The on-going hill climb season focuses on Pendle Hill this weekend with two events using the iconic hill to test the strength of the climbing specialists.

Nelson Wheelers present a new climb on Saturday using the 1,620 yard ascent out of Barley on the Downham road.

Event Secretary Peter Heywood has a small but quality field including a full strength Blackburn and District CTC squad of Ian Stott, Carl Helliwell, Chris Edmondson and Dave Collinge.

The headquarters will be at the tourist hut and cafe on the car park at Barley with the Pendle Inn offering a £5 meal for cyclists afterwards. The start is at 11am from outside of Barley.

On the following morning the North Lancashire Road Club promote their long-running climb of the Nick o’ Pendle with organiser Mike Addis having received a similar field.

The start is at 10am from Sabden while the last man off in each event is Raleigh pro Mike Cumming.

The CTC squad of Stott, Helliwell and Richard John were most unlucky to miss out on another team award on the 4.8 mile climb of Cragg Vale in Yorkshire, which is claimed to be the longest unrelieved climb in England.

Stott took third (18m 22.4s), Helliwell fourth (18m 34.5s) and backed up by John (22m 50.3s) they missed the team prize by just 10 seconds.

A 10-mile record was set by Darwen’s Ian Cox for the North Lancashire Road Club when he shaved off three seconds from his previous mark to clock 20m 12s on the Levens course near Kendal.

In the same event Burnley’s Mick Ellerton finished on the right side of the 20 minutes or 30mph barrier in clocking 19m 45s – but was around 15 seconds away from his own best.