Paris wasn't enough. I needed more: I needed Dunwich Dynamo.

Soon cycling to Paris during the daylight hours wasn’t enough. The memories of blood, hammocks and thunderstorms just weren’t hitting the spot any longer. I wanted more: I was becoming an amateur biking enthusiast, big time.

There is no better way to quench the thirst for wheels than by completing the biggest event on any weekend rider’s calendar - the Dunwich Dynamo.  

High-sugar flapjacks backed, a meal of pesto pasta guzzled, and lycra slipped on, we set off from SE5 to join the 1,000 other recumbent, fixie, and racer riders swarming outside an innocuous pub by London Fields.

So the legend goes, 7 years ago 12 bike couriers met at the Pub on the Park for an after-work drink. Full moon beaming they decided to set off and see where the night would take them. Several years later, this moonlit ride has become the most organised –yet unorganised- cycle going. Now every time the full moon rises in July around 1,000 sets of wheels meet to re-trace the steps of our fixie forefathers.  

Cycling up at the pub I didn’t have a clue what was going on, and nor did the veterans of the ride. But, like the sound of cleats at traffic lights, soon enough it all just clicked into place. I handed over my pound and in return got an A4 sheet of directions. I exchanged my name for a pink raffle ticket that was my promise of a coach ride home.  Soon enough the first wave of riders set off under the blue bridge.  Then the second lot went, and feeling the need to catch up we started riding.

I don’t know how it happened, but then it was dark. Into the distance stretched hundreds of blinking red lights, snaking out towards Epping Forest.

Riding through Essex was a treat: “fuck off you perverts” a crowd of lads in shirts and shoes bellowed. They were right:  after all were all wearing Lycra with our rude bits smothered in a thick layer of Vaseline.

Leaving the loud noises, and the even louder shirts, of Essex behind we hit the county roads and the night closed in.  I cycled hard and was soon alone with the darkness – it was just a weird feeling. My lights weren’t strong enough to see far ahead of me and I just had to trust the darkness. There were moments in the dark when I hadn’t a clue if my friends were behind me, in front of me or fixing a puncture 10k away. But somehow, like those cleats, it just clicked: as soon as I began to lose my trust in the darkness hundreds of blinking red lights would appear and I’d slip straight back into place. Magic.

Daylight broke, and my legs kept on spinning. As the sun peeped pink from behind the clouds it felt like I’d been to sleep and was just on my commute to work. I’d love to say it was the magic of the Dynamo, but I think it might have had more to do with those sugary flap-jacks and the families on the deck-chairs who cheered us through the night.

On and on we rolled. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Sometimes up, but mainly down. And as we neared the end of the Dynamo I came across those lycra ensembles from the beginning of the ride – from the 1,000s of people doing the ride how I kept on seeing the same faces over and over is inexplicable. But it’s part of the magic.

As soon as we arrived at the beach the red lights stopped flashing and the familiar faces disappeared. A jump in the sea and it was all over, apart from the fry-up. And of course exchanging that pink raffle ticket for my coach ride back to London. MAGIC.