Sunday's Bike Ride Report

Another very cold February morning greeted the cyclist as it was off for another training bike ride in preparation for April’s 100 miler.

It was great to see Lyndsey Carter turn up for her first ride of the year and first since her shoulder injury suffered at Marls Pitts before Christmas.

Due to some cyclist complaining of night terrors thinking of last week’s ride we decided to ditch the hills (well some of them!) as we plotted out a nice flat (ish) 30 miler.

It was decided we should show our support to our runners doing the Rivington 11 mile fell race by trying to get to the big barn at Horwich for the 10am start so we headed off towards the A6 at a steady pace.

As we hit the junction for Blackrod a certain someone decided we should do a ‘blast’ up the big ½ mile hill climb towards Horwich town centre. Gary ‘Contador’ Stevens, Craig Bradbury ‘Wiggins’ and Sean ‘Schleck’ Spillane escaped the peloton for kings of the mountain points, Schleck scored maximum points with Contador 2nd and Wiggins 3rd, more to come about that 3 way battle and some innocent members of the public!

We got to Rivington at 9.55am and we caught a glimpse of all the runners heading for a start of the fell race, all the Peloton expect Shleck decided to watch the start. Paul Jackson, Mark Ruscoe and Peter Mulleady looked excited kitted out in Bear Grylls survival gear. Once the race started it was back on the bikes for the remaining 20 miles of our ride.

Lyndsey ‘Victoria Pemberton’ Carter led the way doing over 20mph heading towards down Chorley New Road as again someone who will remain anonymous decided we should do a 1 mile time trial.

The gun went and straight away Contador was off hitting close to 30mph, Wiggins on the back wheel looked strong but it was Shleck again who showed his speed as he headed towards the traffic lights as 3 innocent walkers decided to cross the road, Shleck or Contador wasn’t stopping for anyone and headed straight into the path of the walkers, needless to say the walkers jumped back on the path and the battle commenced. Shleck slowed down in the final 100 mtrs as Contador took the Green Jersey with Shleck 2nd, Wiggins again 3rd. Brenda ‘Wellington’ Wane looking strong and was keeping the peloton amused with horse stories from last week's Belmont ride and was 4th with Pemberton 5th.

There was no Green Jersey of King of the Mountain points left at stake so the peloton rode the final 10 miles together.

Another super morning out on the road and our attention is now firmly fixed on next Sunday’s 35 mile ‘Horwich Moors’ ride which includes the category 1 Cal d’Aubisque climb heading up towards the top of Rivington, all riders who can make the climb without stopping have done very well.