THE Blackburn and District CTC hold their popular two-up Team Time Trial on the A6 Barton-based 10 mile course today, starting at 7pm.

Event secretary Dave Collinge, of Twiston near Clitheroe, has assembled a very interesting field of 33 teams for his event this year.

The last pairing to start will be Burnley’s Jimmy Wright and his Preston Wheelers team-mate Paul Fleming, who are probably favourites.

Most of our East Lancashire-based clubs are represented, including North Lancs Road Club, Clitheroe Bike Club, Rossendale Road Club, Pendle Forest Cycling Club and the Science-in-Sport squad.

This event is the first of five this season in a brand new ‘Open 2-up Series’ with the next four counters to take place every two weeks from tonight until July 15, using the same course and HQ.

On the same course on Saturday afternoon it took two professional riders to beat Brockhall based Science-in-Sport director Tim Lawson, who lives in the Ribble Valley.

Tim’s outstanding time for the 10 miles of 20 minutes 39 seconds was only beaten by Motorpoint pro Peter Williams (20-03) and Team Raleigh pro Daniel Shand (20-33).

In this event, Blackburn’s Fraser Snape took sixth with 22-09, Rossendale’s Paul Warrener 9th in 22-37 and Mellor Brook’s Julian Markham 10th in 22-38.

In our evening events on local courses, Darwen’s Ian Cox was winner of the 10 miler based at Hapton with a time of 23m-53s. Rossendale’s Paul Warrener was second in 24-11, team-mate Roy Flanagan third (25-14) and NLRC’s Dean McGarry 4th (25-54).

The Pendle Forest 10 mile in the east of the county had local rider Carl Pawson fastest with 23-58.

It was close at Edisford in the North Lancs Road Club ‘10’ with their own Duncan Park clocking 23-52 just two seconds better than the 23-54 of Rossendale’s Paul Warrener.

Two of our local pros will be contesting the North West Regional Road Race Championships in Cumbria on Sunday, with Ian Wilkinson of the Endura Team and Simon Wilson of the CyclePremier-Metaltek team plus Tim Lawson and four others in the Science-in-Sport team in the Elite plus 1,2 and 3 category.