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Ronde van Oost Lancashire - a Flanders classic for the North of England

Free-to-enter 50-miler taking in some hidden cobbled gems around Burnley

Free entry! Free cake! Right, now we've got your attention. If you're in the vicinity of Burnley on Saturday 31 March then why not get yourself out and about and have a go at the Ronde van Oost Lancashire, a 50-mile loop that takes in some of the area's finest scenery and a whole host of hidden cobbled gems. To whet your appetite, they've produced this rather nice video to set the tone...

The Ronde is in its third year and this year the organisers are expecting 100 riders. The ride starts at Pendle Heritage Centre in Barrowford and loops anti-clockwise around Burnley, with an Easterly leg that runs out to Hebden via Hawks Stones and back past Widdop reservoir for some tough climbing on some fairly wild roads. As well as that, the organisers have included as many cobbled sections as they can to give the full Flanders experience. They make the route 'a little contrived' according to the crossjunkie website and you can miss them out if you really don't fancy them, but we can't help feeling you'd be better off manning up and getting your arse on the cobbles.

Some of the climbs look a bit frightening; the Packhorse in Hebden has a handrail, which is never a good sign. The organisers describe it as "brutal to ride, probably impossible in the wet or damp", so pray for a dry day if you're rocking up. For full information on the ride head over to http://crossjunkie.blogspot.com/

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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12 comments

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seanieh66 | 12 years ago
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Shouldn't there be free cloth caps provided as well as free slices of 'Ovis for t'climbs? Eee , when I were a lad ....

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mooseman | 12 years ago
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Rode it last year - really good route, great cobbled fun and fantastic company too.
Cakes were nice too.

Would be doing it again if I was in the country.

Do it if you can.

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joemmo | 12 years ago
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Lancashire? North? Pah! Practically the Midlands, that like.

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Rob Simmonds | 12 years ago
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Looks great. Shame it's a bit far away.

The North starts at Salisbury btw.

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dave atkinson | 12 years ago
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we won't be there sadly. we get a bit jittery if we go above any genuinely northern sounding towns on the map. placenames like hebden and mytholmroyd make us break out in a cold sweat. we'll see if chipps wants to go, he's built up a tolerance  3

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terrahawk | 12 years ago
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get thee t'th Ronde. It's champion, I tell thee.

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Simon E | 12 years ago
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Ouch!

That rider is Gustav Larsson, training for 2010 P-R by one of the finest photographers in the sport, Tim De Waele of http://www.tdwsport.com/

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stever replied to Simon E | 12 years ago
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Terrific picture. Poor bloke.
Joking of course, the RVOL was a highlight of last year for me.

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stever | 12 years ago
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Looks rubbish, I won't be there. This happened to me last year:
http://www.tdwsport.com/en/imagedesk/image-details/id/162202
: great big smiley :

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minnellium | 12 years ago
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Looks a bit northern for my liking  7

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WolfieSmith replied to minnellium | 12 years ago
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minnellium wrote:

Looks a bit northern for my liking  7

What can you mean? There's no brass band and cog dancing at the finish this year.

I suppose the 'nose bleed north of Watford' brigade are better off out of it. We'll still come south though to glide around what your so called 'challenging' sportives like the Dartmoor.

Got to go fly t'whippets now..  4

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pjt201 | 12 years ago
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If I wasn't doing the real thing I'd be well up for that.

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