It is said that the idea for the Dunwich Dynamo, or Dun Run, began when some London couriers decided one Friday evening to cycle overnight until they hit the coast. They did so, and arrived at Dunwich on the Suffolk coast some 16 years ago. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, just that since then it has become an annual event for riders who want a challenge which is a bit different.

The premise is simple – cyclists meet up on a summer’s evening in London and set off around 21:00 in the direction of Dunwich. The ride is “semi-organised”, presumably to avoid the hassle of bureaucracy in notifying the authorities that hundreds of cyclists will be occupying the roads in the night. For £1, we got a simple set of route instructions and a plastic CD pouch to keep it dry. The organised part of the ride is set at halfway where a village hall is taken over for cyclists to get some rest, food and warmth.

I’d heard of the Dunwich Dynamo back in the days of the C+ forum in 2006, but the thought of taking part never crossed my mind. Indeed, there are no doubt people now who wonder why anybody with an ounce of sanity would want to ride 120 miles in the dark, but perhaps one day they will decide to take on this famous challenge. This year, time was on my side and I made the decision to do something slightly different but could offer a great sense of achievement at the end.

On Saturday 19^th July, I got the train to London and made my way to Hackney Fields with a bunch of people who had joined the train at various stops. It was only about 19:30 and the park was full of bikes of all types – recumbent, fixed, road, tandem, folder. I met up with my riding partner Tynan and we sorted things out, chatted to YACF forummers and got a pint from HQ – the pub. By 20:30, it seemed everybody was leaving so we jumped on our steeds and turned the first pedals of what was to be a long night. There was enough light to see but I put on my blinding Cateye LD-1100 rear light anyway.

The groups quickly thinned out as people found a suitable pace and before I knew it we were already 12 miles into the journey and at the edge of Epping Forest. I’d heard the warnings about getting trouble from the locals in Epping, but didn’t notice a thing. By now it was getting dark and the front lights were starting to be turned on too. Although partially illuminated by the light of a full moon, it was clearly not enough to ride safely along tree lined roads so my front light setup came into play – 2 Cateye EL-510s and a DoubleShot Pro EL-820. OK, so I may have gone over the top a bit, but I wasn’t the only one. This contrasted with others who had the bare minimum “be seen” flashing white LED and relied on others to light the way.

Reaching Sudbury, we believed we were nearing our village hall food stop only to find that we were still 10 miles away. However, the group got bigger for some of the time and thinned out but soon enough we reached the hall where hot soup and cold pasta salad awaited us. At 01:15 it was a welcome respite to the endless turning of legs and miles of tarmac.

I met Bent Mikey and some of his skating crew in the hall, but quickly found that the rest was making me tired more than anything. Fashioning a pillow out of my jacket, I fell asleep and awoke about an hour later. Somewhere amidst all of this I had lost Tynan completely, and in fact most of the people who had been in the hall had left and continued on their way.

The sleep served me well and I headed out alone at 03:57 into the night which was slowly lifting. I think I even surprised myself when I found that 45 minutes later I had done 25km. I knew I had passed quite a few people on the route but I couldn’t believe that after 70 miles my body could make the bike move that fast. Hitting the bottom of the A140, I suddenly knew exactly where we were – I was in home territory. At this point, one chap on a singlespeed latched onto me and together we pushed each other on all the way to Dunwich while the sun rose and warmed our cold faces. At the beginning, people had been talking about the hills during the first half of the ride but they were so long and shallow you hardly noticed them. For me it was the hills in Suffolk which really hurt. My Garmin Edge 205 shows that we hit some sharp inclines in the morning reaching 12%. Granted, that on its own isn’t much to a reasonable cyclist, but the fatigue in the legs made it hurt a lot both in the saddle and out of it.

Finally, we sighted our first road sign to Dunwich – still 7 miles away, but nevertheless we knew we were close. By this time the speed had dropped for many people and we found ourselves struggling to get 24km/h on a straight flat road with no wind. I felt exhausted and my mind seemed to have switched off, leaving my body to hold onto the bike and turn the pedals. Nearing 7am by this point, we began to encounter many riders coming towards us – they had already finished, eaten and were beginning their journey home. With 1 mile to go I put in one last push to try and make it before 7am. On entering the car park, the Garmin was reading 07:01. I had just missed it, but it hardly mattered. I had ridden the Dunwich Dynamo.

After a very large breakfast at the café on the beach (£7 well spent!), I sat down on the beach for 15 minutes enjoying the view – my last visit to the same spot had been not 2 months previously but in stormy conditions – then I got back on the bike to ride home. Luckily for me it is about 30 miles away in Norfolk, but I wondered how those first messengers had returned to London. Some of my fellow Dun Runners were talking of actually riding back to London, while others chose a more sensible option of riding to nearby stations to get back.

Will I do it again? Definitely. When? Maybe next year, but not fixed…

The Route:

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-kingdom/-hackney-fields/760527474680