Isle of Mann

Across the Pond to the Isle of Man

By Mike Ostrom

Bucket List items are not all created equally. One of the prominent ones on my list was to visit the Isle of Man (IOM) for the motorcycle races. My friend Colin Ellse and I worked together at Raytheon Aircraft/Hawker Beechcraft in Wichita about 20 years ago and he’d tell tales of visiting the IOM every year when he lived in England. We vowed to visit it together some day and it went on the bucket list.

This August, I was able to cross it off as we attended the Manx Grand Prix. Our plan was to spend about three full days on the Isle, sailing in on Monday evening and returning Thursday evening on the Manxman ferry, sailing out of Heysham, England. I arrived in Manchester on August 15th and spent some time riding and visiting the local sights as I acclimated to the new time zone, 8 hours ahead of Tucson’s.

Colin and Caroline live in a lovely National Park, in Hartington, England, southeast of Manchester. My friend Keith Ogden and his wife, Samantha, members of the IMRG MCO Chapter, live in Manchester, over an hour away. Colin and Keith coordinated a meetup somewhere in the middle and we rode together on Friday for Fish and Chips. Other members of the MCO Chapter joined us as well. It was a great way to kick off my visit.

On Monday we rode Colin’s Ducatis 2 hours up to Heysham to catch the ferry to IOM. Colin’s friend, Trevor, joined us on the three-and-a-half-hour ferry ride and later at the cottage we rented for the visit. There was a light drizzle rolling in as we pulled into the cottage with some fixin’s for the pasta and meatball dinner that night.

After breakfast on Tuesday, we began to explore the Isle. I had brought my Insta 360 X4 camera with me and mounted it to the back of the Ducati ST4s, Colin had loaned me. We mostly rode the actual mountain race course, but at a much slower pace, especially for the frequent little charming towns along the way. Colin led most of the time and Trevor usually rode tail gunner. Riding on the left side takes concentration at intersections and roundabouts. Following Colin helped a lot. The secondary (A) roads and tertiary (B) roads are narrower than our roads and often have a stone wall or hedgerow along both sides, creating blind curves. If a road doesn’t have a designation, it’s usually very tight for two-way traffic. Even on motorcycles, we found ourselves near the edge of the road when passing oncoming traffic.

When you get out of town the speed limit climbs to 50 or 60 MPH. Unlike stateside, there aren’t recommended speeds for corners. There are sporadic chevrons pointing in the direction of the curve and frequently the word SLOW is painted on the road, but you don’t know how slow! The markings aren’t consistently applied and a 10-MPH switchback is marked the same as a 45-MPH sweeper. With all the blind corners you must enter every corner at a cautious speed until you can assess the radius.

Things change on the open mountain section of the course. Much of the road has good visibility ahead unless it’s foggy. We stretched the legs of the bikes as soon as we saw open road. There was a little pent-up frustration going so slow on the world’s most notorious race course. It felt good to run through the gears! We stopped at the Victory Café for tea and a cake, near the Bungalow. There is a statue of legendary Joey Dunlop atop his Honda, surrounded by a wall that has each of his 26 TT victories carved into bricks. There are dramatic vista views of the coastline along some of the race course, as well.

We continued on the course into the capitol, Douglas, and strolled through the paddock adjacent to the Start/Finish Line. Crews were busily prepping a wide variety of race bikes. The beauty of the Manx GP is the plethora of old-school classic bikes. That’s why Colin and I chose this race instead of the TT in June. We can relate to these old guys and their old bikes. They race 250cc two-strokes, Honda 350s and 400s, old 500cc one-lunger Nortons and Matchless, 600cc in-line fours to wide-open Classic Superbikes, including Ducati 916s, 750cc in-line fours from all the Japanese makes and even old-school Suzuki 1100s, (kinda) like one I used to have.

Qualifying was scheduled each night at 6:30 PM, Monday through Thursday, but the chance of rain or wet roads cancelled each of the sessions Monday—Wednesday. The race course roads close a half hour beforehand. For the most part, we made good use of the open roads all day to explore more of the Isle.

Each day we hit a pub or two and checked out the local brews and food. We stopped by the Fairy Bridge for good luck and visited Murray’s Motorcycle Museum with over 100 classic bikes. Murray gave us a handful of fairy trinkets, which Debbie will use to craft earrings.

After buying lunch in Douglas one day, we were walking down to the benches along the shoreline and from afar I recognized statues of the Bee Gees, who were born on the Isle of Man! I posed next to them doing my best John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever.

When there are postponements in the qualifying or race schedule, the powers that be invoke the contingency schedule and modify the durations as they see fit. On Thursday, they scheduled one such session, closing the roads at 12:30 for a 1-4 PM Qualifying session. It would be the only racing Colin and I would see before catching a ferry back to Heysham, England that night.

There is a cool spot on the course by the Ballaugh Glen Bridge in Kirk Michael. Racers have to gear down to second for the curve right before the bridge and then catch air when they hit the jump. We wandered by there on Tuesday before the qualifying was postponed and a lady who had just bought the property next to the bridge, invited us to join her family on the two-level grassy knoll that provides a nice view of the approach and landing of the jump.

When I posted a picture from our vantage point, Bert Shetler circled a front door across the street and said if you see the old guy that lives there, Kim, tell him I said Hello.

Tuesday was a bust, but we returned Thursday at noon and were welcomed back. I saw two old guys standing in front of Kim’s place so I walked up and asked if either of them was Kim? Nope. Do you know if he lives here? Yes, he does. My buddy Bert from the US told to look him up. Finally, the guy confessed that he was indeed Kim. When I shared this later with Bert he just laughed.

Kim had a good view of the jump and landing from his place but I rejoined Colin and Trevor across the street, where they even provided lawn chairs and served tea three times during the afternoon! IOM hospitality at its finest! We saw all the classes compete and often saw different classes with similar performance, racing in packs. I took several pictures and videos and posted them on my Facebook page.

Poor weather cancelled the regular 6 PM session and put our return ferry trip in jeopardy. The Steam Packet Company that has a monopoly on the ferry trade to IOM, announced a delayed departure of two hours. Trevor would be staying until Monday so he headed back to the cottage ahead of the rain. Colin and I weren’t so lucky. We waited on our bikes for over an hour in a light drizzle before riding on board. We would not disembark until 2 AM, so we paid $30 for fully reclinable seat in the Exclusive Lounge, with complimentary snacks and beverages. Well worth it!

When we docked it was raining in Heysham. Colin had the foresight to book a B and B right next to the port. It was the end to a long and memorable day.

The next morning was sunny! We loaded our bikes and headed to the Lake District. After about an hour or so we stopped at the Utopia Café in Windermere for some brunch. It hit the spot. We rode down to one of the Lakes and took another ferry across the lake. No reclinable seats on this one for the 10-minute cruise to the other side. We stopped for scenic views of other lakes and wound our way down to a hotel and café in Patterdale for tea and a scone with strawberry jam and clotted cream. So good!

We had some daylight left and it wasn’t raining yet so we road to Aira Force waterfall in Penrith, about 10 minutes from our night’s lodging at another B and B. It was a good half-mile hike down to the falls, but seemed longer on the way up, but so worth it!

Our host for the night even gave us a ride to Hardwick Inn and beer garden about a mile away. Every Friday is Pie and Pint night. Order a pot pie for about $18 and get a free pint of beer. The place was packed! Unfortunately, a light rain fell on our long walk back. We certainly got our exercise for the day.

Saturday, we had a full English breakfast to start the day and a few drizzles as we loaded the bikes, but we soon out rode them. We road into Scotland an were greeted with sunshine and nice roads. The highlight of the day was a visit to Bamburgh Castle on the Northumberland overlooking the eastern coastline. It’s amazing history dates back 3,000 years of countless battles and rebellions. It has been painstakingly restored to its former grandeur.

We headed south along the eastern coastline back to merry Ol’ England for a night’s stay at the Sun Hotel in Warkworth. Delicious Fish and Chips and a cool pint were had at the Castle Brew house on the ground floor.

Sunday, we kept with the ancient theme by visiting Roman town in Corbridge. In 1906, they discovered the northern most settlement of the Roman Empire almost 2,000 years ago. There is a nice museum of artifacts and archeological remains of the town center, dating back to 100 AD.

Afterward, we rode down to the current Corbridge town center for some lunch. We made our way through the English countryside to the Old Hall Inn in Skipton-Threshfield for our last night on the road.

We awoke the next morning to our first mechanical issue. The Hydraulic fluid reservoir was empty on the 916 and Colin had no clutch! I ran a quarter mile down the road for some Dot 4 and we got partial clutch travel but the system needed to be bled. Colin managed to nurse it through roundabouts to the next town where we borrowed an 8mm wrench and a bleeding canister, at a tyre store, to remedy the problem...and it wasn’t raining…until we finished!

Most of the trek south to Manchester was on major Motorways and uneventful. We had one more stop in Monyash for the Bank Holiday gathering of motorcyclists and some interesting bikes. We celebrated a great week with a cold...er...cool one as we mingled with like-minded fellows, before the long journey home to Tucson.