If you’re planning to ride the Dynamo and don’t know the route yet, “how will I find my way?” is a sensible question .
Popular answers include “follow the red lights” [of people ahead] or even “follow the tealights” which may be discreetly placed along the route, usually at junctions where you do something other than follow the road you’re on.
The latter is definitely unreliable. Tealights are always at risk of failure, theft or – worst of all – malicious realignment.
The right turn, kilometre 59, in uptown Great Dunmow…
“RIGHT by Saracens Head Hotel SP B1008 sports centre”
…is a classic location for tealight tampering, and many poor pilgrims have mistakenly thundered on to Thaxted as a result.
There are no tealights before kilometre 30…
“@ (by Harvester) S/O SP High Laver” [@ = roundabout]
…and they need to be collected behind the ride. Effective collection requires darkness, so the tealights have never gone beyond the easily missed right at kilometre 104…
“RIGHT SP B1115 BILDESTON”
…and these days they stop just beyond the Suffolk county line in Sudbury.
The tealights are, an emotional support, a contribution to the mystery of the great tradition. Tealights cannot to be relied upon for navigation.
