A century, a cakefest and a Coke Can Calamity

I was surprised that the Race group didnt have any early arrivals at 8am and that no official time had been confirmed for the A ride but that didn't bother me, because it was time to step up and complete my first century in nearly three years with Alan Price, who would lead a six-strong mix of A and B riders to Quernmore, Jubilee Tower and the Trough of Bowland. Keen to leave on time, Alan set us off at 8:03amm so we would be back in time to watch the England ladies beat Cameroon and progress to the quarter-finals. For now, he would lead the ride out of town, beginning with Dark Lane.

G IS FOR GRAVEL, GIANT PEACOCK AND GUILD WHEEL

I set off on the right side of Row 2 next to Jeff, who I've not riden with before. We must arrive at the shop on different Sundays and at different times, for we both remarked that we rarely see each other's bikes. The ride itself was down Dark Lane towards the Hoscar Moss and the usual first few miles, including the obligatory holding moment at the Ring O'Bells where I always try everything to keep the foot clipped in and try to go round the outside of everyone in the process. I must have it down to a fine art by now as I didn't lose any positions upon resumption, with our leaders setting a sterling pace early doors. Over the railway line we went, then, and reached the Eagle and Child in such fine fettle that we decided to chance our luck on the straight-ahead option whereby you go down Back Lane and past Cedar Farm. This had the desired effect of spooking He Who Can't Take Corners as we had to use both sides of the gravel in the middle of the road but luckily no cars or bikes were coming the other way and after a traipse through Wrightington featuring a massive peacock, we were back out onto the road past the old Mediterranean bistro (also known as the VERY old Robin Hood, hopefully someone makes a good fist of it). Our next landmark was Eccleston and the humpback bridge, where the ride I was on last week split into two. Today, though, we would all stay together, now with me out front, on the way to Longmeanygate and the garden centre. Soon we were out into the open with the wind ever so slightly helping us, only to have to back off a little bit as we approached the usual left-right for Penwortham where we passed Broadgate Cycles, the shop where I first tried a disc brake road bike (Merida Scultura) a while ago. I didn't want to give it back; imagine what Steve's bike must be like (let's get FAZ on the phone for that one). We descended towards the roundabout and towards the cobbled bridge hitting the 20 mile mark in the process while Chris Cook mused over how he'd like to visit the new Porsche test centre near the Harley-Davidson shop, now there's a thought on how to save on fuel costs, just buy a two-wheeler and travel to races on the train with J-Lo the Jaguar.........Actually, a TT bike would have been the worst option for the next stanza, which would be on the Guild Wheel, a 22-mile circuit on paths around Preston keeping walkers, runners and cyclists away from the main roads. We negotiated the first part well, but then I spotted a bridge across the river. Not a bad idea, but we went to completely the wrong dismount point and had to backtrack to walk the bikes across a very weak-looking wooden bridge! Imagine if the two fatbike enthusiasts who like to ride across gun ranges tried to test the maximum weight limit..........Anyway we eventually came out near McDonald's, still with me and Stuart leading the way, and part 2 would be a redux of so many Southport CC rides of over a decade ago, the Fylde route to Scorton.

SCENIC ROADS, TT BIKE HEAVEN AND BEER FESTIVALS - NOW I KNOW WHERE MY RETIREMENT HOME WILL BE

Our sequence of villages was a fairly familiar one, including St Michael's and Garstang, as we took on much of the first part of the old Bill Bradley Ride route from the turn of the decade, though we did have to stop at the 50km point because, in a sign of things to come, Alan thought he had a puncture but it turned out it was just a "soft" feeling in his rear wheel. Remember this, as I'll be returning to this point later. I particularly liked the route through Billsborrow, where there was an advert for a beer and cider festival. Too bad it's the same weekend as the Coniston swim, think I'll have to go on the train and book a youth hostel for a couple of days to save money for bevvies. Steve is no stranger to long distance open water swimming and he was now knocking out the big gears, just as he did in getting his sub-6 time at Ironman 70.3 as we reached the A6, en route to the now little-used Garstang time trial course. In fact I barely recognised it, until we reached the Texaco garage where they used to set rideres off from. We actually single-filed most of this segment, until we saw the signs for Scorton and the Trough. It was upon arriving in a familiar cafe stop town that it dawned on us just how much more efficient we must have become at hashtag fatburn. Now I'm definitely one of those people who will NOT complete 100 miles on no food and no cafe stop, but even I'm happy that I get to the 60km point of Sunday rides nowadays and rarely find myself suffering from low blood sugar. Maybe it was the diet change..........Anyway we were out of the village just as quickly as we were into it, and we now turned for Marshaw and the option which is currently closed off (no use to us anyway as we were taking on Quernmore), then aimed for Quernmore itself only to go left for Lancaster, then give a little squirrel the fright of its life through a sequence of switchbacks before the climbing truly began. On the first ascent I got a nice little lead and briefly thought about chasing down two riders in front of me, but instead we regrouped at the crossroads for a piss stop before continuing down the hill into the headwind just as a couple of runners came the other way, doing hashtag STRENGTHWORK up every single hill. And I thought running round Aughton was tough. Well, it wasn't long before we saw the straight-up climb/cliff face in front of us, the Col de Jubilee Tower, also known as Quernmore.

WHAT GOES ON IN THE TOWER, STAYS IN THE TOWER

As I began the dreaded climb the headwind hit me straight in the face and alreayd I was losing the will to live. Alan must have realised this as he was straight alongside me and I wondered if it was a return to the bad old days of THE EDGE saying "is that all you've got" but nowadays I'm the one on the precision diet, and this would pay dividends every time the road got steep. Quernmore does offer rest periods, but when it goes uphill it's an absolute killer, so much so that it's in the 100 Greatest Climbs book. Eventually the tower itself came into view and I'd made it two from two, but the fun and games hadn't even started yet. I lit the touchpaper by taking the usual selfies and pics of the surrounding area, but Alan, second up the hill, started doing the same thing. It wasn't long before the others, including Chris Cooke, arrived, but he decided to take things one step further, and take pictures and selfies at the top of the tower. Almost as if on cue, an Australian lady who looked like she could be Delta Goodrem's sister appeared and the two started, well, chatting. This led to a hilarious sequence where Chris got her to take pics of him with the aforementioned scenery in the background leading to a few choice comments from on the ground like "went in a kid, came out a man" and "what goes on in the tower, stays in the tower". It certainly had the effect of loosening everyone up tension-wise and Steve was the first to profit from it, as he gave a descending masterclass and I couldn't get near him, even if part of it was because I backed right off the throttle at the foot of the descent, mindful of the 2007 Bill Bradley when I punctured here and nearly slammed into the wall of a house. But once on the Trough climb itself, I picked up a nice turn of speed and even overtook a Cannondale E-Bike rider who must have been aghast to see such a small-engined bike fly past like he was on a MotoGP bike. The rest of the climb was progressively tougher, but I was delighted to park up at the top in time to take yet more pics including a very happy selfie almost on my backside, while also getting a chat with a husband and wife who'd come up from the other side. But they weren't the only ones taking the hard option; Jonathan Collins, who'd posted on the official ride event page that he was coming only to miss the start, had ridden to the Trough solo and would join us for the second half! So with all six original riders now at the top and JC now joining us to earn his Supersonic Gin and Tonic (or E-Cigarettes and Alcohol) we descended the twisty road to the bottom of the Trough where once again Steve was flying, though this time I did enjoy the downhill more and stayed a bit closer. As we approached the sign for Dunsop Bridge I thought we would go to Puddleducks, but instead we would turn for the church hall which acts as a limited-supply tea and cakes emporium at weekends having completed 59 miles from home.

YOU GOT MUD ON YOUR FACE, YOU BIG DISGRACE, BLOWIN' YOUR CAN ALL OVER THE PLACE

It was hardly surprising that Coke was popular today as it was the hottest point of the ride, if not the weekend, and I was seriously wishing I'd brought my sleeveless jersey to let my suspect heart cool down. In addition, cakes were only £1 each, so I could get three pieces of vegan goodness plus a can of Coke for less than £4! But of course, I had to mess it up; I thought I would put some extra sugar in the Coke can but obviously they never covered such chemical compunds in that outdated subject known as double award science and the contents of the can were literally blowing up all over the place and soaked the table! So I quicly got my mouth to the lid like I was drinking the champagne at Circuit Paul Ricard today even if I'd have preferred one of the aforementioned Oasis options (and I don't mean the drink bottle). After a quick piss stop in the loo to clean a bit of mud off our faces, we had a discussion about what to do next, and we decided to go through Whitewell en route to Longridge and give Jeffrey Hill a miss.

FANCY SEEING YOU AGAIN (E-BIKE EDITION)

We set off for Whitewell, and The Inn, where many years ago (in the days I actually ate animals) they served a famous fish pie. Hopefully that's been replaced with a chickpea and sweet potato option, but I'm not holding my breath. One animal we nearly ended up decapitating, though, was Suicidal Squirrel Number 2! We were certainly getting more than our fair share of wildlife today, and we went a bit wild ourselves over the bridge out in the open as we made our way towards Jeffrey's Hill, or more to the point the 2017 Clitheroe Triathlon bike route. However, today we would somehow miss both the climb, and Chipping itself. Instead, we would continue in the direction of Longridge, once more retracing the route Arthur Winstanley took me on last week when I had the only available day pass. In fact it's a cracking "Toronto Bills" approach similar to what the Buffalo Bills NFL team did 10 years ago when faced with falling attendance figures at New Era Field. They ended up getting more fans by playing one home game a year in Toronto, less than 100 miles away! Fear not, I'm staying at HMCC, the Phoenix are just useful to have in my good books when they stage rides like the 140 miler to Wem in November (yes please Matt put me down for a dyno light front and rear on your first winter order). We continued through the town centre itself before leaving the LPCC Aintree route to go back onto the Bill Bradley course for a while, but Alan's aforementioned suspect rear wheel reared its ugly hea donce again as we had to pull over while he sorted an issue with his brakes. He thought it was simply poor pad positioning, but the more likely explanation, given his eventual decision to back the brakes off altogether, is that it's a rim out of true. For now we continued past UClan Sports Arena and then alongside the railway line before returning to Preston, and the fabled "car buyers row" including Mazda MX-5's. Rather than look at bike rack options for the venerable classic, though, we rounded up two hybrid bike riders on the cobbled bridge, went past "Bean and Barrel" (best name ever for a coffee/beer boutique) and then up the hill once again towards Broadgate Cycles. Alan's rear wheel was still giving him grief here and one final park-up was needed to check the rim and allow me to stuff down yet another flapjack (that's two for those keeping score, plus five ginger biscuits, some people never learn do they) and stayed on our previously beaten track through to Longmeanygate. Here, we pretty much made up the route as we went along, preferring to stick to the old route rather than go through Croston. A long tailback at the humpback bridge delayed us somewhat but we were right back on it for the turn onto Tinckler's Lane, whereupon we returned to the boarded-up Mediterranean pub. Chris Cooke remarked that we would be touch and go for 100 miles so we turned onto Salt Pit Lane and through the back roads of Wrightington, to set us up for a final push past Hunter's (NOT up as some would suggest) and onto the Hoscar Moss.

HOW TO TRY AND GET OFF THE FRONT - GET COOKIE MONSTER TO THROW HIS CHAIN

If you're called Ste Francis, being on the front is like joining the Army. You can NEVER want to leave. However, I'd been out front for a PB-demolishing 20km and I was wondering if it was a scheme to beat me on the Hoscar Moss (to say nothing of the 4x4 who hurtled round the left-hander with his outside wheel on the wrong side of the road). Then something unexpected happened; Chris Cook went to change down at the junction onto the road for Hunter's and knocked him chain off both chainrings! This necessitated Chief Mechanic Chinook to the rescue which had the undesirable effect of our hands getting covered in oil, but the more desired effect of me cooling the engine a bit while others took over. However, that wouldn't last long, as Cookie Monster went straight on in Hilldale (this AFTER others wondered aloud why we weren't going up Hunter's) and now me and Jeff were out front once more. Stuart took Jeff's place on the moss but it was now a desperate struggle to keep the head up and it was a relief when JC appeared at the petrol station to give me a bit of a break and lead the final five home, Alan having turned off before the Ring O'Bells. Byu now the first few spits of rain were in the air, so naturally we had to go racing at the 98 mile point. As such I was bemused to see two fresh faced runners seemingly setting out at the worst possible time of the day for their London Marathon training, and mighty relieved to reach the top of the final climb having not quite got soaked yet. I continued down Moorgate with Stuart before vaulting one last time up the side of Ormskirk Hill and after a final YOLO to Delph Park Avenue I could turn into my drive having covered an epic 103 miles, my first century in nearly three years and a brilliant ride to boot. Many thanks to Alan for organising the ride; I certainly look forward to a Fred Whitton return in 2020, and this time, a finish with a medal.

Now for the results, powered by Coca-Cola:

Distance: 165.12km

Time: 6:18:04

Average Speed: 26.2kmh

Peacocks: 1

Suicidal Squirrels: 2

Hors Cat Climbs: 2

Cakes Consumed: 3 at the cafe, 2 in the squirrel snatcher

Funniest Moments: Chris in the tower/Chinook's Coke Can in the Cafe

REJECT OF THE RIDE: Chinook and the sugar sachet vs the Coke Can

(So that's why the kids all do triple science nowadays)

Enjoy your ride next week, I won't be there as I'm on the piano at Music on the Lawns. Anyone up for a club ride plus Ironman 2019 Supporter's Club Double two weeks later?