The last few days have been pretty relaxing for me. One of the days, I can’t recall, there wasn’t any racing. I took advantage and slept in a good couple hours and relaxed around the campsite. Met a few more lads from Northern Ireland, and a fellow Canadian named Dan from Windsor, Ontario. He was travelling with Stephen from Hereford UK. They met over GTA5 on the Playstation Network. Steve brought over his VW travel van and threw his Suzuki R1 in the back to take advantage of the open roads of the Island.
I am lucky in more than one case, to hook up and make friends with people who have transportation. Dan, Steve, and I made our way around the island. We took a full tour of all the towns here as we drove the entire island. It was a full day before we posted up at Harold’s wall for some close action I mentioned in my last post. (Video to come soon)
The highway “over the mountain” part of the racetrack is coned off and turned into a one way highway for the fortnight. The Isle is different from the rest of the UK. They have their own parliament, which is the oldest parliament in the world. Long story short, they do what they want. Most of the roads in between the towns have what they call a “National Speed Limit”. In this case, there is no speed limit. The oneway mountain road is more or less a racetrack for the entire TT. I met up with an older lad outside the grandstand. “Hey, I overheard that you wanted to get to Ballacyre?”
“Yea” I said “Not really sure how, but I’m going to start walking”
“No worries” he replied “You pay for the petrol, and we’ll drive the course”
“Let’s hit it”
As we came to the one way section of the mountain about 8 miles long, the bikes were screaming past us. A bike would pass and just barely make it back in front of us before three more would blow by and hit the next few bends at anywhere from 100-150Mph. The racers are well over 170 for this entire section. Our Ford Fiesta rental clipped along pretty good.
We stopped at a pub just north of the mountain. Tim, my current companion, ran into this pub last year and had a pretty good relationship with the owner, Dave. Dave used to drive sidecar (insane), and he was a solid guy to hang out with. The pub was astronomically expensive, by far my most expensive meal on my trip. It was just a burger and “chips”. Dave mentioned the pub was barely staying afloat. Considering the people that flood this town for only the two weeks, I could understand what he was saying. We chatted about the local breweries, and tried out a few local ciders and beers. I was surprised about how little breweries there are here. Only three. I guess at home in Victoria we’re pretty spoiled. There’s pretty much three breweries in every municipality. Dave was interested about hearing about things back home for me. “Im surprised we don’t have more brew here” said Dave “Considering we’re 20 000 alcoholics hanging onto a rock in the Irish sea”.
We talked bikes for a bit also. Dave was a Harley owner himself. I’ve seen the price of HD bikes and parts here. I though I paid a lot for HD quality, over here it’s ridiculous. Dave and I exchanged e-mails and I told him I’d send him parts if he ever needed anything. He was very happy about that.
Tim and I carried on and watched the final practice session just along the track past Ballacyre. Followed by a visit to the White (something) pub, which was basically someone’s house in the middle of the town of Peel. The local MPA is great (Manx Pale Ale) Manx is what you’d call someone from the Isle of Man.
48 Express 