IAN Stott, the leader of the winning Blackburn and District CTC team in last year's National Hill Climb Championship in the mountainous Peak District, proved that he can pedal a bike just as well on flat roads with two fine performances in the Fylde at the weekend.

On Saturday afternoon on the A6 road to the west of Garstang, Stott produced one of his best time trial performances to date to come home fastest of 90 entrants and clocking a superb 21mins 01secs in a gusting rain storm.

This beat favourite Paul Dotchin of Manchester, and a member of the Brockhall-based Science-in-Sport team, by 26 seconds.

On Sunday morning Ian was back at Garstang to contest the Wigan Wheelers 30 mile event over two laps of a more technically demanding circuit, taking in Cockerham and Pilling.

Although Mark Holton, the on-form Lytham St Annes-based rider, was fastest overall in 1h 7m 07s, Stott was second best on the day with a determined effort of 1h 9m 32s in windy conditions.

Simon Phillips of the Pendle Forest, rode well to take fifth place in 1h 12m 34s whilst Julian Markham of Blackburn returned 1h 14m 17s (11th) and two Clayton Velo riders, Peter Briscoe (1h 15m 10s) and Martin Smithson (1h 17m 11s) were also inside one hour 20 minutes.

The 30 mile event marked the halfway point of 26 selected races for this year's Lakes and Lancs Sporting Courses competition (SPOCO), but on the same morning there was another qualifying race based on a circuit taking in the stiff climb of the famous Holme Moss in Yorkshire and in this one Clayton Velo's 50 plus veteran Peter Greenwood of Burnley placed overall third behind winner top roadman Julian Ramsbottom and previous Hill Climb Champion Jim Henderson.

Greenwood covered the 28 mile course in 1h 25m 18s against the 1h 19m 37s of Ramsbottom and 1h 25m 05s of Henderson to gain himself valuable SPOCO points.

Fraser Snape, last year's series winner of the Thursday evening 10 mile time trials at Edisford near Clitheroe, started off the 2003 version in unbeatable form by easily winning the first event.

Snape, who rides for the promoting North Lancs Road Club, clocked a time of 24mins 09secs to beat the 25m 33s of Martin Smithson of Clayton Velo into second place with Ken Holden (NLRC) third in 25m 58s and Ian Duckworth and Dave Clough (both NLRC) tying for fourth place in 26m 55s.

On the dam day in the Pendle Forest Six Mile Time Trial at Colne, the talk of the evening was the excellent ride by 15-year-old Stephen Burke of Colne who clocked a superb time for his age of 15m 07s which was less than 20 seconds behind the winning ride of vastly experienced Dave Metcalfe of the promoting club.

Simon Phillips took third place with 15m 21s and Steve Singleton fourth in 15m 35s.

Ian Wilkinson, the Burnley-based Science in Sport-sponsored rider, is continuing with the form that he showed when he took an excellent third place in the Clayton Velo Spring Classic in early March. In his own team's Criterium Series being promoted on the brilliant road race circuit at the Preston Sports Arena, Ian, who is better known as a top mountain bike rider, won the Elite/First and Second category 40 kilometre race last Thursday following a similar win two weeks before.