Chris G’s cycling blogs. They’re for me, not you!

 Well a calmer day on the bike, both weather wise and stopped-by-the-police wise, if not quite so calm on the social media side! Peeking through the curtains at 7.30 ish showed that the hammering rain and brutal wind of yesterday was gone and if I squinted hard I could see a bit of sun! Down for breakfast at the excellent George Hotel which had gained bonus points for a nice big hot radiator which had been on all night and dried out all my gear, shoes and all, and a full English tucked away, it was time to get the bike out of the locked boot room, get the bags on and set off by about 9am.  The plan was to cycle the coast road to Ramsey then tackle the Bungalow climb, drop back into Douglas then finish off with the Injerbreck Hill climb and back again to Douglas. I had however made the mistake of looking though a few of the reply’s to the video on Twitter from overnight and the general threats around my safety, all from twats with flags and/or football teams and/or motorbikes/fast cars

 And to think I wasn’t going to do a blog because I didn’t think I’d have anything to really write about…🤣 Let’s just say it’s been one of the stranger days of my life, and one of the wet and windiest! With my alarm going off at 7.30 the rattling of the rain and wind on the window meant that the weather forecast looked to be accurate and the morning especially was going to be bleak. With the decision made to not set off until 10 am when it was scheduled to calm down somewhat I spent the time over breakfast (which wasn’t bad considering how poor tea had been last night) re-adjusting the route and taking the long way to Peel out so I could get it down to a manageable 70 miles. With only me to look after and not a hostage to the usual cocking about from my fellow partners in crime, I was all packed and ready for the off at just gone 9.30. Retracing the steps I’d taken while I was out on my walk last night, it was along the prom then the steep climb out from the sea front to the start of

 Miles: driven 90, ferry, 64 miles, bike, 10ish, walk 4.9 I was umming and arring about doing the blog for this little trip, mainly because I’m missing all my partners in crime and just on my todd and also cos it’s only a couple of days actually cycling. However as there is a ferry involved as everyone loves to point out, there is endless opportunities for me to f-it up! With a couple of days holiday left to take before April I thought it would be a good idea to continue the quest to try and cycle round all the islands of the British Isles after the huge success of the trip along the Hebridean Way last autumn. With one of the other many quests (I do love ticking things of lists!) still ongoing, that of completing the second 100 climbs, also containing 3 climbs on the Isle of Man, my love of motorbikes and the fact I’ve never been to see the mountain course the destination was chosen.  Obviously I did ask the other muppets to come with me, but as they all told me I was mad to go in Mar