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Preston Wheelers Reliability Race Ride - Sunday 30 January

Sunday saw the annual running of Preston Wheelers reliability trial (not sure where the “reliability” fits in but somebody will tell me). Not as many reliability trials around compared to 30 years ago so it’s not to be missed if you are young, very fit and like lots of hills. As I do not fit into any of these categories a cunning plan needed to be hatched to get around the 75 miles in one piece. Mark (I used to be a member of the club) Wilson suggested getting away from the start 30 minutes earlier then the peloton which would ensure we got to the soup stop first and from there we might be able to hang on till the A6 where we would bound to be blown away.

Mark was at my house (via car) at 8am together with Andy Grice and David Abram. The four of us were at the Withy Trees start at about 8.30 and were first to pay our £2. We were away shortly afterwards taking the Longridge road. The route was through Longridge, bypassing Chipping via the side of Longridge fell and dropping down onto the Whitewell road. The weather was damp and cold and before Dunsop Bridge we had to dismount to walk across a stretch of ice. We wondered if this would cause havoc on the 40 man bunch. After Dunsop Bridge the lumpy road led to Newton and then the climbing started over to Slaidburn and out of Slaidburn towards Tosside. I started to struggle up the hills but the four of us kept together until we took the road towards in the infamous Bowland Knotts climb where Andy danced ahead followed by Dave. We were all together again on the descent and got to the soup stop as planned. We had only just got our soup, bread and biscuit when the big hitters arrived( this was too soon for us). With them were John Findlay, Spencer Coltman and Steve Duffell. The four of us decided to get along the narrow dangerous roads towards Wray as far as we could before the fast boys had downed their soup and were on top of us so we set off doing bit and bit. We kept looking behind but they were not with us at Wray or Caton and on the road to Quernmore we started to slow with Marks back now giving him grief. At this point we did join up with Paul Johnstone (Preston Wheelers) and friend, who were just out for a ride, and they proceeded to drag us all the way to the A6. The fast boys never did catch us – not sure how we managed that. I think we were all suitably fatigued (polite word) by the time we reached Broughton lights. Hope Spence, John and Steve got round OK??

Postscript - A slightly more sensible group (Steve Ginty, Lennie Collins, Andy Cargill, Allan Taylor and Wally Goulding with a brief visit from Criag Middletion) took in Telegraph Hill and Oakenclough en route to Cobbled Hey cafe only to find it closed (dejavu). Across the lanes to Chipping encountering some nasty icy stretches and then back to Southport via Longridge.

Posted 02/02/2011

 

 

 

 

 
     

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