This weekend has been one of the longest and among the more
memorable ones of my life - I thought I'd jot down a few notes about it
as I'm bound to forget it all.
For a while I've been planning on
doing an event called the Dunwich Dynamo which involves riding the 120
miles from London to Dunwich through the night. That was scheduled for
Saturday.
Friday
I took Friday afternoon off
work to look after Lily while Clare went to watch a Blur gig in Hyde
Park. We went to Christchurch Park where we played on the swings and
slides, had an ice-cream, fed the ducks and chased dragonflies.
Once
home I got her fed, entertained and then to bed. Once I had the house
to myself I turned the stereo up to 11 and listened to the new Therapy?
album (No, I wasn't pretending to be Andy Cairns and anyone who says I
was is lying), this is something I don't get to do too often and one of
the (very) few things I miss from bachelorhood ;-)
I then had a Wire
Season 1 marathon (how good is that show?!), watching the last 3
episodes back to back and getting to bed latish.
Saturday
To
give Clare a bit of recovery time, I began Saturday by taking Lily and
my bike off to Dunwich in the car, where the car would be left for me to
get home in after the ride. Once there I placed Lily in the bike seat
and set off for the nearest train station (about 5 miles), stopping
along the way to feed some cows. Lily had never been on a train before
but has been intrigued by them whenever she's seen them. She enjoyed
the train ride, but seemed to think that we were sitting still and the
world was moving past us and kept asking where the trees were going.
Once
home, Clare made up a picnic and we went back to Christchurch Park
where we spent the rest of the day; repeating most of what we'd done the
day before, plus having the picnic, chasing a ball, eating more
ice-cream and watching people set up the stages for the annual 1 day
Ipswich music festival.
In the late afternoon I got everything packed
for the bike ride, finished prepping the bike and headed off to catch
the train to London with a mate (Chris). On the train I bumped into
someone I vaguely knew from work about 10 years ago, he coincidentally
was doing the same ride.
Saturday night, Sunday morning - The Ride
We
got to London and headed off to the start point, London Fields park in
Hackney, where we met up with a group of my biking mates (Phil, Ben,
Richard, Mark, John, plus a few friends-of-friends). The ride's a
pretty informal affair, you're given a sheet of A4 with directions on it
and can set off as and when you like. We hit the road around 8:45pm
and prepared to battle the London traffic.
London's roads struggle to
cope with the number of cars that use it, so adding around 800 bikes
into the mix is never going to be pretty. As such, we were stuck at a
snails pace until we got to the M25 and a lot of the going was fairly
treacherous with a few drivers objecting to bikes having the temerity to
be on 'their' roads.
Once through Epping Forest and into the Essex
country lanes, leaving London and the sunset behind us, we could pick up
the pace and put a few miles between us and the start.
We knew that
there were differing skill levels within the group and it had always
been the plan that we would find our pace and split into smaller groups
as the ride progressed, and once out of London John and a friend of his
dropped off the back.
We'd planned to split the ride into 20 mile
sections, having a rest stop at the end of each, it was at the first of
these that Chris decided to hang back and join John's splinter faction,
and where I realised that it was now definitely too dark for sunglasses.
As
the night went on we passed many Essex towns and villages, hitting some
of them just as the pubs were emptying for the night and some (mostly)
pleasant banter was had with the locals as we passed.
The 40 mile
refuelling stop came and passed fairly swiftly, but the next 20 miles to
the half way point were starting to hurt a little and me getting a
puncture shortly into this stretch held us up a bit.
The halfway
point is in Great Walderingfield's village hall, which kindly opens and
provides food and drink to the riders. We'd been warned before the race
that the queues here can be huge and sure enough they were massive; as
such we'd all prepared our own grub - other than topping up our water
bottles we were pretty much self-sufficient. We took our longest rest
of the evening here (probably about 30mins) and despite the warm dry
evening (approx 15C at 1am) we'd started to cool down to the point where
our short sleeved tops weren't seeming such a good idea! We decided to
head off as we were and see if the next few miles would warm us up
enough to keep the warmer layers stowed in our packs and sure enough, 10
mins down the road we were sweltering again.
Thanks to the magic
of energy gels and drink supplements we were managing to keep a decent
pace and keep cramps from our leg muscles - although seeing the sign
saying "Ipswich 9 miles" did make our beds seem like a more tempting
place to be.
By now we were well into Suffolk and surrounded by wide
open fields and passing through pretty little villages and market towns
and other than one sadistic taxi driver in Needham Market this was the
longest we went without seeing any cars.
As we approached Framlingham, our final rest stop, the sun started to rise and each of Suffolk's hills (yes, it does have
some)
started to hurt more and more. On leaving Framlingham our spirits were
at their lowest and we were at our most tired, I seemed to be yawning
continuously for the first few miles. But some banter and
competitiveness kept us moving until finally the end was in site.
All
in, we covered 120miles in 8hrs 55mins, of which 7hrs 13mins were spent
in the saddle and my trip-computer showed we'd held an average speed of
15.5mph.
Much like at the half-way point, the beach cafe owners
opened bright and early for us foolish people who'd ridden through the
night, and when we arrived at 5:40 there was already a moderate queue
out of the front door. A short while later we were sat outside,
overlooking the sea, scoffing down a huge fry-up.
A few souls,
braver than us, were having a swim, while others slept on the beach.
The old, white-bearded, man walking his dog on the beach must have been
surprised that his, usually secluded, daily routine was being intruded
upon by all these people and was perhaps wishing he'd chosen to wear
something other than his manky grey dressing gown!
Just as we
were leaving, a couple of hours after having arrived, and much to our
relief, we saw Chris and John arriving. It was at this point that the
heavens decided that it had been dry for long enough and the rain came
down with a vengeance. I'm guessing they got rather wet in the queue
for a fry-up which was now stretching around the car-park!
It's
fair to say, that despite not breaking any world records or anything,
I'm suitably smug/chuffed with myself for completing this, and despite
riding regularly it is without doubt the toughest thing I've ever done.
Sunday
Following
a quick drive home I slept for 3 hours and then had to resume parenting
duties. We set off out to see the music festival in Christchurch Park
where we met up with a few friends and where the training diet of
high-carbs and no-alcohol could be thankfully swapped for a high-alcohol
and no-carbs one!!! Oh and not forgetting to get Lily her 3rd
ice-cream of the weekend :-)
If you've read through all that;
a) well done to you
b) why would you do that to yourself?
)
It was only back at the tent later I discovered it was JohnE and Crosser shouting encouragement/piss-taking.
);