More than 1,500 people lined the streets last night as Olympian Ed Clancy proved he still has the golden touch to win the annual Colne Grand Prix.

After 59 laps of the ultra-tight around the town centre, the chequered flag could have gone to any one of a dozen riders.

But a team effort by Rapha Condor Sharp, who lead the elite men’s British circuit race series, paved the way for Clancy’s narrow win.

Barnoldswick’s own Ian Wilkinson, who came second in the 2010 Colne race, made a plucky bid, just before the halfway point, to put some distance between his machine and the chasing pack.

Earlier he had won the first of two timed sprints but the rest of the field dragged him back with 26 to go. Aussie Dean ‘The Duke’ Windsor made no fewer than three separate bids to put clear road between himself and the also-rans.

Windsor had to settle for third place though, behind team-mate Dean Downing, last year’s Colne winner, and Barnsley-born Clancy.

Clancy said: “The way we rode the last few laps as a team, anyone could have won it. It was a good for confidence and morale.”

The final race of the elite circuit season will be in Preston on August 7.

Earlier Rob Hayles, who earned a silver in the Sydney Olympic games and bronzes in 2000 and 2004, was just as competitive for the first-ever Colne Chopper Dash.

The two-lap chase, featuring dozens of riders on the classic 1970s bike, saw Hayles narrowly pip Carl Pawson, of Pendle Raleigh Group, one of the race’s organisers, to the finishing tape.

Also during the evening celebration of cycling, Colne’s own Olympic hero, Steven Burke, was on hand to congratulate members of Cycle Pendle Sport, who raised more than £3,200 by pedalling 25,000 miles, the equivalent of a round-the-world trek.

The cash will be shared between the club and the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research charity.

Click on the link below for our photo gallery from the Colne Grand Prix and Chopper Dash.