Welcome to Ride to the Sun 2022

The idea and inspiration for the Ride to the Sun has unashamedly been the Dunwich Dynamo.

Every year, on the Saturday closest to a full moon in July, thousands of cyclists meet in London and ride 120 miles through-the-night to Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. There’s no organisation, support crew or logical reason to do it. There’s an informal party on the beach. And that’s it, no frills, a very informal event.

Just for something different to do, we got the train down to Carlisle one night in September 2014 and cycled home to Cramond overnight. By the time we got to Moffat we had an idea to run a northern homage to the DD. When we met and talked to Linda in the Moffat chippy and she agreed to stay open to feed folk if we ever got it organised, we confirmed we’d give it a go and organise it.

If you want to ride through the night to the seaside with a bunch of like-minded people then this our northern homage to the DD, it’s a (west) Coast to Coast (east), it’s south to north, Carlisle to Cramond, England to Scotland, an overnight century (100.5 miles), following the path of the Roman legions, and our Ride to the Sun!

Cramond is also a great wee beach, and its only 5 miles to Waverley or Haymarket stations in Edinburgh if you need to grab a train for the journey home.

Ride to the Sun is an unsupported event, more along the lines of an Audax event, than a swanky sportive. What does this mean? Well there will be no signs, no sweeper vehicles and no official organisation as such. You have to take responsibility for yourself your bike and your own safety. The relaxed and friendly vibe is one of the highlights for all the participants and numbers have grown each year since the first event in 2015.

Sunrise at Cramond beach is 4.30am so set off from Carlisle in plenty of time to get there – that’s the informal aim of the event, so don’t sweat if you’re early or late. Estimate the time you think it will take you to ride the route, including the chippy stop and CycloRave™ at the Crook Inn (www.youtube.com/watch?v=meSyC169rus), and set off in plenty of time. A reasonable start time for most folk, from experience, would be between 7.00 and 8.30pm, with slower folk setting off earlier and vice versa – but entirely up to you.

The “The Best Pizza and Kebab” shop in Moffat stays open until 1am so hungry cyclists can buy their own chips, fish supper, lasagne, or even a kebab! Then at the Crook Inn we have bananas and water (and our wee cyclorave) between about 11pm and 2am, there’s a 24hr Esso garage just before the Edinburgh bypass if needed, then FreshStart charity (www.freshstartweb.org.uk/) serve up hot rolls at Cramond Kirk Hall between about 2.30 and 6.30am.