The first hill climb that Charlie attended – and from which he withdrew his name from the start sheet because he did not feel ‘on form’ – was held by his club, the Lancashire Road Club (an off shoot of the Bolton CTC) near Chipping. Although not identified the hill was in all probability Jeffrey Hill on the slopes of Longridge Fell, and a very stiff climb it is too as can be seen from the gradient in this picture.

In those days, handicapping the competing riders was very popular (not the case nowadays), and basically the idea was that to issue handicaps to all made for a level playing field for the competitors. It works like this.

The rider who is so fit he is expected to win with the quickest time is the ‘scratch’ rider, and the only one without a handicap. His eventual time sets the benchmark for everyone else. The slower riders are all given differing handicaps which gives them a sporting chance (when their actual time is reduced by their handicap) of getting close to the winning or ‘scratch’ time.

Handicapping has fallen out of favour in recent times due to the time consumed in allotting handicaps – which means investigating each riders performance over the preceding three years – and arguing about the actual handicap when it appears on the start sheet ! To keep up the tension at the event, the scratch man was always the last man to start up the hill, and from his time all the other results followed. Of course, in the end one’s actual time – not the handicap time – was the final arbiter of whether you were considered fit or not!