W is for Wheelton, Whittle-le-Woods and "Watch That Front Wheel"

With the early morning breeze increasing to hard gusts of wind and the threat of rain never far away we "only" had around 50 riders at the shop today for the 9am start. Nonetheless we still got a C group and Race group, the latter doing an all-day ride to Clitheroe which would be great to repeat on a nicer day. I know that sounds like I've JP'D the A group, but just to round off the other options, two B riders were on offer with one going to Roots, while there were also two A teams, one led by Neil towards Anglezarke while Steve Depport, one of my new partners in crime when it comes to house hunting, went to, you guessed it, Anglezarke! That's right, Neil's lot headed out first up Ruff Lane before the remaining 13 riders were led out by Steve and Matt, on his 2016 comeback trail, down Dark Lane.

TWO SPECIALIZED FANBOYS ON BOARD, THE A GROUP WILL BE WELL PISSED OFF

It's a while since I was last on the same ride as Mr GYSOT, in other words Kevan, in fact I think it was IMUK Day last year. You might remember that was the one when people were taking piss stops every seven and a half minutes and indeed we'd been riding for about that length of time today when the first park-up was needed. The official reason was that Colin Clark's front mech was refusing to shift into the big ring, which for at least one of us would mean an automatic DNF and a taxi ride home, but Colin would cope admirably well with the traumatic effects of only having 34x11 as his top gear. Meanwhile, Kev and a few others who hadn't made use of Ormskirk's fine facilities early doors dived into a lay-by to water the flowers, obviously having stressed themselves out when hammering it over the moss in hashtag beastmode. In fact I'd been forced to do exactly that having barely got out of the house by 8:30am today after a gig last night in Crosby which, of course, had to be followed by a trip to the star singer's house for cheese, biscuits, guacamole, hummus, grapes and Cumberland real ale. Not quite as good as Doom Bar, but what is? I thought I was well and truly doomed once I saw Kev with us on the ride but I got to relax a bit more than usual as the roads towards the Hoscar Moss were rather smoother than of late. One person taking more than full advantage, though was Kia Rio Man who stormed past the group and came perilously close to hitting the car coming the other way. With this imbecile getting the first middle fingers and the first round of "do you honestly think" from Mr Catlike we carried on over the train station and towards the Eagle and Child, not before another orange car came past and split the group. Clearly Kevan knows his bike better than his cars; I'm saying this because he could decide between a Specialized and a Trek for his next bike but seemingly thought BMW Man was the same person as Kia Man. Same colour maybe, but really, same car? With this little issue resolved we could set about dodging wood planks and beer bottles aplenty from Bispham Green to Mawdesley, a segment which the leaders were obviously thrilled to be on the front for as the tailwind got stronger. A few choice comments of "do we have to ride back into this" and "that's why I want to move to Ormskirk" came from the usual suspects until we reached the crossroads at Eccleston, where a straight-over took us through some little housing complexes which wouldn't look out of place in somewhere like Lydiate or Burscough. I didn't realise it at the time, but this route actually took us through a back road we regularly come the other way on, and before we knew it we were slipping and sliding our way through to the A49, but rather than go to Buy-A-Bike to find a 56cm version of Kev's new frame for me to buy we turned left up the Col de Huge Junction and shortly afterwards did a bit of "traffic direction" starring THE ARM which got the whole group through in one go, which meant we could go towards Merlin Cycles and start thinking about how we might attack Anglezarke.

CHINOOK: EVER AN ENIGMATIC ONE BUT ONLY ONCE A CHAMPION..........UNTIL HE BUYS HIS OWN PAIN CAVE

We turned right for Whittle-le-Woods and set about making our way towards the A6, which we were only on for a minute before turning the right-hand hairpin onto Shaw Brow. Here, most got through at the first attempt while some of us managed to infuriate a 4x4 coming the other way by using the other side of the road at precisely the best possible moment. Once all together again we climbed steadily through Top Locks and across the A674 for Chapel Lane, where the real tension/turn your stomach over moments began. First, we had no end of mud and gravel to contend with on the run through White Coppice, then there was plenty of hurried gear-changing for little rings just as four horses trotted towards us looking rather more menacing than the little dogs we met in Hatton last week. A few choice comments came from Darren and Ste Francis about the fact that even I was actually bothering to use the full gearbox, but truth be told I think I've given myself a better chance to contend now I've shortened the stem to 100mm, because I know I'll never compete with Darren or Andrew Disley's Enigma tendencies for pumping out power with knees almost hitting your chest so the least I could do was open the hip angle by reducing the reach. And it proved vital today, as Darren opened out a small lead only for me to appear a few millimetres from the back of him just as we passed Neil Pollington, climbing well at the front of the other A group. He blew my cover as Darren went past saying "Chinook's on your tail" well I now thought "thanks a million Neil now I've got to attack". So I did exactly that and with the fourth official who ruined Leicester's big day out at the Emirates not adding four seconds of time on I could roll down the treacherous descent happy with my morning's "work". The descent itself was full of pitfalls, not least the huge pothole on the inside of the left-hander before the steep drop, and this had me panicking about making the hairpin turn, but I just about held it together despite Darren's best efforts to do a CHINOOK on Chinook (round the outside of a hairpin going downhill? That's too beast mode even for me) We parked up and waited for the remainder of the 13-strong Steve Depport group to arrive, just as Neil's cohort continued up the subsequent incline, the Belmont Mini version, towards Rivington. We would follow them in dribs and drabs and this gave me the chance to discuss the house in Derby Hill Crescent with Matt, and also round up another Enigma, Paul Moy. He was easily recognisable by his Swiss champion jersey which he clearly didn't worry about getting too muddy (I guess he also had about 8 baselayers on too) and now I was being stalked by another Enigma as he jumped on my wheel then past me just as we arrived at the dreaded junction; I say "dreaded" because a few choice thoughts came from both groups about whether to go left and do the full Belmont or go downhill into Rivington. The three groups - I say three because a few St Helens Tri riders were also there - decided to descend, so with me shovelling down the remainder of my first granola square I set off after Kevan, who according to Lynchy "wasn't even breathing" when the groups converged, and it was at the bottom that the groups split once more, with Neil's team continuing towards Horwich while we crossed the reservoir road and discussed the virtues of a house with two designated "garages"; one for storing bikes, the other for setting up a wattbike once one of the two Kev's decides he wants something better, and also to store really useful things like beast mode weights. All of this to add to last year's "bomb goes off" moment in Nantwich, but you knew that already. I thought we might go to Adlington at this point but instead it would be a rather more interesting tour of the back roads towards Chorley that would make up the next part of today's ride.

PUT THE BIG DOGS ON THE FRONT TO BLOCK THE HURRICANE

When I say we took in a rather interesting sequence of roads, that's because it entailed the little village of Limbrick which I'm sure is a Strava addict's paradise. Indeed, this morning the sight of JP arriving at the shop just in time to choose between the two A rides filled me with almost as much pride as watching the Super Bowl two weeks ago (THAT'S WHY WE'RE CHAMPIONS, you knew I'd get it in somewhere) until I read on his profile that he did about 400 metres with Neil's group before turning off. Hey JP, you missed a treat; Limbrick is just asking to be STRAVAIZED and in fact there were plenty of brave descenders who might just have troubled the leaderboard anyway, but that was pretty much the last "rapid riding" we'd do today. Because from here on in the headwind hit out hard, which made having to spin up to speed again at the Chorley roundabouts all the more infuriating, then again it was probably the traffic from earlier getting their revenge on yours truly for those antics on Shaw Brow. The left-turn for the descent back into Euxton was particularly disheartening because it's a prime spot for grabbing some free speed, but needs must at this time of year as the racing season approaches and in fact I got Matt alongside me on the front sitting rather longer and lower on his De Rosa than me on my relatively geriatric 19cm head tube (I'm sure his stem is longer than his front end, how the f*** does the Matt/FOF 2016 generation ride like that). At this point the best thing to do was try and keep turns short and intense for maximum effect and this worked a treat as the three Formby squirrels, Matt, Kev, Howie and Ian Hampson did a bit at a time to keep things ticking over as a bit of shelter arrived in the form of the Texaco garage road in Midge Hall. Here, you just knew that the club's American Rugbyball expert was on board as the first few shouts of "BEAST MODE" and "SHUT UP AND WORK HARDER" came out, almost as motivating as Kevan's recent "Nobody cares about your excuses. SHUT UP AND DO THE WORK" poster on his Facebook (truth be told I'd put "excuse" and laziness" in the same box as various four-letter words that get you detention at school nowadays) so I got out front with Howie and took a break from barking orders and instead discussed how he's looking forward to using his R3 in Mallorca, and also that if I save five grand by choosing Derby Hill Crescent over that bungalow in Lydiate I could spend the difference on the Cervelo that really would suit me, namely the S3 in my "company" colours. Anyone want to buy an antiquated winter bike caked in mud for £666? Thought so. We got talking in between breaths because we were ordered to ease off - surely a first for a Steve Depport A group ride - and indeed we were forced into that through Croston, which was the driest I've seen it in quite some time. I say "forced" because there was a lot of traffic; if nothing else it's nice to see the village get back on its feet after the floods at Christmas. Me and Howie pulled a tactical stroke of genius out the bag here, as we timed our ease off to perfect allowing Kev Evans to take over with the two Kask Protone helmets as his sidekicks over the moss into the wind before the A59, where I got a good discussion with Ian Hampson about today's 4pm kickoff from Stamford Bridge and whether I should do the unthinkable and put a fiver on Everton to win the cup - I've probably jinxed them and they'll draw the winners of this afternoon's late kick-off, but there you go. Three quarters down and the toughest still to go, we had the long YOLO to Rufford to contend with, but that was not the end of the fun and games - far from it.

WARNING: 43MPH CROSSWIND GUSTS, CHINOOKING AND BARGUILLIZATION MAY OCCUR

Kevan held back for the main field as we got onto the A59, but some like Ste and Darren had positioned themselves perfectly for a shot at glory while yours truly had buried himself deep in the pack and had no real chance to make up the ground. It's one thing to catch a fellow squirrel at 8:45am with a tailwind, quite another when he's on peak form and your legs need the oxygen mask treatment to get working properly (you should have seen Von Miller aka Mr "I weigh 250 pounds" needing such equipment after making the game-clinching play to win Denver the Super Bowl two weeks ago). As it turned out Ste held on for best of the rest behind Kevan, and it was after a quick park-up that we sensibly decided not to go over the Hoscar Moss, skip the cafe stop and go home via Curlew Lane. This filled me with deep joy given this caused the crash of the century last February, and we so nearly got a reprise at one particularly gusty moment, as I'd just pulled alongside Steve Depport in pursuit of the leaders when a sharp snap of wind steered me automatically right and suddenly Steve was panicking as he saw someone who's thought about moving to his neck of the woods leaning on him, mere millimetres from the ditch! This gave everyone a major wake-up call and meant I had to relay the info to the sprint stars Darren and Ste, both of whom were next on my list. I commented that they were in an extremely life-threatening position, as in next to yours truly, and I finished it with "ask Steve Depport, he got CHINOOK'D". Even worse, we had the Farmers Arms bridge to contend with and being a rather raised part of an otherwise sheltered road, it forced me and Ste to stop and walk over to get our balance right; notwithstanding my upcoming trip to the hospital this Wednesday to deal with ongoing balance issues, it was the first time I've ever seen two riders forced to do that in any non-cyclocross situation. After that it was a fast loop round the industrial estate, starring me and Ste on the front shouting the usual "YOLO" and "Anyone who's not working gets dropped". The roundabout gave us a bit of a chance to regroup, but splits reappeared on the A59 towards Ormskirk, where the final comedy moment of the day occurred. Me and Darren were a few lengths behind Matt just as Blue Citroen Picasso, presumably starring Warren Barguil of 2015 Tour de France/bye-bye Geriant Thomas fame passed us tooting his horn approximately 56 times. But worse than that, he slowed alongside Matt and gave him the finger, at which point Matt kindly washed his passenger side window for him! It certainly makes you wonder about getting into bunched road racing as everyone seems encouraged to do these days; if CHINOOKING and BARGUILLIZATION happened at the same time, who would get the penalty? Imagine if the two of us were in the same team..........Anyway, most headed for Ormskirk either for home or the refuge centre/car park while I continued up the hill and wondered where the squirrels had gone to. I parked up outside the Jesus cafe (sadly closed) and decided that they must have got in the same rescue vehicle AKA Ian Gallagher's limousine, so I ate the second granola bar in place of a cafe stop and beasted the extreme headwind at a rather miserly 17mph down Formby Lane, before dropping to an even worse 15mph for much of the way home. The hardest part was the exposed stretch of road between Great Altcar and Formby Cycles where I just couldn't keep the bike straight, and as a result I finished with the worst ever YOLO score of just 13mph over the bridge. With the lunch hour rapidly ending and a need to get the report done before watching Chelsea hopefully get stuffed I bolted over the junction and got home for 1pm having covered a very windy 64 miles. Great to see Matt back with us after spending most of 2016 in hibernation, and I also look forward to seeing more people swell the now-standard two A groups with there only being two months to go before the trip to the Trough.

Now for the results, powered by Cumberland Real Ale from Jennings Brewery:

Distance: 103.37km/64.61 miles

Time: 3:44:43

Average Speed: 27.6kmh/17.25mph

Dead Front Mechs: 1

Hors Cat Climbs: 1

Horses: 4

Near-Misses: 2 both after we normally stop at the cafe

Post Ride Nutrition: 9/10 (Chicken sandwich, an apple, an orange and two Co-op mocha muffins not eaten at last night's gig - even the two Kev's would approve, time to pick a beer to boost that to a 10)

REJECT OF THE RIDE: The New Tour de France Crash Test Dummies Team

(That's a joint award to the two who bumped shoulders on Curlew Lane, plus Citroen Picasso Man for instantly losing his job as the driver of the team car)

See you all next week bright and early for the Rake. Methinks a smash and grab offense might be best for a relatively short climb. Do that, dive in the cafe for a quick bite and get out ahead of the backmarkers.........then don't eat until you get to the pub for the Capital One Cup Final. Three words: bring it on!