12:50pm Thursday 4th March 2010
By Dave Brown
THIS year promises to be a great year for cycling fans in our area with a very full calendar rolling underway last Saturday when the Rossendale Road Club promoted their sporting 10-mile hilly event at Bolton-by-Bowland in the Ribble Valley.
From a field of 60, drawn from all over the north of the country, two Burnley-based riders filled the top two places.
Winner was Paul Oldham, who made one of his infrequent sorties into the time trialling side of the sport, but came out on top with an super ride of 25 minutes 10 seconds to beat near neighbour Jimmy Wright’s 25-25 into the second slot.
Other local rider’s times included Duncan Park (fifth) 26-10 to take the fastest veteran award, Rob Dickinson seventh (26-37), Peter Greenwood eighth (26-44), Guy Laycock 10th (26-58) and Paul Warrener in 11th with 27.00.
The following morning, the 43rd running of the Clayton Velo Spring Classic was held near Clitheroe and was dominated by the top home professional teams with Dan Craven of Rapha Condor just beating Peter Williams of the new Motorpoint sponsored team to the finish line with the rest of the big field well behind.
Many of these riders are among the 130 riding the famous Eddie Soens Road Race at Aintree Racecourse on Saturday with Steven Burke, of Colne, in his new Motorpoint colours and new pro Simon Wilson, of Worsthorne, in the new Cyclepremier-Metaltek squad, two of the 30 Elite riders.
On Sunday, the annual Circuit of Pendle 27-mile time trial will start and finish near the Spring Wood picnic area near Whalley.
Organiser Peter Briscoe of Great Harwood has 60 riders for this one with a start time of 9am with HQ at Oakhill College at Whalley.
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