RACING cyclist Stuart Whitehead of Langho and a member of the North Lancashire Road Club, produced one of his best performances ever on Sunday in winning a 50 mile time trial in the Lake District .

Although now aged 42 and riding in the veteran section of the race, Stuart beat competition from all ages in clocking an outstanding 1hour 52min 50 seconds for the distance.

This beat the winning ride in the non-veteran event of 1hr 53min from Paul Fleming of Walton-le-Dale with another of our local riders Billy Rodgers of Blackburn taking second in the veterans and fourth overall with 1h 54m 04sec.

In the Three-Stage 'Angel of the North' League of Veteran Racing Cyclists road race over two days at the weekend, Dave Hargreaves of Blackburn and the North Lancs Road Club pulled off his own best performance this season when he was best of his own 55-59 year age group and took third place overall in the race.

Hargreaves had started with equal second in the 3.75 mile prologue time trial which was followed by a 45 mile stage on the Saturday and a hilly 65 mile stage on Sunday. Well known Yorkshire rider Brian Sunter was the race winner.

The Blackburn and District CTC promotion for teams of two riders at Barton on the A6 road went off

Nine teams from the 40 entered equalled or bettered 22 minutes with four of these times being done by East Lancs. based riders.

Top of the pile again involved Preston's Gethin Butler who paired with Wigan's Nigel Clementson to finish in a race winning 20min 59sec. Ian Stott of Clayton-le-Moors and Carl Helliwell of Great Harwood rode in the colours of the promoting club to clock 21min 13sec to clinch third place.

Michael Ellerton and Dave Melcalfe of the Clayton Velo (21m 38s) took 5th, Dave Ebbrell and Julian Markham (21m 42s) 6th and Stuart Whitehead and Peter Briscoe returned 22 minutes exactly for 9th place.

The Rossendale Road Club 9.4 mile time trial at Accrington was won by Waterfoot's Derek Schofield in 22min 03sec with near neighbour Paul Warrener second in 22m 21s. Third came Dave Edwards of Blackburn and District CTC in 22m 28s and Joe Curran of the North Lancs. Road Club was 4th in 25m 30s.

At Edisford near Clitheroe, Fraser Snape of Blackburn continued his run of success with 23m 49s beating Nigel Waddington (26m 18s) 2nd, Junior rider Michael Forte (26m 44s) 3rd and Alan Dobson (26m 53s) 4th, while lady rider Jayne Bevitt of Longridge was happy to beat 29 minutes on that course for the first time with a 28m 57s ride.

The winners of the Pendle Forest 2-up time trial at Thornton in Craven was the two-some of Paul Oldham of Colne and Ian Wilkinson of Burnley who beat Paul Complin and Derek Medley into second with Craig Cowgill and Danny Davies third.