Monday 25 July 2011

Dunwich Dynamo - Its a long one (apologies)



So after planning to avoid any sort of sleep on the Friday evening, in order to prepare the body for the turmoil ahead, Josh and I were both sound asleep by around 1am. The reason being, our participation in the event was put into doubt becasue of the weather forecast, which indicated heavy and prolongued rain on Saturday and Sunday. I have never been a fair weather cyclist, but the idea of cycling for 8 hours in the rain seemed to take away from the experience of cycling the Dunwich. Josh was the one who made me aware of this point initially, and despite my intention to go ahead whatever the weather (no pun intended), after seeing the downpours prior to my departure on Saturday afternoon, I too was brought around to the idea of having a quiet, and warm night in front of the TV.

But against all the odds, the skys cleared at around 6pm. The umpires made their decision....the cycle to Dunwich was on.

On arrival at pub in the park in Hackney, I was amazed at the sheer volume of cyclists chillaxing, drinking a pint, chatting on with their respective friends/teams or consulting the route maps. It was brilliant, and lived up to everything I had expected. We each gave a pound to the chap handing out maps, and began to work out where we would be going. However, the maps were useless to us, considering we both come from the North of England and thus, had no idea of the road names and numbers of North-Eastern London, and beyond. The plan was therefore changed to follow the peloton.

We began at exactly 9pm, which happened to be a similar time that most of the bunch hanging around the pub also left. I had no understanding of how many cyclists were involved in this event until we turned onto the main road and came to the first major set of traffic lights. I had never seen so many cyclists before waiting for the green light to appear, it felt like we were in the tour de France. Initially Josh and I held back, chatted to fellow cyclists and tried to target those who we felt we could latch onto to get us to the finish by sunrise. But it soon became apparent that the peloton we were part of were not moving quick enough to give us a chance of seeing sunrise, and we decided to quicken up the pace and move through the pack. This is probably something I would change if I did it again, as I didnt really get the opportunity to have any banter. But then again, for the time we were in the bunch, banter was few and far between.

We really motored through the first 20 miles. Worries about getting ahead of everyone, and not having anyone to follow were soon eased as the red lights of cyclists ahead flickered way beyond the horizon. It was around the 20 mile mark where we got a taste of how dangerous the cycle could be. I am still not sure what had happened, but many cycles lined the road and a woman was being seen to by paramedics, already at the scene. It looked like a collision between cyclists, but I wouldnt want to speculate. Either way, it seemed to hammer home to us, and the cyclists around us that this wasnt an event that should be taken lightly.

The night seemed to come around quickly, and before we knew it we were at the half way house, which at the time was rammed, but not as rammed as it was by the time we left. It had taken us just over 3 hours to cycle 52 miles. We saw it as a real achievement, considering we had had to negotiate the city streets. We set off again at 1am, after demolishing a cracking brew, a bannana and a flap jack each. As with the previous 3 hours, the time seemed to fly by. I believe the key was not being able to see what was too far ahead of you, the concentration required to stay on route allowed time to fly by. Plus, there were some amazing decents, particularly the one into Sudbury.

It was only when the daylight started to emerge that time and the miles seemed to stand still. It became really difficult with around 15 miles to go. By this point we had formed part of a group of around 10 cyclists, one of which had a GPS system and so became the lead cyclist. But I had begun to moan as my back and neck were in agony through the position I had cycled in for the previous 6 hours and for the fact I still couldnt see the coast despite being so close to the finish. This was without a doubt, the trough of the 115 odd miles. Fortunately Josh had emerged from his trough, and tried to pull me along with decent banter, and the promise of a fry up at the cafe on Dunwich beach.

With 2 miles left, there it was! The first road sign for Dunwich. We had hunted for such a sign for about an hour, as a group. Then before we knew it, we were in Dunwich, and cycling down toward the beach. It was at this point I realised the reason we hadn't been able to spot the finish was through the beach being almost in a little cove. The sun had emerged some 15 minutes prior to our arrival on Dunwich beach, but at this point I was beyond caring. The final time was 7hrs 35mins 39 seconds. We werent the first people to get there, but we certainly were in no way the last. I know that this is not seen as a race, but too me, it was a chance to see how fast and how far I could go. I was so proud of the achievement, but so tired.

Waiting for the lorries to take us back to London allowed us to talk about a couple of things that had cropped up during the evening. The first was how quick the cycle teams were (I think there were a number of teams, but I can only remember the Dulwich team, half of which cycled past us with a few miles to go.) The second was how frowned upon it was to cycle such a route without a helmet. In no way am I proud of doing 113 miles without a helmet on, but it was interesting to hear so much chat about the fact we werent wearing head gear as we cycled past.

The entire experience was one that I will never forget. I really pushed myself on this occasion, and the reward was the satisfaction I felt with the time Josh and I recorded, and of course a well deserved full English. An experience that I would recommend to anyone.

Friday 15 July 2011

The mystery of red light ignorance

The Dunwich Dynamo is tomorrow, but rather than blog about that, something else has caught my attention, particularly over the last week.

My morning commute consists of a 3.7 mile cycle from Battersea (South Chelsea, as I like to call it) to Tottenham Court Road. I have done this route virtually every day for the last 2 months, and in my opinion, I now feel I know the dangerous areas/"hot spots" (i.e - junctions, corners etc) along the way.

Before I continue, I want to point out that I am no angel at all when it comes to stopping at each and every red light that captures me to and from work, having said that, at no point would I jump a red light at particular points on my route, most notably Vauxhall roundabout. But be assured, in no way, am I about to preach about the green cross code and how cyclists should obey it.

But over the last few weeks, I have come across some real Kamikaze cyclists, that seem happy to put their life on the line for the reward of gaining a few extra meters/seconds on those that are willing to sit safely in the green cycle bay, awaiting the prestigious green light. There are a couple of instances where I could probably understand this type of decision making -

1. Your wife is pregnant and you need to get to the hospital
2. England are beating Germany 2-1 in the World cup final with 89 minutes gone and you need to get home to watch the boys lift the trophy (in this instance I'd have to ask, why you were out and about in the first place)
3. Dodgy stomach - enough said (although this is only a reasonable one, should the issue have come about whilst on your journey, if not - stay at home)

Unfortunately, when I recently confronted a fellow cyclist/commuter, who must have been colour blind, considering he had cycled through every single red light that faced him along the route, he gave me none of the above. He just turned to me and grunted, in an almost arrogant way.

This is my point. Before I started cycling in London, I heard numerous stories of the perils of cycling around such a congested place, such as cyclists being knocked off bikes, run over by the evil white van drivers etc. I acknowledge there are times when there is nothing a cyclist can do about being injured/hit by vehicles, but of the incidents I have seen so far, virtually all have been at busy crossings.

As a result, I have started to ask myself, are a growing proportion of these incidents down to cyclists pushing the odds too far, by not paying attention or going through one too many reds? And are the people typically involved in incidents (not necessarily incidents involving injury), those that seem especially keen to get too work a minute earlier? Apologies if this appears to be completely arrogant of me to ask those questions, but I genuinely want to know the answers.

I absolutely love cycling around London, and yes I have had a couple of "near misses" but as I put more and more miles under my belt, I have begun to form the opinion that many newcomers (to London and to cycling) are perhaps put off cycling around London because of stories founded on incidents involving cyclists that dont see the dangers of jumping one too many red lights.

Readers, your thoughts?