Copdock 107 (plus) km audax - 18th March 2017

Copdock 107 (plus) km audax - 18th March 2017

27 Mar 17

Peter W, John Mac and myself set off from Copdock, which is just off the A12 (which would be useful later) near Ipswich.
We headed west into a very strong headwind. Just 3 miles in and a mighty explosion sounded - an inner tube had burst as Peter's rim fractured. Luckily, after starting to carry his bike back, he got picked up in a car by another DNF rider (the head of Audax UK no less) who'd been able to make it back to the start, passing Peter on the way. It was especially lucky as the rider had even recognized Peter.
Thereafter it was an incident free rolling ride on relatively quiet and scenic Suffolk lanes to Wallys Café near Long Melford. Things were going pretty well coming back on more lovely roads, with the wind now mostly behind, until 10 miles from home when I was unable to interpret confidently what the hell an instruction meant at a T junction - it said " Go left following the Suffolk cycleway sign " - but the sign was pointing right.
Guessing left we rode a mile or so to Raydon where I decided that, as the instructions had not mentioned RAYDON  in block capitals (the usual audax convention for places you actually visit) this must be wrong. So we headed back and went the other way through a village mentioned on the instructions but after a few miles and going under the A12 we realised this was not right. John spotted a postman and, although the postman wasn't entirely sure about how we could get back, he gave us enough help and encouragement to find a combination of a cycle path and some bits on the side of the dual carriageway that traffic wasn't supposed to stray into to get us back to the start - which we recognized from having driven down the A12 in morninge.
Post match analysis of a map showed that we had been about 50 meters short of the correct turn in Raydon.