RACING cyclist Steven Burke of Colne has just returned from the brand new indoor track at Newport in South Wales with the magnificent haul of three gold and one silver medals won in the National Championships for under 16 year old riders.

Burke, now 16, with the qualifying age being under 16 on the January 1, was winner of the 2,000 metre pursuit in a new British record time, he was first in both the Points race and the Scratch race and second in the 500 metre time trial.

Burke, who has just started at Nelson and Colne College, comes from a family of cyclists with mother Sharon and granddad Brian both regular riders in local time trials.

Just to prove that he is also good on the road Burke was winner of the Pendle Forest midweek 10 mile time trial at Thornton-in-Craven by beating a number of top class older riders.

His time of 22 min 37 sec was 18 seconds too good for Clayton Velo's Dave Metcalfe, with Jason Bateman of Pendle Forest finishing third in 23 minutes exactly and Russ Mclean of Clayton Velo fourth in 23 min 33 sec.

Billy Rogers of Blackburn was winner of the North Lancs Veterans 30 mile event on Sunday with a relatively slow time of 1 hour 11 min 57 sec reflecting the wet and windy conditions.

Other East Lancs riders braved the conditions to fill seven of the top ten positions - Peter Briscoe (1:17.25) 4th and fastest Vet 50+, John Leach (1:18.07) 5th, Peter Haigh (1:19.28) 7th, Dave Brown (1:20.18) 8th and fastest Vet 60+, Stephen Wilkinson (1:20.35) 9th and Derek Schofield (1:20.49) 10th. Paul Warrener of Waterfoot was winner of the 9.4 mile Rossendale promotion in 22 min 54 sec followed by Joe Curran (24m 47s), Adrian Watts (25m 14s) and Peter Motler (26m 12s).