TWO pensioners have got on their bikes and are refusing to let age get in their way.

Rod Bradshaw, aged 79, and Colin Greenhalgh, aged 74, from the Hot Wheels Cycling Club, based at the Bolton Arena, Middlebrook, push aside their aches and pains so they can teach their favourite pastime to children and adults who cannot cycle.

Mr Bradshaw, of Castlecroft Avenue, Blackrod, got the bug for cycling at the age of 17, and enjoyed years of competing. But after breaking his collar bone when he was knocked off his bike by a car in Leyland in 2003, he decided to pack in his hobby and dedicate his time to caring for his wife, Barbara, who suffered from arthritis.

The granddad, who is retired mechanical engineer, said: “I was always hankering to ride, but I had a duty to perform to look after Barbara in sickness and in health.

“She used to say if she died before me I would have my bike out of the loft straight away — it was about three weeks before I got it down after she died in 2003. Getting back on the bike was like giving somebody a cigarette who had stopped smoking. It was quite uplifting.”

He got involved with Hot Wheels in 2005 because he wanted to give something back to the sport. Mr Bradshaw says he gets “a tremendous amount of satisfaction”

from teaching people to cycle.

Retired enginee Mr Greenhalgh, of Lansdowne Road, Atherton, clocks up to 200 miles a week on his bike after having nearly 30 years away from his wheels and competing due to work commitments.

He said: “I was 56 when I got into cycling again and I was riding faster as a veteran than as a youngster.”

He got involved with the Hot Wheels after being asked to take riding sessions with children in the holidays.

Mr Greenhalgh said: “One of the things that really makes it worthwhile is getting children aged five and six years old on stabilisers and seeing them get off them and ride on their own, and seeing the look on their face.”

● Find out more about Hot Wheels CC log on to bolton hotwheelscc.org.uk