Isle of Man TT Day 3: Castletown-Douglas-Laxey-Ramsey-Maughold Head-Douglas

 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 in there bio did have me a bit concerned especially if it was going to be poor weather up there again this afternoon, even if the roads the climbs were on were meant to be quieter. I decided to review the situation when I got to Ramsey.

Anyway it was out of Castletown and a quick trip right down to the headland to Langness to get some photos of the abandoned keep. It was really beautiful and still and the sun proper came out. I really liked Castletown. It was only small but very beautiful and coast line was epic. Definitely the highlight of the last few days! With the sun out, it was off with the big jacket and time to turn the bike North along the A5 back to Douglas. As I’d come down the old Castletown road yesterday I decided to stick on the A5 and although busyish, it wasn’t too bad. In general, the fiasco of yesterday excepted, the driving has been pretty good, much less close passes than I’m used to on the mainland ( we’ll come to the exception later on) and I was soon dropping back into Douglas and back along the prom.

There were a couple of routes out to Laxey, but the one following the route of the electric railway looked the prettiest and quietest and with the sun gently beating down it was up the lovely gentle climb of King Edward Road to join the A2 to Laxey. Gently climbing and falling along the 8 or so miles to Laxey with plenty of time to admire the view of the cliffs and sea to my right. All too soon I was dropping into Laxey and looking out for the famous wheel. As well as the 3 climbs and riding the mountain course the wheel was the thing I was looking forward to most from the trip being an Industrial Revolution nerd and round the big hairpin in the middle of town it looked majestic in the sunshine up on the hill. Turning left I was soon at the bottom of a horrible little 200 meter ramp at about 25% to get up to the entrance. Obviously as it’s March it wasn’t open! Bollocks! Anyway there were a few boards about and you still had a great view of it and it was majestic indeed! With an old boy from Lancashire also hanging about with his wife and a few friends complementing me on my Ribble (made in Clitheroe) it was back down the steep hill and to the cafe which thankfully was open! Coffee and cake (natch!) and it was back on the road to Ramsey by about 12.30.

Another climb out of Laxey up to 650 feet gave me a good view of Snaefell off to my left. The sun had gone in and the cloud was hanging low now. I felt like I was giving in to be honest, but I’d come here to have a few quiet days on the bike and to explore somewhere I’d never been before. I didn’t come to have a fight with 1,000’s of dickheads on twitter or to put myself at risk. It was playing on my mind, so as ever the best thing is to not let it play on my mind and I made the decision that I’d get to Ramsey, have a look round then come back round the headland to Maughold head and then retrace my steps from Laxey. As I said countless times to Dec during JOGLE ‘we’re meant to be on holiday! Mind made up I enjoyed the steep drop into Ramsey and had a mooch about the town. Feeling a bit more run down than Douglas and reminding me a bit of Stornaway from the Hebridean way last year, I didn’t spend long there and retraced the first couple of 100 feet out of town until the left turn to Maughold Head. 

What a lovely road! I mean horribly up and down with some savage gradients, but single track in and out of pretty hamlets with the sea a constant companion on my right hand side. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t going to break any KoM’s but pottering about at a steady average speed of around 10mph was a lovely way to spend 45 minutes or so. All too soon and it was back on the A2 retracing my steps back to Laxey (it was getting cold again so back in with the big jacket) and then the up and down back into Douglas. Just to remind me however that cars are king, an old guy in a Kangoo managed to clip my arm with his wing mirror as he tried to squeeze past a car turning right just in the entry to Douglas. He sped off only to get caught at the lights. As I pulled up next to him, he did the stare straight ahead and pretend to ignore me knocking on his window. Anyway it was probably my fault because, well it is isn’t it? With this reminder I was definitely not going up the Injerbreck climb either, it was time to call it a day and get checked into the hotel, a shower and find somewhere that does a pizza! 

So a summary of the trip. Well it hasn’t gone how I imagined, or like countless of the other cycle rides I’ve done. I’ve enjoyed bits (Castletown, Laxey, the first part of riding the TT course yesterday) but the farce yesterday has definitely took the edge of it, as has the frankly bonkers reaction on twitter. What to do about the 2 climbs I didn’t get done? Let’s get to 198 and then I’ll have a think…If I had my time again, I would have taken my daughter Mirren’s advice and not put the video on twitter, but taken it up with the police privately. I did it because I was really fucked off about the blasé way that they seemed to think I was the problem and not the car drivers who shouldn’t have a licence if they can’t drive to the conditions over the mountain. Again, I didn’t have a problem with them checking up on me to see if I was OK (Although scarring the shit out of me with the sirens wasn’t ideal and as others have pointed out if I was female I might have felt somewhat more threatened…) seemed fair enough, but once they’d seen I was a pretty competent cyclist and was happy to carry on, that should have been the end of it. I also need to apologise to Simon Warren author of the 100 climbs books as I tagged him in the original post and his timeline is also a bin fire! With now nearing 1 million impressions (what ever that means) and 320k views, it shows how the algorithms on Twitter feed the trolls. It’s not a place to have a nuanced conversation about car culture, active travel and hierarchy of road users, but we’re going to have to have it some day. The irony is I’m a massive petrolhead, I love my cars, and I’ve had a full motorbike licence and motorbikes for over 25 years. Oh and obviously a pedestrian. Just because I’m a “cyclist” however, I can’t be any of those things, I’m somehow sub-human..

Anyway, looking forward to going home tomorrow and seeing Andrea, Mizz and Ev and Nevis, seeing the fantastic and inspirational Self Esteem at the Albert Hall in Manchester tomorrow night, then a trip up to the North East with Andrea and the kids on Sunday to see her mam. Big shout out to my mates for keeping my chin up when it was all a bit shit, Dec for pointing out in the Road CC piece about it all that my climbing was always slow and steady and he’d always beat me up a hill (we’ll miss out the few months before JOGLE when I destroyed him on every climb in the South East and the first 6 days of JOGLE) and Kieran’s message that if he’d been with me in that weather we’d all be in the back of the coppers van and they’d be taking us to the Indian restaurant…🤣 and Sarah, Tom, Frankie and Quinni bravely trying to fend the trolls off…

I’m off to Essen, Utrecht and Amsterdam next month for the next one. I wonder if I’ll end up being asked to put my bike in the back of a police van as I’m presenting a danger to car drivers…I’ll repeat, give a cyclist some room, we’re not sub-human, we’re exactly like you and it’s only 30 seconds out your day ✊