THE Blackburn and District CTC travelled in force to Diggle near Oldham on Sunday to compete in the long established Beard Cup hill climb for CTC sections and came home with their hands firmly on the trophy after some outstanding riding by their members.

In fact, our local club claimed all of the first four places thanks to winner Ian Stott (Clayton-le-Moors) who conquered the Stand Edge Old Road climb in 4mins 34.3secs, second placed Carl Helliwell (Great Harwood) 4:57.0; third placed Shaun Pearson (Darwen) with five minutes exactly and Paul Smith (Langho) fourth in 5:05.6.

In the ladies race Helen Dawson of Langho was winner in 7:28.8 with Sue Cheetham of Blackburn second in 7:47.6, while in the juvenile race, 13-year-old Richard Hek of Norden School, Rishton, was second best with 8:10.0.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.