When acting as tour guide to a first time TT spectator it’s important to make the right first impression. You need to take them somewhere on the course that’s really, really fast and where the bikes pass so close that you can feel the displaced air sucking at you as they howl past.
Back in 2017 I took my BMW riding brother and his wife along to Gorse Lea, just before Ballacraine, for their introductory viewing experience. Here you have to clamber, while balancing cups of tea and home made cakes from Harold Leece’s farmhouse kitchen, onto a wall beside the track to watch the action.
Then you sit and wait, listening to the radio, for the (inevitably) delayed start of the race. About three minutes after the start (which is over seven miles away) the first bike goes past. My sister in law is a polite girl from a posh part of Hampshire, but I’m sure what she said, as she nearly fell backwards off the wall, began with an ‘F’. It’s an extraordinary spectacle that all Bike readers should see at least once. Though it is addictive, Dr and Mrs Wilson are back for more this year.
I’ll actually be watching the TT (unless I can pull off a last minute sleight of hand) on telly because, having spoken with Peter Boast (p132) and got the inside line from Stephen Davison
(p82), I’m planning to get my road racing fix in Ireland this summer. And I suspect that I’ll be unable to restrain the profanities when the first bikes go past.
As Boasty says, while explaining his impressive road racing schedule for this summer, we’ve had a weird couple of years, so let’s get out and enjoy ourselves.
And enjoy the issue too

Hugo Wilson

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