Tour de Standish...

​Some people live in villages, towns and cities where interesting, exciting events are a regular occurrence, but sadly our local village rarely sees anything of note apart from excessive amounts of new houses being built and massive build ups of traffic. For two weekends in July we were privileged to be a ‘go through’ on two major sporting events at completely opposite ends of the sporting scale. 

First up was the annual Manchester to Blackpool cycle ride organised by the Christie Hospital in Manchester. The ride regularly attracts 7000 cyclists of all abilities who travel the 60 mile route to raise funds for a variety of cancer charities. Our village is almost the half way point and provides the cyclists with a tough climb up a hill towards the village centre.

​Locals line the route (although its not quite Tour de France standards!) and cheer the riders on. First through the village are the sporty athletes complete with racing kits and cycles and their eye on the time followed by groups of riders just having a go on everything from tandems to shopping bikes complete with baskets. It’s a great event to watch and raises thousands of pounds for some very worthy causes.

This was followed 2 weeks later by a ‘serious’ sporting event – the Ironman – a very extreme version of a triathlon involving a 2.4mile swim, 112 mile cycle ride and a 26.2 mile marathon. Standish was part of the cycle loop which saw each competitor complete the loop twice. An amazing achievement. 

Our photography was somewhat interrupted this time when one of the competitors came off her bike in one of the more isolated parts of the course. We won’t comment on the two hours it took for the medics to come and check their competitor over but instead be grateful for the opportunity to meet such a lovely lady, Amelia from Philadelphia, an Ironman veteran on her first UK race who thankfully was not seriously hurt.

Both races offered us great photo opportunities and like any photoshoot - mixed results! Chris was particularly pleased with his panning shots!