A DEAD heat for first place in a time trial is unusual but a dead heat in a hill climb where timing is taken to one tenth of a second is amazing.

That happened on Saturday in the Rossendale Road Club event at Crown Point near Burnley when Ian Stott and Chris Edmondson, both of Blackburn and District CTC, clocked the same winning time of 3 minutes 0.4 seconds.

Backed up by team-mate Carl Helliwell, who clocked 3:09.9, there was no dispute over the winners of the team award.

Rossendale’s husband and wife John and Jeanette Hartley were both in the money with fastest veteran (3:19.4) and fastest lady (4:58.7) respectively.

All the above males are part of an excellent field of 73 riders on the vicious climb of The Rake at Ramsbottom on Sunday with a 12 noon start time.

This famous hill may only be 947 yards in length but rises in parts at a gradient of one in 4.8 where there is even a hand rail up the side of the hill to assist pedestrians!

The winner of this one will receive £400 which is often claimed to be the richest prize in the sport based on the two minutes plus riding time.

There are even prizes for just getting up the hill for all ladies, juniors, juveniles and the two tandems entered. All this makes for an entertaining couple of hours for the big crowd which is always guaranteed.

Just south of Knutsford on Sunday at exactly the same time is a brand new event in memory of cartoonist Johnny Helms, who drew cartoons for Cycling Weekly for 60 years.

Many famous riders of the past will compete in a ‘Gentleman’s 2-up’ event over three laps of an eight-mile circuit. Among the 50 pairings on the program are Tour de France stage winners Brian Robinson and Barry Hoban, Gethin Butler towing his ex-road champion dad Keith and one of the favourites for the £1,000 prize which must go to charity ex-world hour record holder Graeme Obree riding with ex-world pursuit champion Yvonne McGregor.