9:59am Thursday 26th March 2009
By Dave Brown
The Sporting Courses (SPOCO) series continued at the weekend with a 19-mile loop of Longridge Fell, taking in the testing climb of Chaigley from Higher Hodder Bridge.
Peter Williams, of the professional Pinarello-CandiTV team, was fastest in 44 minutes 23 seconds but Burnley’s Jimmy Wright, who won the Pendle Forest promotion last week, was only 46 seconds adrift in second place with an excellent 45-09 ride.
His near neighbour in Burnley, Peter Greenwood took third in 48-39 and with it the Vet 50 award.
Of our other East Lancs contenders, Duncan Park of West Bradford was 4th in 49-03 taking the Vet 40 award, Paul Warrener of Rossendale 7th (49-53), Rob Dickinson of Burnley 9th (50-37) and come-back rider Julian Markham of Blackburn 10th in 51-32.
The SPOCO action stays in our patch this Saturday when the West Pennine Road Club promote their annual Hilly Time Trial on a new course in the Ribble Valley.
Starting at Knowle Green, the 14-mile event goes through Hurst Green to do a loop around the short Edisford circuit returning to finish near the start via Hurst Green again.
This removes the dreaded climb of Birdie Brow which was used for recent events. HQ is Knowle Green Village Hall and start is 11 am.
No cycling column would be complete this week without a mention of the incredible win of Mark Cavendish in one of the five top one-day events or ‘Monuments’ of Cycle Racing - the Milan Sanremo Classic.
After 180 high speed miles, the Isle of Man professional had enough left to take the final sprint against virtually all of the World’s best.
‘Cav’ became only the second Brit to win this 100-year-old event after Tom Simpson in 1964.
That year our own Alan Ramsbottom finished a brilliant 27th.
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