A for Ashurst, B for Barrow Bridge, C for Calippo

A brilliant, sunny Autumn morning attracted over 40 riders to the shop today for a choice of three groups, not including Wilko’s lot who were presumably out their front doors before I even got out of bed. For the main congregation, The General was on hand to take the C’s out even though he didn’t know where he was really going, John led the B’s towards Anglezarke and Steve Depport took a 23-strong group out for a bit of local hill climbing before gate crashing the Wigan 10k and then onwards towards Matchmoor and Horwich. With all three routes sounding too good to miss, the groups formed and Steve led his cohort out of town, beginning with Ruff Lane.

MAXGEAR OR TOPGEAR? YOU DECIDE

I slotted into Row 4 as we gently ramped the pace up on our way round the back of Edge Hill. The first few miles were pretty steady going, even as Hodgy wanted to know “what gear is that Chinook” which was countered by Charlie’s dad as “top I think”. In the midst of this otherwise uneventful stanza, a Maxgear rider - presumably Ian Roberts as he was coming from the Land of 89 Roundabouts - flew down the A577 towards Ormskirk at what certainly didn’t look like fat-burn warm-me-up pace. Then again, I was needing some warming through as I’d tootled from Formby to Farmer Ted’s with a Phoenix CC rider who’d done a century yesterday and was just about managing 15mph on the same bike as Chris Holden. By the time I spotted Ian Gallagher coming towards us the blood flow had dropped to near zero and I seriously needed waking up. We wouldn’t have to wait long for that, though, as we took in a now-familiar route of Cobbs Brow followed by Beacon Lane, which Chris Garman apparently has nightmares about now since he’s simply continuing his “count” (so today was number 99, Chris? Thought so) The group stayed together on the climb towards the church but here, Steve said we were going to the top. Now there’s no chance of this being our hill climb venue because the Inter-Club event hosted by our good chumz in St Helens is held here on the same morning but it was a good hit-out for those who could summon up the early-doors energy. Predictably, Charlie duelled with Sam for top honours and put the black-red-gold on the top step of the podium, but a right royal battle was on for the minor placings, started by Hodgy who went for it pretty much at the same time as the tearaway two. It took a big-gear effort from me to steal third place (ironically after he’d sat behind me on the run to the church and noted that I must have learned how to pedal) but really the thought for me today was to take risks and chase down those who are better, even if it might cause me to go overboard and blow myself up. As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. After parking up for a little while we were off and running again, down Crow Lane which was a real test of nerve with gravel and tight turns aplenty. This spread the pack out almost as much as the climb did but we turned right away from Bank Top towards Wigan. A tough chase ensued for the back markers to rejoin the pack, not helped by the first of three Vauxhall drivers who were seemingly intent on barging through - did I mention I have a new car on order? Read on to Chapter 58 for more details……..We carried on to Orrell Post and then the M58 junction, where I suggested to Steve that with a strong easterly we could have staged our own team TT effort in an attempt to lock up the Strava title for this stretch of road. Especially if a Heinz Beanz van sat in front of us at 30mph. Next up was the run into Wigan itself, where more than a few people would give us good cheer. But would we be in such a cheery mood when we got out the other side?

SO THAT’S WHY THE TOUR OF BRITAIN DOESN’T COME THROUGH HAIGH HALL

Upon reaching the road past the Heinz factory, we couldn’t help but notice a few hi-viz vests in the distance. This was because the Wigan 10k was on today and only a bit of diplomacy on the part of Steve and Mark Hope convinced them we were on the Tour of Britain, at which point they dutifully let us through, not unlike the Fiesta driver who was kind enough to slow down for me when I dive-bombed two teammates three-wide through one of the little stretches of “street furniture” where the road becomes single-lane. Steve then thought it best to turn right at the roundabout followed by left onto Leyland Mill Lane, today’s ROTR winner. That’s because no end of trouble happened here; a dog tried to bite our ankles, that sent us over all manner of potholes, and the two victims were Sam Wood’s Schwalbe 1 and Ian’s Vittoria Open Corsa. In the 13 minutes 43.63 seconds it took to fix the punctures I started chatting to our newbie Danny from Ormskirk, on his Trek Domane. He’s already making a name for himself as the anti-Chinook, that is he likes to pedal really fast but rarely makes use of his 11t gear. I liked the choice of colours though; shame there’s no HMCC option in the S-Works range, really. With this road having already locked up today’s Reject award for the sheer amount of chaos it had already caused, not to mention the appearance of one of the locals seemingly hovering up the loose gravel and carpet tacks (at least that was Steve’s take on it) we set off up the climb, and in fact this turned out to be a novel way of riding through Haigh Hall. There looked to have been a running race on here, too, but the main concern was the stray dogs who were intent on getting away from their owners a little too quickly for our liking. It took until the point we rejoined the side road past the golf club to get back up to speed, after all we couldn’t bomb the right-left Monza-style chicane on the way out and run the butler over could we? We regrouped at the cobbles near the main road, not before I’d accidentally tested my own tyres by landing in a patch of bottle green glass (S-Works Turbo Tyres FTW I say) before turning south towards Bolton, and the main climb of the day, Barrow Bridge Road.

FLATLAND FIESTA FOLLOWED BY ARDUOUS ASCENTS

We saw plenty of “Welcome to Bolton” signs but never quite reached the Macron stadium. Instead, we had a long stretch of rolling road at tempo intensity, starring Chris Holden and his ENVE’s, followed by quite a hold-up at the lights when half the group couldn’t get round the corner quick enough. This sent me and Steve Kernigan to the front, until the next crossing. After these lights went to green Sam joined me out front, all the while hoping I’d be up to his challenge. Well I did a little better than two weeks ago on the coast road, largely because prior knowledge really is everything, and also because I was quite entertained to see the plethora of red Ford Fiestas out for a Sunday drive. Now you know who’s sponsoring this year’s hill climb results, let’s get “Ford Super-Stoney-Sunday” out there before Sky have me done for copyright, sorry Rupert Murdoch……..Soon we were racing a cute kitten up the hill on the outskirts of the Last Drop Village and we were near Mcdonald’s when the call came to park up for the tail-enders to rejoin. This led to quite an entertaining restart where the hitherto pack leaders ended up “circling the wagon” in quite a new way; in other words their Ford was much bigger than my new red Fiesta and our little bit of stunt riding bemused them no end. See, I told you we’d become famous. Chris Holden apparently had the wood on all of us on the run down to Barrow Bridge road as he’s lucky enough to own a house in the area but, as always, it would come down to track position at the right time. Upon entering the park before the climb several riders jostled for position, including our great street fighter Brian, but the right-turn caught a few riders out while the tearaway two shot off again leaving me and Hodgy in their wake. Thanks in no small part to a bubble car driver forcing their way through, we had a large pack spread at the top where the first few riders took on a bit of food and others strained to avoid the wooden spoon. Next up was Matchmoor, where Chris Garman’s chances ended before the climb began as his new chainset shed its chain. This left me, Steve and Brian in a second group of three hoping to keep the gap to Sam and Charlie respectable. Clearly my policy of staying as close to the top two didn’t pay off, as Steve eased past 200m from the top of the climb to take third place, and indeed he was probably very happy indeed as he didn’t get the opportunity to rear-end me on that nasty right-hander which I always play chicken. We all got back together at the main road near the burger van; too bad the feeding of the 5,000 was in full swing when I went to look for chips as they’d have sat quite nicely in the squirrel snatcher. Off we went into Horwich at over 40mph down the hill, or at least that’s what Chris Holden claimed he topped; what would he do on his Scala? Now he’s got me worried, especially if he’s able to “keep calm and”…………you know the rest. After cruising through Horwich the next bit of fun wasn’t far away, as the best idea ever for a club hill climb was about to get its first road test.

COMING TO HMCC, 5/10/14; THE 207% RULE

You might not know this, but there’s a 107% rule still in the Formula 1 rulebook, stopping anyone who’s that far away from the pole-sitter’s time from starting a Grand Prix. Admittedly that doesn’t happen very often these days unless a non-dwarf-sized human being like yours truly pays Caterham the required 300,000 euros for a one-off race, but it makes for an interesting idea for the club hill climb. Why not have a stareout special with a massed start? We got exactly that on the Col de Blackrod as the lights changed and Adam Harper used up every ounce of lung capacity to edge Charlie at the top where the white van was parked; some effort that, even if Hodgy looked to be giving him an oxygen mask when he reached the summit. Scrap what I said about Ford Super Sunday; let’s get BUPA to supply medical services on 5 October just like the St John Ambulance who saved my life at last year’s Gluco-Gel Gate in Birchwood. Energy wasn’t exactly in short supply today though, as we pedalled away from the junction and into Haigh Hall on the more usual route. By this time some were struggling to keep pace with the leaders, but not Inder, who hasn’t done that many “A” rides but even had time to share a few comments with me about the Wigan 10k and whether Gemma or Rick had bought the first round of drinks (from the coffee machine in the Wigan Life Centre that is). No resolution was available on that topic, but it wasn’t long before our final route to the finish came into view, thanks to a bit of fast pedalling from Danny all the way up from the bottom of the Haigh Hall descent to the M6 junction. According to Charlie that made for quite a tough time for the back markers and for once even he thought we were going a bit mad with the pace lest we eliminate half the peloton in one go. The junction enabled the pack to tighten up once more, as did the ice-cream van who pulled out in front of us at Wiggo Corner, but rather than steal a Calippo from the guy’s freezer we powered on towards Parbold, with the finish line nor far away.

STOP CALLING MY BLUFF, YOU’VE GOT A BETTER SET OF WHEELS THAN ME

Danny attempted a breakaway on the run past the hospital but he was reeled in by Steve Kernigan as we began the ascent of Parbold Hill. Here, two more Vauxhall drivers got rather impatient and one even gave us “the horn”. Still at least we got ride of them quickly; some bloke came out of the pub on the top of the hill with a crate of Costa coffees and not only was he walking across our path, but he was carrying them with less care and attention than even the worst NFL quarterback (Channel 4 tonight, Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos are on, don‘t forget to set the plus box). We avoided a costly spill there and also at the traffic lights when the cars got backed up. Shortly afterwards, Sam took a few people to the cleaners up the Beacon while the rest of us negotiated the fallen tree roadblock at the Newburgh tea rooms. There went my impromptu café stop opportunity in one fell swoop (fell, get it……) We took a detour through the back roads rejoining just prior to what used to be a fruit-picking site. From here it was simply a case of holding on to Dark Lane and the Greetby finish. Many riders were still here at this point and Mark Brownett led for a while. Upon handing off to me I slowly took up position on the left side, but rather than settle for a late dart for glory Howie thought it better to bomb off only to be hunted down by Charlie and then Steve Depport. Steve ended up in the chasm of space between Charlie and the Cervelo/Chinook duo, the former because he attacked too early, the latter because he went for it too late.

Most headed in different direction here but those who were second, third and fourth across the line did a loop of the cricket club and the Dog and Gun. I suggested we catch the riders ahead and indeed it was Charlotte plus Canyon Man. We rode with them for a bit before Steve said “this road begs to be ridden fast”. I was having none of it and pulled alongside at 30mph demanding more and shouting “do we want another top-10 or not” referring, of course, to last week’s smash-and-grab in Skipton. This unofficial road race continued all the way until the A59 whereupon Steve turned for home and Howie gave me a tour of some very appealing local residences, all of which are out of my price range right now given I’ve just put five grand plus the KA EDGE into a new Ford Fiesta. He turned left shortly after rejoining the A5147 and from here it was five more grit-it-out miles for me across the rough roads of Formby moss. After creaking out one last attack to 25mph prior to Formby Cycles I rolled home and into my driveway at 1:20pm having covered 65 lumpy miles. Let’s keep these tough rides coming, “faster, faster” is the new standard!

Here’s today’s results, brought to you by Formby Ford:

Distance: 105.02km/65.64 miles

Time: 3:39:56

Average Speed: 28.65kmh/17.8mph

Dead Inner Tubes: 2

Hors Cat Climbs: 4

Vauxhall Drivers: 3

Roadblocks: 2

Cute Kittens: 1

Ice Cream Vans: 1

Post Ride Nutrition: 8/10 (Cheese toastie, apple, Haagen-Dazs strawberry cheesecake ice cream and apricot smoothie)

REJECT OF THE RIDE: Leyland Mill Lane

(Craters+dogs+fallen leaves+two dead inner tubes = ROTR award)

Let’s go for two in a row next week. Then again, if I’ve had a few too many cocktails in Manchester (I’m taking the family to see Jersey Boys at the Palace Theatre) will I be in any fit state to climb hills at all? Let’s hope Darren doesn’t have a A-list social life to lead for the second straight week, then……….