I'll second the 'superb apart from the wind' sentiment. Lovely scenery. I now know that a staggered X isn't necesarily one you have to stagger across.
Finally met Andy C face to face! (I'd met Bob already about n years ago), not to mantion many other familiar and not so familiar faces, it was nice to get a chance to chat for more than 15 mins at HQ.
The nice blast to Dunwich was followed by the 2-legs-worth of slog into the wind to Red Lodge. For most of this bit of the ride I was leapfroggin with Richard and also Steve-from-Chelmer.
Someone had eaten all the apple crumble by the time I got to Red Lodge
but I'd never have thought of cooling it with iced cream anyway, I'll have to detour via there on my way to Mildenhall.
Nice to meet Mrs Chris S, having never met when I overnighted once upon a time (from 12:00 to 4:00 or some other silly time of night).
I too paid a visit to that 2nd ford and came away with a grazed knee (and complementary hole in the trousers) and ankle, just in the right spot to be rubbed by my sandal strap. I also had my nice woolly socks completely soaked, luckily I had a dry pair back at HQ and a couple of placcy bags to avoid the dry socks being soaked by the soggy sandals. I got the boil in the bad effect instead.
For the 2nd dawn-on-the-bike running I missed th dawn chorus, it coincided with my visit to Garboldisham - I had the entire crew there to myself as I fell between the 'go there 1st' and the 'sleep at 300k' factions at the tail lend of the ride.
I had an exciting 30 mins snooze after the Garb. leg, whereat I was awoken by a hubub of voices and decided that 30 mins was probably enough, based on experience.
Had a nice blast up from Castle Acre in the company of Viv and fellow Sudbury riders, just about managing to hand on at the back. I trailed off the end at Arabella pace most of the way to Harvey's and then picked them up for the whizz to the ferry - Brian had led me to believe there was a lounge deck and bar onboard, not quite, Brian. I then persuaded folks (apart from certain people who rushed off the front) to do the final few km at a more sedate pace.
7.5% faster than any other 600 I've done.
This may be due more to sleeping less and being towed at stupidly fast than anything else. But stupidly fast was a better idea than tackling the headwind on my own.
Hope those who were still out there when I left made it back OK.
Note to self - if I am carrying around random bits of spare chain they ought to fit the chain that I'm actually using. Otherwise I should just not bother, it's not as if I used them when the chain did break anyway.