P is for Pile-Up, Pot and Power Pasta

A small turnout this morning meant that only a few groups formed at the shop out of around 35 riders. Three years ago this would be considered a normal, even well-attended meeting; it might well be the smallest one I've come across this year. As it was, with the coast road out of action due to the Southport Half Marathon and much of Melling and Bickerstaffe inaccessible because of a 25 mile TT, there were limited ride options too. Eventually Kevan came up with the best idea for the Race group to go round the Bolton IMUK course; he's only got two more weeks to go before the plunge into Pennington Flash. He led the first stanza, this being the usual run down Dark Lane towards where the course begins.

KEVAN, I DON’T THINK HE’LL PASS YOU ON THE IMUK RUN COURSE SOMEHOW………..

As we set off down the road towards the Hoscar Moss our thoughts turned to the recent Facebook postings featuring the pictures of an earthquake and how that’s what Dark Lane will look like later this year. As I pointed out to Howie, though, the leaders couldn’t really do a better job of pointing out the hazards unless they somehow spotted them in simultaneous synchronization. Which would leave them no hands to steer the bike, but you worked that one out already. Before long we were onto the moss and powering away behind Wilko and Kevan at just over 20mph, a nice steady-to-tempo intensity favoured on my early morning coffee-only fat-burn runs. Notably, though, these have cost me my top end in terms of lung capacity; thankfully I did a 5k time trial round Kevan’s favourite Formby haunt of Birkey Lane yesterday afternoon and got the lungs sharpened up in readiness for today’s ride. Far faster, I might add, than some bloke running towards us just prior to the Eagle and Child in a grey T-shirt which was already turning a darker shade from pure sweat even though he looked to be running slower than 8 minute miles - apparently that’s still quicker than most people’s IMUK run speeds. We continued into Mawdesley where the 20mph signs had us wishing there were speed cameras just to annoy the local law-keepers. They were not out in force today, but the wheels of misfortune were about to catch us out and send three bikes to the floor.

THAT’S WHY DRAFT-LEGAL IRONMAN WILL NEVER CATCH ON

As we left Mawdesley all thoughts turned to where would we join the actual course for our only lap; Kevan was probably wishing he was out all day for a two-lap blast. However, to finish first, first you have to finish, and to do either of the above, you must start. That so nearly didn’t happen for three unfortunate souls who were caught in the most dramatic crash I’ve seen on an HMCC ride. First, the pace at the front slowed and I thought it better to aim for the right of the rider in front of me rather than risk being rear-ended if I tapped my brakes (they did mention this in the Tour highlights show “don’t touch your brakes or you’re out of it”). Well, don’t do as they say, nor as they do. Because I ended up clipping Chris Holden’s rear wheel but luckily stayed upright. Someone behind me wasn’t so fortunate when the same things happened to them, and the end result was Sean Griffin’s Wilier Triestina on the floor for the 56^th time this year together with Dean’s Pinarello and “LOOK Man” whose name escapes me at this present time. It was a hideously loud BANG not unlike the one that took out Mark Cavendish in Harrogate and at first I thought a hand grenade had been thrown from the roadside, but in fact the bikes were scattered all over the road with Sean’s bike making the biggest mark on the tarmac as it skidded from one side to the other. It was actually the LOOK which took most of the damage as it had its rear brake stuck on; by that it would engage but not release. After a delay of around five minutes we were off again but I was rather nervous about it all and thought about joining Wilko when he said he was heading for home. Instead, I joined the rest of the riders on the climb up Hunter’s, where I stayed well out of slipstream range and got an armchair view of Sean scampering away to take the climb followed by Dean, with Kevan and yours truly up next followed by the rest of the field. After a brief park-up we passed the High Moor where Sean made a last-ditch attempt to steal a KOM, before turning through a sequence of roads we encountered on the club sportive, this time without any mobile roadblocks to spoil the fun. Me and Dean led this passage of play all the way to Heskin Green where Sean and Kevan flew past, which meant they were the first to rant and rave about a Range Rover driver who cut right across our path from the left (what part of “give way from the right” don’t they understand?) Dean was now the leader, not least because Kevan’s Dura-Ace 11 speed rear mech wouldn’t shift properly due to an overstretched cable, before it settled down as we turned eastwards towards Rivington.

THEY SAY HERE COMES A HURRICANE, “CHINOOK” IS MY RAPPER NAME……..

By this time me and Kevan were thinking the same an Neon Jungle, that is that we don’t go looking to cause trouble but trouble comes looking for us. We weren’t out of the woods yet, not by a long way, as the next bit of entertainment wasn’t far away. After rounding the corner where Steve Kernigan had his nail puncture back in February we were approaching the Thyme and Plaice when a 67-year-old Suzuki came the other way and went so far over to our side of the road that it nearly took the two ride leaders, namely me and Mr Venge, clean out. Cue a shout of “LOOK WHERE YOU’RE GOING” (remaining words edited in the name of censorship). We pedalled through Coppull and into Adlington where there were no nasty surprises, but after getting backed up behind a Cannondale Synapse rider who thought better than to tailgate us, Dean climbed the hill rather better than me and noticed my front skewer was loose. Reasoning that I must have knocked it during the West Lancashire Wipeout earlier on I pulled over and set it tight once more, before we plunged down into Rivington where thoughts turned to the climb that no-one was looking forward to; Belmont, a words that brings back painful memories for those of us who did it on the Lancashire Lane a couple of years ago. Dean was untroubled as he won this climb by approximately 3 minutes 45.96 seconds, while various interesting things were happening further back. I’m sure Ian was sandbagging about his knee injury because he stayed with the two Specialized riders for most of the ascent. Just before the final steep slope and the left-hander I took second place and eventually set a new Belmont descent PB of 66.2kmh. Meanwhile, Kevan was finishing off the climb well clear of the remaining riders when some chavs smoking pot decided to blow a load of ash out their side window, and that left him battling to banish the wonderful whiff of weed. How kind of them! Ian finished the way he started and took a thoroughly deserved fourth place, his knee clearly not troubling him too much. With the group having re-formed and a de-brief of how the pile-up happened complete, we could change down to a more appropriate gear and set off towards the M65 roundabout.

TOP SPEED ALL THE WAY TO TOP LOCKS

Dean pulled into the post office for a bottle of water but once he was off and running again we set about riding through Abbey Village and towards the motorway roundabout, where we saw various riders coming both ways, most of them using tri-bars in readiness for their big day two weeks from now. At this point several people who hadn’t got to the front until now gave Kevan and Dean a right hard workout alongside, proving how all the groups really are going to be at maximum capacity soon. The motorway roundabout turn-off was nearly missed but we cut in for the first exit and set off up the hill towards Wheelton and Top Locks, where a few more TT bike riders appeared. This continued even after we passed a group of them at a newsagents just before the turn off the main road, which we completed as one group despite the best efforts of Gold Vauxhall Corsa Driver to cut us off. Kevan had assured us that the hardest part was now over but that didn’t take into account those who were suffering from their earlier falls, and also the possibility of the pace going through the roof. This particularly spread the field out on the climb through the lanes towards Brindle, where Kevan starred on the reverse route during the Roman Road challenge, and indeed he was parked up for quite some time while the rest of the group rejoined, two having turned for home early. He pointed out that the pub on the corner would make for a great viewing spot; now all we need is a real-time tracker like the ones used at the Oulton Park Duathlon to find exactly where he and Stefan are on the day. We turned left and towards Eccleston where Kevan said “only one more climb then it’s all downhill”. As we made our way through the back end of Leyland and across the A49 we caught up to the Triathlon Hub TT bike training team out on their IMUK course recce, including a Trek Speed Concept, a Scott Plasma, a Specialized Shiv and, best of all, a couple of Cervelo S5’s complete with tri-bars; one such rider had even re-done his entire cockpit to take tip shifters and drop bars with the proper Di2 setup. Some HMCC members weren’t sure whether or not to chase this group or drop back; in the event only three of us decided to get a free ride doing bugger all work on “the front” of the HMCC train. So we sat in behind Cervelo P2 man and a young guy on a Kuota Kebel; all this time I was having kitten enjoying all the bike tech on show. The enlarged group took in Flag Lane and the right-left sequence in Midge Hall prior to Croston, where the HMCC train turned right and the Hubbers went left. After getting held up in traffic we got out into the open once more, with the café only a few miles away.

WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH YOUR VINEGAR? OR HOW ABOUT LASAGNE?

Chris Holden plus the two triathlete trouble magnets continued to pedal at just over 20mph into the wind to the A59. The junction was quite congested but I hit the front at a feeble 27mph wondering if Chris might break the Venge monopoly on all things flatland. Alas, it was not to be, as Kevan cleaned up once more and won by over two seconds. I coasted in a little way back and joined them at St Mary’s Marina, where we sat down to three vastly different lunches.

While Kevan had a couple of cane of Diet Coke complete with VINEGAR (apparently it helps absorb the nutrients found in your meal - I didn’t know aspartame was performance enhancing either) and Chris poured some of this dietary supplement on his bowl of chips, I sat down to lasagne with garlic bread and a huge salad. A bit of everything you could say, and all washed down with apple and mango J20. Most of today’s table talk centred on swim technique (don’t ask me how to swim in “tapioca” at Pennington Flash), last night’s Southport Spotlights performance of Little Shop of Horrors at the Little Theatre (which I’ve been involved with, hence why I took the family to Casa Italia Southport and the show last night, and was heavily dosed up on Pinot Grigio blush today) and the huge afternoon of sport, not one bit of which went the way I wanted it to. Suddenly the NFL season can’t come soon enough; those guys would approve of amino acid energy drinks like the stuff found in mine and Kevan’s bottles. With my lunch still digesting we set off for home view Curlew Lane.

HOW’S THAT FOR A FITTING SEND-OFF

Chris decided to go straight down the A59 as this would get him back to Upholland quicker but me and Kevan surpised each other by taking different routes to Curlew Lane, before regrouping at Brandreth Barn. As we turned towards the railway line we caught a huge white van which didn’t want to go round the corners and we tailgated it at over 25mph all the way to the right-turn for the Martin Inn. As we reached the T-junction I wished Kevan well for IMUK (he’s doing an open water swim up north next week) and he’d enjoyed the ride back despite the fact that he was stuck in my rather dirty (garlic gas-injected) air. He turned right for home and I set about completing the final miles home, where I used up a whole bottle in just ten miles and allowed the headwind on the Haskayne Moss to finish my legs off before beasting it to Tesco lights and arriving home just before the start of the tennis at 2pm having covered 76 miles in glorious weather. A fine way to start the July club rides, and a fitting send-off for Kevan before the mother of all challenges awaits him in Bolton. 14 days and counting…….

Now for the results, brought to you by Sarson’s Vinegar:

Distance: 121.63km/76.02 miles

Time: 3 hours 52 minutes 45 seconds

Average Speed: 31.35kmh/19.6mph

Hors Cat Climbs: 2

Crashed Bikes: 3

Stupid Drivers: 3

Riders taking dietary supplements: Just the three at the café

Money Spent Today: £11.90 for lasagne and J202

REJECT OF THE RIDE: Two Trouble-Magnet Triathletes on Turbo Tyres

(Next thing you know, Matt will ban Morgan-Hill bikes from club runs)

See you all next week for another great ride. Can’t wait to see how big the top groups get once everyone is back, at this rate all the cafes in Lancashire will be sending us emails to get our business………