must have been a point when he thought 'Oh dear, my trousers appear to have come off and I fear I am now too drunk to put them back on. Never mind, it's 1.30am so there's unlikely to be anyone else around so I'll just walk home without them on'. Little did he suspect that he was about to be met by a hundred or so cyclists pedalling down the street. I wonder if he remembered any of it the next morning.

Anyhoo, we reached the feeding station at Great Waldingfield, where the queues for food were stretching out of the village hall. Thankfully, we'd come prepared with our own provisions and spent a very amusing half hour or so discussing the art of the sandwich made from one piece of bread, or the 'bendover' as it is officially known. Then, on into the darkest hour, just before dawn, or the 'suicide hour', as it is apparently also known. This bit of the ride wasn't as bad as I remembered it from previous years, perhaps because it was already getting light - being early July seemed to make that much more difference. Mind you, the knees were starting to ache and the relatively mild hills were beginning to feel decidedly steep. The real misery came in the last couple of hours when the rain set in. It's not so bad when you're riding in it but we were all dreading the prospect of arriving at a rainswept Dunwich with no chance of getting in a cafe packed with earlier arrivals and no other shelter. It looked like I would have to make a call to my Mum and ask her to put the kettle on and some newspaper down in expectation of 5 muddy cyclists turning up on her doorstep first thing on a Sunday morning.

As luck would have it, though, the rain stopped just as we hit Dunwich and I ended up getting sunburnt after falling asleep on the beach. After the customary pint in the Ship, the rest of the newly christened Team Bendover headed off for London by coach and I pedalled back to the ancestral seat up the road for food, a bath, sleep, more food, watching the darts and then more sleep. Bloody marvellous. Woke up fully refreshed the next day and cycled back to Ipswich to get the train for London.

Another great Dynamo, despite the soggy last couple of hours. Brilliant company once again - can't wait for next year's ride.