From the Library

[Biggles]

So I have that two hundred yards covered. I do a quick calculation: The Mountain course is 37.73 miles long, about 66,000 yards. At 200 yards a day, it would take about 330 days to come to grips with the whole circuit. There is, actually, time to make next year's race.
I have this idea... (Did I just have it, or was it already in my head? It certainly seems fully formed.) I could go over with a bicycle and cycle the course daily, learning it, imbuing myself with the Manx landscape and history, all while whipping myself into top shape for the race. It occurs to me that my MZ Skorpion race bike may be a lost cause as a Pro Thunder class racer, but that it is well suited to the single cylinder class I watched last Wednesday on the Island. So I actually own a suitable machine. It's difficult for British riders to even get a TT entry. But, desperate to retain the aura of a global event, the organizers actively encourage foreign riders, so my AMA Expert license almost guarantees they'd let me try to qualify.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p43

[Biggles]

Tommy was born at Strang, a spot just above Union Mills, "I was pushed down to the TT course in my pram," he says. His dad raced a sidecar but like many locals, Tommy aspired to become a star in Observed Trials (a sport in which motorcycles are ridden over impossible obstacles, the objective being to do so without falling off or putting a foot down).
"I scrimped, and saved," he tells me, "and I bought a Greeves, that I rode in the Scottish trials when I was 17." I'm guessing that that would have been sometime in the late '50s or early '60s. He tells me that, back then, he couldn't afford petrol to practice, so he'd start at the top of the hill by his mother's house, and inch the Greeves down, stopping and balancing all the way. He calls this "jiggling it down". At the bottom of the hill he'd get off, push the Greeves back up over and over.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p55

[Biggles]

Hemingway is famously quoted as having said "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games". This is ironic, because as a motorcycle racer, I've always been jealous of mountain climbers, in the sense that they don't seem to face the same resistance from society when it comes to justifying or explaining their obsession. If you grow up in Switzerland and then live in the Canadian Rockies like I did, you meet lots of climbers. I've known about half a dozen people who've summited Everest, and I've always been struck by the fact that we seem understand each other well. We both appreciate a kind of self-knowledge that comes from our particular risk sports.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p56

[Biggles]

Other experiences were unquestionably real but weird bits of luck. Like the time, walking down a road in Onchan toward my house, that I noticed a little boy dressed up in a cowboy outfit. He was on the sidewalk, dragging a broomstick between his legs- performing one of those feats of imagination that are effortless for little kids, turning a stick into a horse.
So there I was, having come from Alberta- real cowboy country in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies- to be here on the Isle of Man. But the first time I imagined coming here, I was that little boy's age. I looked at that kid and couldn't help but see a weird reflection of my own life. All of that was going through my mind. 
Then, as I reached the corner, I realized the little boy had been walking (in his mind, riding) down Alberta Road. Alberta Road. How weird is that?
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p68-9

[Biggles]

That article concluded with what is arguably the most bucolic crash report ever:
It was A J. Steven, on his Humber, who, endeavouring to take the bridge "all out" was unable to negotiate the curve, and in order to avoid what Jake de Rosier would call being caught "bending", ran down a narrow lane leading into the waters of Sulby Stream and the rich, herb-laden pastures thereby. Amid these pleasant surroundings he stopped his machine, falling off somewhat and having made sure no limbs were numbered amongst the lost, got on the road once more.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p74

[Biggles]

The Bandit is a good bike, really, but it feels like a huge lump to me. Its been a long time since I've ridden anything at all, and it's so different from the bikes I've been racing that it takes me a long time to get comfortable on it. Still, it is my first real lap of the course on a motorcycle of any kind. I concentrate on staying in Steve's wheel tracks. Up on the Mountain it's foggy and raining, and my visibility gets worse and worse until discretion gets the better part of valor and I let him get away. After a while, I flip up my visor and realize that half the fog was inside my helmet. I pick up speed and find Steve parked and waiting for me farther down the Mountain, down out of the fog.
...
Over the next few weeks- it takes that long to get around to putting the CBR on the road- I ride the course on at least a dozen different bikes- pretty much anything that's been taken in on trade and has fuel in the tank is fair game. I start to feel that I know the course, maybe not as a distinct, sharp series of turns and bends, but in the way you might come to know a person; they become generally but not specifically predictable. 
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p87

[Biggles]

On one of those shopping trips, I pull the bike up to the store just as a mother is leaving, pushing a baby in a pram. At the sound of the bike, two little hands wave above the rim of the baby carriage. The kid gets a grip and pulls himself up so that his wide-eyed gaze meets mine for a few seconds, until he falls back. The mother looks from her baby to me, smiles and shakes her head. I point at the carriage and then at my own chest, using sign language to say, "That's exactly what I was like!"
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p88

[Biggles]

Dodging cars, I walk down through the corner to look for more hazards on the exit. There I notice a commercial florist's bouquet that's been tied to a concrete fencepost with ribbon. It's been there a long time, I can tell. There's a tiny white envelope attached to it; the kind that comes with any basic commercial bouquet, which would normally contain a card with a message from the sender. I slip finger into the envelope, which has been softened by the elements. Its empty. No card. No clue who it might have been for, or from, I realize that there is some faded writing on the envelope itself It says, "34th milestone (Kates)"
Something about this one, in particular, sticks in my mind. Sometime later, I walk down the Strand in Douglas and look in on a florist when it hits me: It wasn't that someone put the bouquet there, they, phoned it in. That was why there was no message in the envelope: there was no recipient, at least no one who needed to read anything The florist had just written the delivery address down on the envelope, and gone out and tied it to the fence. The people, friends and family who gather in small groups to place the more permanent memorials are- at least in part- doing something for themselves. Getting "closure" to put a pop psych label on it. But whoever phoned in that florist's order was doing something very different. He or she was never going to see the bouquet. The flowers were to be placed by someone with no connection to anything. And really, except for me, they were destined to go almost unnoticed. It was less a public thing than a private message to an anonymous rider, as if he was still out there somewhere, lapping the course. Something about that flips a neuron in me, and I suddenly realize that, read as a collective, the hundreds of memorials are not sad. Although they often express loss, "You'll be missed" not one of them condemns the TT. If anything, they celebrate it as the high point, which it was, of every life thus recalled.
I don't want Steve polishing my memorial here either. But I cannot think of any place I'd rather have one.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p94-5

[Biggles]

In practice for the 125 cc race, Hondas were dominant. When the race itself began, Ernst Degner's MZ was the only non-Honda among the top six and he dropped out on the second lap. For most of the race, every rider on the leader board was mounted on a Honda. For a manufacturer, it was a performance so dominant as to be nearly anti-climactic.
However, Taveri pushed Hailwood right to the end. After 113 miles, Hailwood won by a mere seven seconds. Phillis, Redman, and Shimazaki rounded out the top five. 
Looking back on it, it seems appropriate that Mr, Honda was given his first TT victory by the greatest motorcycle rider of all time. Needless to say, Honda won the team trophy as well. The Examiner said simply, "It was a devastating win for the Orient."
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p109-10

[Biggles]

The 250 cc race was run later the same day. Based on practice times, this one was still up for grabs. MV Agusta claimed to have withdrawn its factory team, but the guys working on Gary Hocking's motorcycle certainly looked like the works mechanics from past years. Bob Mclntyre opened with a storming first lap, averaging nearly 100 mph from a standing start.
Hocking, on the MV, was close behind. On the second lap, Mclntyre went faster than any of the previous year's 350 cc racers. Indeed, his times would have dominated the class just three years earlier. Hocking dropped back to third, and then retired with a mechanical failure. Once again, every rider on the leader board was Honda-mounted. Mclntyre was denied the victory he deserved when, halfway round his final lap, his own engine expired. So Hailwood inherited his second win of the day, followed by Phillis, Redman, Takahashi, and Taniguchi, all on Hondas.
It took seven years, not the single year he'd hoped- but even Mr Honda couldn't have dreamed of the extent of his Isle of Man TT success when it finally came. 
Curiously, he himself did not return to the Island until after he'd retired. Then, before devoting himself to painting, he embarked on a final world tour, visiting the sites of all his company's most famous victories. He brought a Honda factory race bike for the cluttered private museum at the Bungalow, where it remains the most valuable exhibit.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p110

[Biggles]

When you read about the TT, you come across varied counts of the number of turns and bends on the course: 137,140; depending on who's figuring, it can be as many as 180. In clear weather, sightlines are good up on the Mountain, but three-quarters of the course is tightly walled and hedged in, built up, or overarched by trees. And there are many crests and elevation changes, so no matter whose count you believe, there are literally hundreds of places where the course disappears in front of you. Around a corner. Over a crest. Behind a fence or building or hedge. Climbing or descending into a forest glade. Here's the trick: most of the time when this happens, it happens at blind kinks that can be taken flat out. You don't have to slow down as long as you know where the road goes next. So far so good, but here's the other trick: every now and then, something that looks just the same turns out to be a tight bend that requires two or three down shifts.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p111

[Biggles]

When you first get to the Island and the long, long lap blurs into a series of undifferentiated bends, the knowledge that there are a few deadly traps scattered among them can be pretty intimidating. Frankly, the course seems unlearnable. Your initial reaction- at least my initial reaction- is that all those other guys must really have been riding on guts and reflexes.
Your second reaction is that you can't do it, at least not at the speed you're going to have to go. It's pretty depressing.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p111-2

[Biggles]

At this point, I have to interrupt, "But its so featureless! I've been through there a hundred times and still haven't found a single landmark." The course kinks down and to the right- a blind approach with a wall on one side and steep berm on the other.
"How," I ask, "do you time the turn-in?"
For a moment, Hislop looks at me as though he's wondering if he should give away a trade secret. Then he thinks, "What the hell, I'll never ride the TT again anyway.
"Toward the end of the straight, you come to the crossroads, but that's much too early to turn in." As Hislop starts to answer, he closes his eyes, and leans forward in his chair. His hands float up, as if grabbing an imaginary set of handlebars. "You can't feel it at all on open roads but when you're flat out, there's a little rise after the crossroad. If you're tucked right down, you'll feel the bike come up..." eyes still closed, he exhales sharply, and lifts his chest- miming the tank hitting his chest, then lets his body sag back down for a moment. "As soon as you feel the bike settle back down," as he says it, his body scrunches into a tuck, "you throw it to the right, aiming at the end of the hedge." He opens his eyes, and looks at me with an expression that asks, Got it?
I wish Peter had been here to film. It's been almost ten years since Hizzy last rode through that kink wide open. But when he told me how he'd done it, he hadn't been dredging up a distant memory- it was still right there, in his body. When he closed his eyes, he was there.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p119

[Biggles]

There's a huge blue and white striped tent nearby and without asking I know its "the" blue and white tent I've been reading about since I was in high school, poring over accounts of the TT that used to appear in summer issues of Cycle. It's the tent where riders go to await the start, have a tea in the morning, or a mug of soup when they stumble in half-frozen from a wet practice.
It's as familiar as can be. Two women of the grandmotherly type ubiquitous among TT volunteers tend a pair of enormous kettles. A plywood table sits in front of them covered with styrofoam cups. Milk and sugar are laid out. An oversized tin can has been turned into a sort of piggy bank; donations are welcome but they understand when you come creaking in a race suit that you probably don't have pockets, say nothing of coins for the tin.
I ask Andrew if he wants a cup of tea. He looks down. "No thanks." He works full time at Padgetts, but he's only 16 or 17. This is the first time he's ever had a team pass. Despite (or is it because of) being Manx, he's awed. He doesn't seem sure if the tea's for the likes of him.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p156

[Biggles]

Still, I'm glad to have a chance to review the launch procedure. Bikes are fired up in the parc ferme and then the stewards open a big gate onto Glencrutchety Road. There's no prescribed starting order to practice. Bikes pull out and line up two by two. Most riders are accompanied by two or three mechanics and friends, who help push them slowly along.
You pass a person standing in the road, supporting a plywood sign with a drawing of a crash helmet and the question, "Helmet Strap?" Then another person, with a chalkboard, which carries specific notices of the hazards of the day. This morning, it is a Manx haiku:
Heavy Rain
Standing Water- all around
Fallen leaves on road
Fog on mountain
High Winds
Be Careful
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p157-8