Lancaster CC Hill Climb   Sun 3/10

            This year's climb to the Jubilee Tower, incorporating the NLTTA Championship, attracted a good quality field but Ben Greenwood's course record (and the £100 reward from bikemagic.com) was never really under threat today.

            The host club's 12-year old Julian Pearson was first to set off into the rising headwind which had everyone slower than last year.  Peter Greenwood (Clayton Velo) slipped from under eight minutes last year to 8.43 this, but only dropped from third to fourth overall and was still best vet 50+.

            But the top three were all within three seconds of each other.  Gethin Butler led the Preston Wheelers challenge on the only fixed-wheel special, perhaps a mistake on a course with varying ups and even brief downs and the multiple BBAR Winner could only manage third on the day to the specialist skills of the Blackburn and District CTC pairing of Carl Helliwell and Dave Ebbrell.  With third counter Dave Collinge in fifth overall, the Blackburn Mob added the Team awards to their haul.  (S'pose that's what the saddlebags were for?)

            Ride of the day came form the youngest Blackburn CTC entrant, 14 year-old Adam Pinder, who finished little more than a minute off the pace in seventh position.  Inaugural winner of the Flossie Mitchell Cup as best female rider was another teenager, 19-year old Lynn Hamel of Kent Valley Road Club, whose clubmate Bruce Barnes took the 40+ vet award.

            Encouragement for all those crazy enough to start at the bottom of this hill and race up it came fromTotal Fitness, who provided Day Passes for Two to riders in every third place.