Introduction

Welcome to the Home Page for the Blackburn & District Section of the Cyclists' Touring Club.

If you are not viewing this web site using the www.blackburnanddistrictctc.org.uk domain name then please click here now to be redirected.

This section of the CTC welcomes anyone who would like to come and try out our various activities. Club activities include regular Sunday clubruns, YHA and camping weekends and a clubroom with a social programme from September to May. For new members, prior membership of the CTC is not essential but we require that after a trial period of one month, membership is taken out.

The Cyclists' Touring Club

The CTC is a national cycling organisation, more details about the CTC can be obtained from the CTC website by clicking here. The CTC is split into several District Associations (DAs) covering the whole country. Each of the DAs contains several sections. Each Section is made up of members from a given Post code area. In order to be a member of the Blackburn & District section of the CTC, members must live in the Blackburn area with a postcode of either BB1, BB2, BB3, BB4, BB5, BB6 or BB7. Not living in this postcode area will not exclude riders from participating in club events but for some events it may exempt riders from eligibility for prizes. To be eligible for racing section membership, which is only required if you wish to race, you must live in the BB1 to BB7 postcode area; more details are given on this subject below.

Membership benefits include a bi-monthly magazine sent to your home address and free third party insurance while cycling.

How to Join

As mentioned above, to be a member of the Blackburn & District Section of the CTC you must live in an area with a postcode in the range BB1 to BB7. If you wish to join the CTC now online or if you just want to see membership fee information then you can access the CTC web site by clicking here. and navigating to the membership pages.

Only about 1% of a membership fee paid is passed on to the local CTC section that a member belongs to, so all section members are encouraged to become active within the section and to help to promote and take part in club events in order to keep the section solvent and successful.

The Clubroom

The Clubroom is located at Primetime, Stourton Street, Rishton, BB1 4ED and club night is Thursdays from 7:30pm to 9:30pm. To find the exact location of Stourton Street in Rishton, click here. The clubroom is open most Thursdays through the Autumn / Winter / Spring months from September through to May. The clubroom has a full social programme including slide presentation evenings and quiz / competition nights. For more details of the clubroom social programme click on the Diary Dates link in the left hand frame. The clubroom is the best way to get to meet club members and to gain information about required equipment and required fitness levels before attempting clubruns. So give it a try!

Clubruns

Any rider participating in a clubrun must use a bicycle equipped with full length mudguards and preferably a mud flap on the rear mudguard. Most members use touring style bikes, typically equipped with 25 to 32 mm wide touring tyres. The use of mountain bikes for clubruns is not recommended unless the bike is fitted with road tyres and the rider is of reasonable fitness.

Clubruns are run on every Sunday of the year. The length of clubruns varies throughout the year with shorter runs during the winter months building up to longer runs at the end of summer. In summer months two clubruns are scheduled, an A run and a B run. A runs start at about 80 miles in April and build up to 150 miles by late August. B Runs start at about 60 miles in April and vary up to about 100 miles. In winter only B runs are operated and during the winter months they average about 60 miles in length. If you think that the distances sound large, bear in mind that it is much easier to cover distance when travelling in an organised group than it is when cycling on your own.

The list of scheduled clubruns can be found by clicking on the "Runs Lists" link in the left hand frame.

Meeting Places

To find the locations of the meeting places for clubruns, click on the relevant meeting place below:

The Club Magazine

The club produces a quarterly magazine which details forthcoming club events and includes articles on activities undertaken by club members. The magazine is available from bike shops in the Blackburn area which support the club. A list of these bike shops can be found by clicking the "Our Advertisers" link in the left hand frame. Diary date and clubrun information from the magazines can be found on this website by clicking on the relevant links in the left hand frame.

Racing Membership

Any section member can join the racing section. This requires the payment of an extra membership fee payable to the racing secretary. This extra membership fee is used to cover the cost of affiliating the section to organisations such as the BCF, RTTC, BCCA, BSCA, etc. Racing section membership runs from the time of paying the subscription fee to the end of the current calendar year. In addition to paying membership fees, racing section members are required to help out with the organisation of club open events. Members who help with the organisation of events will receive a refund of 50% of their membership fee at the end of the year. For details of the costs of membership of the racing section, visit the clubroom and contact the Racing Secretary directly. Members who intend to race are requested to take out racing membership at the clubroom in the first few weeks of the year, this helps the racing secretary and event organisers to plan ahead with respect to the amount of support that will be available for running club events.