You will have read and heard lots about the Ironman UK bike course.

It's a very challenging course with lots of undulations and one stand out hill and it provides a great test as part of your Ironman experience.

From someone who lives and rides on it all year round, my advice would be to come and ride it at some point before race day - just to take away the "unknown" and to experience the differing conditions the course can offer you.

From late March/early April, I will ride the some or part of course every Saturday and there are lots of recce rides put together by members of www.tritalk.co.uk and www.runnersworld.co.uk so if you can make one of these, then I would strongly recommend it.

I always think that if you can ride a loop in the howling wind/pouring rain and cold, then you will be that much happier on race day when the weather is much kinder. Ironman is as much of a mental battle than anything else and for me this is another little battle that I like to win every year.

After completing your 2.4mile (3.8km) swim in the murky depths of Pennington Flash, you will begin the longest part of the day - the Ironman UK bike course.

You will leave the Pennington Flash transition area and as you leave make sure you give it a good old wave, as you won't see it again due to the split transitions that are in place at Ironman UK.

The first bit of road is the car park and narrow road out of the country park.

The picture below shows the route out towards the main roads.The road has speed bumps on it, so be careful if you are carrying rear mounted bottles then don't lose them here so soon into the race.

If you ride near the gutters there is less of a bump to negotiate.

Each year you will always see even the pro athletes fall foul of these little speed bumps - take it easy and start the race well !!!

At the end of this short road out of the Park, you take a left onto A572 St Helens Road which has a very slight incline towards the traffic lights where you will again turn left onto the bypass A579 Atherleigh Way which connects the two small Lancashire towns of Leigh and Atherton.

The road surface here is pretty rough and my tip if the weather is dry is to ride on the white line - you will appreciate the smoothness compared to the very rough tarmac either side of it - obviously if it is wet then it is probably not a good idea to risk slipping - so take into account the weather on race day and make your choice.

The road will go past the Leigh Sports Village on your right hand side and over a couple of small roundabouts, past a retail park and Asda on your left and you will then leave the town of Leigh and start to hit the open roads.

Once at the end of the A579 you will cross over the roundabout onto a new road past the industrial estate and onto North Road up towards the main A6 road. This road here is a nice little incline so remember to keep the HR steady and no showboating !!!!

You will arrive at the top of North Road and turn right onto the A58 Park Road up to the big roundabout which again is a nice little climb.

Once at the roundabout you will take a left onto the A6 Manchester Road with Winter Hill now apparent to the right. your first sight of the lump that you will go over three times during your ride !

But dont worry just yet, you have a few km's to get through before you reach the start of the loop proper. Going down the A6 road you come to a cross roads where you will turn right and then immediately left onto Chew Moor Road which will take you down and under the M61 motorway getting closer to Horwich and Rivington.

The road now becomes St Johns Road then it leads into New Tempest Road and finally as you reach the railway station at Lostock you are on Rumworth Road which has a little humpback bridge over the rail-tracks.

This is the humpback bridge and you will turn left into Regent Road looking at it from the other direction - but you will come here again on the run, so remember it !!!

Regent Road inclines up towards the end where you will turn left onto the A673 Chorley New Road taking you past the Golf Club on your right and up to the Beehive Roadabout where you will be able to see the Reebok Stadium to your left.

Time for some aero action - its a long straight road with little incline - enjoy it while you can !!!!

Once at the Crown Pub in Horwich the road drops and becomes Scholes Bank which dips up again on the other side as it becomes Bolton Road with Rivington Reservoir on your right.

Enjoy the slight decline here as the road drops down to the village of Adlington and you will now join the loop part of the course as you turn right into Babylon Lane and your first little climb of the day.

This is the summit of the small climb with the pub ahead (white building)

The road gently lifts up towards the junction with New Lane where you carry straight on with the pub and a little duck pond on your left crossing over the M61 again this time.

You will swing around the road to the right where you will come across the first aid station on the course and then up a little hill before a left turn into Horrobin Lane and a little slope up before descending down and across the road over the Reservoirs.

The picture below was taken two days before the 2009 race when the area suffered a deluge of rain and as you can see it left quite a bit of debris and mud on the road. It was all cleared for race day though.

On race day in 2009 this area was packed with spectators and was one of the highlights of the race that year. This is the view from the path:

At the end of the "bridge" there are two 30mph road speed signs and this point marks where the road starts to climb.

My tip is to prepare as you hit these signs and drop to your small cog whilst retaining a big gear at the back. To get the best out of this it is worth giving it a bit of "welly" down the hill so that you can carry the corner and save some climbing time.

You will bear left off the main road into the now infamous Sheep House Lane which is the main climb of the loop.

It is a 2.06 mile climb from the sign at the bottom of the road in Rivington village up to the "Darwen" sign at the plateau on top and is effectively two climbs with a little flat bit for recovery in the middle.

I have ridden the climb many, many times over the years and it is certainly doable in a 23 but for race day I would suggest that a 27/28 is used unless you are a strong and experienced climber. This will help save the legs for that marathon to come.  Lap three is where you will appreciate the biggest cog you have on the back I am pretty sure of that.

The climb starts with an ICE warning !!!!

In 2009 and 2011 when I completed IMUK, this grass banking was completely packed with noisy spectators, it was an amazing part of the course to be on.

The first part of the climb is toughest, with a cattle grid marking the end of the hardest part -

this is the view as the steepish bit levels out and you can see the cattle grid ahead:

dont worry you dont have to go over the grid as there is small road to the right of it which is

opened on race day.

once past the grid you continue to climb but the gradient eases off here, but stick to the plan as the hardest is yet to come.

The photo below shows the small plateau about half way up Sheep House Lane - take time to eat/drink here and prepare for the tough end to the climb that awaits you as the road sweeps around to the left and you go up past the farm.

Once past the farm on your left and there is a small dip before you begin the final climb which starts with a short climb to end of the treeline below.

At the end of the treeline the road straightens and you have a clear run up to the lone tree ahead. This is the view looking up towards the hairpin.

on race day in 2009 someone had painted my name on the road WOW !!!!

Ironman Austria has the Solarberg - IMUK now has the Wiganerberg !!!

and this is the view you will appreciate when you look back down what you have climbed, if you can twist that far back of course !

The toughest bit of this part of the climb comes right at the end with a hairpin left hand turn just at the point where your legs and lungs are burning:

Once you have reached this point it feels flat, but you are still climbing but it is much easier with just one more little dig to complete (as you can see below)

Once up that little hill you are on the plateau and can see the sign for Darwen ahead

You then have a very technical and twisty start to the descent down to Belmont.

Its a very good road surface but there is a tight right hand turn near the top with a big drop off to theleft hand side so you need to be wary

Once round the corner this is the view coming down:

and this is what you will have come down at the bottom:

If you overcook your descent, particularly in the wet, then you might as well have left your wetsuit on as there is a small reservoir waiting on a sharp left bend !!!  There were marshalls in the water in wet-suits in 2009 and I heard reports of at least one athlete who went in !!!

For the 2011 race they made it a DQ offence to overtake in this area and this helped to keep the race safe for the athletes. Here is the area we are talking about:

You then have a flat 100m (the other side of the reservoir on the above picture) before you drop sharply past the church for 50m to the dead left turn at the Black Dog pub.

It is worth noting at this point that you need to drop to the bottom ring as when you make the dead left turn you are immediately on a hill with a steady climb up out of Belmont.

Definitely worth practising before race day in my opinion.

The picture below shows the road you come down (from the left) and the hill that you turn on to.

Once you have climbed out of Belmont you hit the best/worst road in the world.

It is the best/worst entirely down to which direction the wind is blowing.

Generally, there is a tailwind for this stretch and you can fly along here to Abbey Village if you so wish, but even a steady pedal will have you over 30kmh without too much effort. However, if the wind is in the other direction, prepare yourself for some pain - its hard work.

The climb and this stretch of road are the most remote parts of the course. You are on the top of the West Lancashire Moors and it is bleak and barren. On a cold day you will need a windproof jacket here for sure, expecially after the exertions of the climb.

You are now on the Belmont Road and you sweep past Belmont Reservoir and sailing club on your right and then the road flattens and descends down towards Abbey Village with Roddleworth Reservoir in the dip as you reach Abbey Village.

The road along here is quite open and exposed as the pics below show:

This is the view just after the reservoir and sailing club and marks the final piece of climbing for a while:

This is the profile from Rivington Reservoir to the top of Belmont Road, illustrating the climbing you have just completed.

Once through Abbey Village there is a little climb up past a fishing lake and then the road drops down towards the motorway roundabout shown below:

You take the first exit back up the hill along the A674 Chorley Road later turning into Blackburn Road towards Wheelton

Once up this small hill you are on a rolling road with bits where you can get on the bars and hammer it to keep the heart rate up nicely.

You will then descend a large hill with a white pub (The Red Cat) on your right and traffic lights at the bottom on a large open junction.

There is a bike lane to the left, but you need to stay central/right as you will take a right turn just through the lights into Moss Lane (Premier Inn and David Lloyd centre located here)

The road here drops through a mini-roundabout and over a single carriage bridge (below):

the road goes left before climbing over the M61 motorway again and sweeps on and left up towards the A6 Chorley Road.  At the junction you will then turn left and then pass "Doorway to Value" on your left

and at the next set of lights (below) you will turn right onto the new industrial estate.

This might not be on the maps as it is new - but the tarmac road surface here is as smooth as you get and it is a big downhill.

At the bottom of the hill and at the end of the straight there is a roundabout and turning right here is where the second aid station of the course is situated.

The road loops round the back of Buckshaw Village (a new town on the outskirts of Chorley) and through a couple of roundabouts. At the end of all the roundabouts you will turn left and up and over the railway (as the photo shows below)

Once over the top of this bridge you drop to a set of trafffic lights (as below)

at the lights you will turn right onto Euxton Lane (pronounced EXton locally - there is no "u" in it) and this is a wide open road (shown below)

once past the speed signs the road then dips down under the West Coast Mainline (below)

and immediately you hit some traffic lights in Euxton itself with the Bay Horse pub on your left.

you go straight through these lights and onto Runshaw Lane which takes you back into the country.

The road is a mix of straight road (shown below)

and sharpish bends and at the end of a long straight (past the Plough Inn) there is a right turn into Flag Lane.

DO NOT CUT THE CORNER - there are two reasons for this, one being the obvious possibility of oncoming

traffic, but the most important is that the other side of the road has some horrendous surfacing as you can see. Riders beware !!!!

Once around the sharp hairpin bend Flag Lane goes into a single track lane, so beware of oncoming traffic.

At the end turn left onto Leyland Lane which carries on for a short distance to a mini-roundabout (with a car showroom on you left). The roundabout has race marshalls and police in place on race day, so ignore the traffic in that respect, but keep an eye out on any recce's.

At the roundabout you turn right onto the A581 Southport Road towards Croston. A little further along the road you will turn first left into Lydiate Lane (as below)

You will follow the road downhill and over a small hump back bridge:

The road becomes Towngate and then The Green as you go through the village. Stay on the main road all the way through the town.

(Cycling fans may wish to take note that Eccleston is the home of Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins who can often be seen riding the roads when not off racing on the continent !!)

Once through the village of Eccleston you take a left turn towards Park Hall

the road initially drops hard for a short while ....

before it climbs up past "Camelot" and "Park Hall Hotel" before sweeping hard left towards the bridge over the M6 motorway with Charnock Richard service station on your left hand side. At the mini-roundabout at the end of the road turn right onto A49 Preston Road and on towards Coppull.

Stay on the main road and you will go over another mini-roundabout with "Coppull Motors" on your right

The road climbs a little then towards the Alison Arms pub and there will be Staveleys Eggs on your right hand side - its not a steep hill, and its over quickly.

Once past the pub the road flattens and you will take the next left into Coppull Moor Lane (where the black car is pulling out below) and you will have a fantastic view of Rivington and Sheep House Lane !!!! 

A very straight road which goes downhill and again perfect from some aero action.

At the end of this straight, the road jumps up and quickly over the West Coast Mainline again.

and you quickly reach a junction with some new houses on your left.

Turn right onto Jolly Tar Lane and follow the lanes around towards the junction at Worthington. Again you can always see Winter Hill ahead of you.

At the t-junction turn left onto Wigan Road and the road then drops down past the quarry on the right (below)

before some more slight climbing up and past the timber yard on the left and around the corners with Duxbury Golf Club on the left.

Opposte the Golf Club you take a right turn into Rawlinson Lane

You can afford to push hard on the slight downhill here as your speed will then carry you through and up the hill on the other side to the junction. At the junction you go straight over the road into the continuance of Rawlinson Lane.

At the top of Rawlinson Lane there is a mini-roundabout and you bear right out of here and into Adlington Village where you will turn left and you are now now back to the start of the loop.

TWO MORE LOOPS, a bit of a run and then go and get your medal ......... what could be simpler !!!!!!