Sam emails me in March about a 120-mile ride from north London to the Suffolk coast. Starting 9 p.m. … 9 P.M.? Delete.
Sam emails me again in May about the Dunwich Dynamo 2004. 120 miles overnight from London to Sussex. Um … doing 120 miles on the road sounds deadly enough to a mountainbiker, doing it in the dark a rub of salt.

The stupidity of the idea eats away at me through June. The ride’s on the full moon at the end of July, so visibility should be good. I visit the website: the ride’s flat and is ‘suitable for any regular commuter cyclist’. Jerry and Sam meet me in the gloaming of a Hackney park one hour before the ride. I’m as cheered by the sight of boys with Cycle King jalopies as I am alarmed by the massing cooler-than-thou couriers.

I meet a girl in the queue to buy the bus tickets back. A courier, yeah, doing the ride on her own … on her fixed-gear bike. Gulp. I’ve been bricking it for a week and have spent two days bulkloading carbs. This girl’s about to ride 120 miles on her own – and her bike doesn’t even freewheel never mind have gears. Can I bale out now, please?

The ride

The 200+ riders set off at dusk. For the first few hours no one doing the ride on their own is on their own at all. The camaraderie is more tangible than on most mass-rides, the atmosphere verging on anarchic. Feeling 100-odd miles of countryside beckon as last orders chimes is strangely atemporal. The ride bobs up a long incline into Epping Forest past the open doors of karaoke nights, passed by caterwauling by comedians in Cavaliers.

A few hours in and we’re whizzing through sleepy Essex villages, all tucked up and none the wiser to the insomniacs pedalling towards the coast. The full moon glares brightly but intermittently from behind the clouds. The organisers’ advice that LEDs will do and that you can tuck in behind well-lit cyclists through the dark tree-tunnelled avenues is hopelessly exaggerated. My LEDs are as helpful as a sparkler – on the dark downhills I just point and go.

There is one official food stop en route, a village hall in the dark depths of the Essex–Suffolk border, at mile 66 (over that hallowed half-way mark), selling warming veggie slop and other tasty morsels. A life-saver. Get there early (or take your own) as we gobble the last plates full, and we are not the last comers. A few more hours pass effortlessly, in conversation with random two-wheelers from all over London. Our route bypasses Colchester and Ipswich on the quietest of car-free lanes. The fixed-gear crews flash past with wide-eyed abandon and the night gives way to smudges of dawn.

I never get a sore bum but my thighs are feeling the hundreds of hillocks that, when added end to end, amount to dozens and dozens of Headington Hills. I’m not shy of Headington Hill and would do five Headington Hills without a whimper, but to be confronted with endless if short climbs at 3, 4, 5 a.m. … it hurts.

The agony

Apparently the rest of the ride is really beautiful. For me, it’s agony and I hate it. Something’s gone wrong with my legs and every revolution causes a searing pain along the tops of my thighs. I’m struggling and without my loyal companion Jerry’s encouragement I couldn’t get to the end. I start desperately to look for bus stops with North London written on them.

I rely on Jerry’s affidavit that it gets brighter and all the more surreally beautiful towards Dunwich. By 6 and 7 a.m. there aren’t many cyclists around. Most of them are already at the beach waiting for the café to open. I am alarmed to see few cyclists already heading back to London … one of them on a Brompton. I try not to dwell on their manifest insanity.

We arrive in Dunwich at 8 a.m. and on the beach find young Sam who bolted halfway through the long night. My legs are shredded and shaking, after 8 hours in the saddle and 11 hours on the roads. I bump into Tom from Oxford Cycle Workshop in the café. He looks a little tired, but who wouldn’t after racing from Dulwich to Dunwich in 7 hours.

The triumph

So – is it worth it? I’m very unlucky in the legs dept this time, but even so the answer is an emphatic YES. The serenity of the countryside at that time of the morning and the sense that you’re doing something distinctly odd combine to make the ride well worth the effort. Hearing the seagulls at Dunwich triggers intense relief and an enormous sense of achievement. I’ll go again next year – but not without doing a few 80–100-mile daytime rides first.

Need to know

Info for Dunwich Dynamo from: http://www.greenwichcyclists.org.uk/
   It’s free apart from a contribution for photocopied directions.
   The ride is unsupported so take all your own tools and a map.
   Take food (you’ll get hungry before the pit stop).
   Take good halogen lights with spare batteries (it’s dark when it’s cloudy).
   The transport back was bad (£13 pre-booked coach). The coaches arrived late and we waited on them for nearly two hours before they left. If you can club together and get alternative wheels you won’t regret it. Perhaps an Oxford Cycle Workshop minibus?

And be warned: this is not a walk in the park. The website makes it sound easy. It isn’t. If you have only cycled 10 miles to and from work each way for a year or two you may not make it. If you haven’t cycled 80+ miles in one ride this year, you should think thrice about this ride. Build up the miles, and go next year. Because being unable to continue with 45 miles to go feels really bad when you have no choice.

James Styring