Here are the latest standings in the Inter Club Hilly Time Trial series following last week's fifth round, Barrow Central Wheelers' Coast Road 21 mile time trial. As you can see, it's turning into a tight tussle at the top of the table, although unless a fair few LCC members head up for it, the next event, Kent Valley's Jungle Cafe hill climb on Monday 3rd August (7pm), could see them open up a sizeable - & potentially unbridgeable? - gap. Click here to see the course details for that event.

After the Jungle Cafe Hilly, there are two more events, both Kent Valley: the Knotallow Tarn Hill Climb on Monday 10th August; & the Circuit of Wild Boar Fell (replacing the planned Shap & back course which is affected by roadworks) on Sunday 23rd August; visit Kent Valley's website here, for more information.

Come on the Lancaster!

Sorry for the delay in posting the results from last week's Thursday evening Salt Ayre time trials. (And incidentally, if there's anyone out there willing to share in the task of putting news up on this, the Club's website, please get in touch.)

The evening ended much better than it started, slowly turning from quite wet to rather pleasant! The ten two-milers bore the brunt of the weather, but both 1st-placed Luke Oakes & 3rd-placed Emilia Wood recorded exactly the same times as the previous week - 6:14 & 6:23 respectively. They were separated by Ethan Yates whose 6:17 was an impressive 13 seconds quicker than last time.

As last week, Brian Murray was the fastest rider of the 18 having a go over six miles, finishing in 15 minutes exactly (19 seconds slower than the previous week). Next were Bobby Horton in 16:09 & Evie Barrow in 16:24. They were followed by a cluster of strong young riders all breaking 17 minutes - Isaac Atkinson, James McCracken, Hannah Edwards, William Dykes & Adam Hodgson.

Two riders tied for the fastest from the 30 starts at ten miles; Ian Sibbert & Tom Phillips both recording 22:43. They were just ahead of Rob Barton in 22:50 & Andrew Barlow in 22:57. Of the women riders Ali Oldham was fastest in 26:56, from Jenny Evans (27:21) & Kerry Oldfield (27:29).

The evening was rounded off with three teams giving a 2-up time trial a go: Jon Barry & Dave Horton recorded 25:10; Paul Andrews & Tilly Percy 27:09; & father & son Gordon & John Roberts 27:38.

Thanks to all those who volunteered on the night. Full results are below.

HQ for the Inter Club 25 mile time trial on Levens on Wednesday 8th July will be the Hare & Hounds in Levens village. The postcode is LA8 8PN, & the pub's website is here. If you plan to ride, let Andrew Barlow (email below) know before Sunday morning (5th July), when he plans to do the start sheet. You might be able to enter on the evening but the field is limited to 60, so if there are a lot of pre-entries it might be full (& lots of people at Barrow CW's Coast Road 21 event last night were talking about riding).

We are very short of marshalls for this event, & also need a time-keeper. Please help if you can, or if you're planning to ride you could try to rope in a friend or relative to come along with you & help out on the night. Let Andrew Barlow know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thanks.

Meanwhile, in other time trialling news ... we've had an email regarding two Border City Wheelers events later in July:

"Great news - the Border City Wheelers 10 and 25 will take place on 18 and 19 July, as planned.

However, given the ongoing roadworks on the A66 the events will be held on alternative courses. The 10 will be held on the L108 (Tebay) and the 25 will be held on the L259 (Calthwaite).

Thanks to event organisers Kevin Crawley and Carol Westmorland for going the extra mile to ensure the events go ahead.

Please support the events and encourage others to enter too - both events can be entered, via internet entry. (Go here for the 10; & here fore the 25 - entries for both events close on 7th July.)

Both events also count towards the 2015 NLTTA Points Competition too.

Regards

Jamie Carson
NLTTA Sec
Chorley CC"

The latest (& 5th in the series of 8) in this season's Inter Club Hilly events took place on the coast road between Ulverston & Barrow-in-Furness on Wednesday.

On a warm evening under stormy skies the two Lancaster CC representatives finished almost exactly 10 minutes apart. Continuing his fine season, Tom Brook finished 2nd on the night in 49:14, just one second behind winner Peter Thomas of Kent Valley RC (49:13). Apparently these are the 2nd & 3rd quickest times ever recorded on the course (despite a flurry of PBs, the course record remained intact at 48:39). Meanwhile Dave Horton finished 28th of the 42 riders in 59:15, but was happy just to 'break the hour' over the rolling course.

Thanks to everyone involved in what was a lovely event - friendly & welcoming, & (if you manage to look up!) the course runs through a stunning part of the world.

We'll have to wait and see what the event has done to the Inter Club competition standings, but with only two LCC riders as against 10 from Kent Valley, 12 from Lakes RC & 13 from Barrow, it's likely to see us toppled from the leader board! So an extra incentive, if you need one, to make a note & get along to the next event - Monday 3rd August, 7pm - Kent Valley's Jungle Cafe Hilly time trial.

A more comprehensive report of the event can be found on Barrow CW's excellent website here, or click read more below to see the full results.

There's a fair bit of news on the Inter-club front.

First of all, the next event in the Inter-club Hilly Series is tonight. Here's what organiser Glenn Rhodes of Barrow Central Wheelers says:

Andrew notes that "at the half-way point and with both Lancaster CC’s events completed, they are now leading the table by nearly 300 points with 4 events to go."

But it'll be interesting to see how the table looks after tonight's Ulverston/Barrow/Ulverston event! We'll get the results from that, along with updated Inter-club standings, up here as soon as possible.

Thanks to Series organiser Andrew Barlow for all his hard work in making this happen.

It was a pretty good evening for time trialling at Salt Ayre this week. The rain forecast stayed away, the wind dropped & riding felt sticky but otherwise fast. Some good, personal best, times were certainly recorded. For example Sam Pugh of Garstang CC & Salt Ayre Cog Set, just turned 14, is getting faster every week; last night he rode his new time trial bike over ten miles to a PB 24:06, & he's bound to get faster still! 15 year old Malcolm Neil also rode to a PB, clocking 26:15.

With most of the Cog Set race team taking the night off, the 10 mile top 10 had an older feel to recent weeks. Andrew Horn was first in what could be the fastest 10 mile time ever recorded at Salt Ayre, 21:29; unless anyone knows better, that might be the first time someone's gone below twenty one & a half minutes. Second was Ian Sibbert, just short of his PB in 22:04; and third was fastest woman Lynn Hamel in 22:49. 3rd, 4th & 5th men were a tightly bunched Lancaster CC trio, Tim Norton (23:02), Steve Hodgson (23:04), & Mark Monkhouse (23:08).

An older rider was fastest over six miles too, with Brian Murray recording 14:41. Fastest of the youngsters was 13 year old Cog Set Youth B rider Evie Barrow in a fine 15:53, ahead of a trio of lads, Ben Pennance (16:06), James McCracken (16:22), & Adam Hodgson (16:27).

Quickest over two miles was 10 year old Max Davies in 6:04, followed by 9 year old Luke Oakes in 6:14 and fastest girl 9 year old Emilia Wood in 6:23. Third boy was Ethan Yates in 6:30, and 2nd & 3rd girls Megan Howarth (6:47) & Amelie Earnshaw (7:21).

Anyone who'd like a rider to get an honourable mention in these weekly write-ups, please just drop an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thanks! I can only mention what I know!

Finally, before the full results from the evening, a note from Bob Muir, Club President & time-keeper extraordinnaire:

"Thanks very much to those who took on marshalling duties tonight, some at very short notice – we could not continue to run the events in this format without the assistance of volunteers. Please don’t be shy at coming forward. Just contact Tim Norton or register on volunteer spot. On another note, the yellow timing box we use at Salt Ayre is - like any computer - pretty thick. It doesn’t know how far you are racing and just carries on waiting for you to cross the mat. So please, when you have a chip on your bike only cross the mat whilst you are racing. If you cross before you start it throws a "sulk" as it does not know what time you were due to start and thinks you completed the first lap in a negative time, and computers don’t like negative times! On the other hand if you have finished your distance and carry on lapping it merrily goes on adding lap times which makes me unhappy as I have to manually subtract the times to find out what time you did for the distance."

Another good night for the Jubilee Tower hill climb, with the threatened rain holding off & a good tail wind helping the riders up the climb, & to some fast times including - for those who have done this event before - many Personal Bests.

Dave Huck of Lakes RC, third placed by a whisker up last week's Conder Bottom climb, came out top this week, winning in 7:30.4. George Wharton riding for Kent Valley RC was second last week & second again this week, in 7:42.9. Craig Steele of Lakes RC & David Trotter of Lancaster CC were the only other riders to go under 8 minutes, tying for third place in 7:49.1. Their impressive times help you realize how remarkable is the current course record, set by former National Hill Climb Champion Tevjan Pettinger on the 4th October 2012, of 6:57.0 (an average speed of above 16 mph over the 1.7 mile climb). Following a tough weekend of racing that saw him get very close to breaking our Club's 10 mile record & within striking distance of the 25 mile record, last week's hill climb winner Ryan Coulton enjoyed a restful ride out to watch his clubmates & other riders digging deep on their way up from Quernmore crossroads to the Tower (you realize how long this climb is when, at the end of the evening, it's time to ride back down - even at downhill speed, it takes quite a while to retrace your racing trip!).

A further seven riders were under 9 minutes, including Lancaster CC's Tom Brook & John Hatton, and Cog Set's Ben Barlow & Jonny Wong. Fastest woman was multiple National Women's Hill Climb Champion Lynn Hamel of LUSSO in 9:42.5.

As usual, huge thanks to all those who helped out on the night; the event would not have happened without you. To see the full results, click on 'Read more' below. But meanwhile, here's the standings in this season's Inter-club Hilly competition after the third event, last week's Conder Bottom climb (so not including the Jubilee Tower results). As you can see, we used our home advantage to good effect!

The next event in the series is Barrow Central Wheelers' Coast Road 21 mile time trial on Wednesday 1st July at 7pm. The course follows the coast road (A5087) between Ulverston & Barrow, & includes 381 metres of ascent; for details go here. We'll need a few riders there if we're to retain our place at the top of the leader board!