Isle of Man - Up South, Down North
Targeted marketing sends me plenty of cycle event adverts but when the Isle of Man Cycling Challenge dropped in my Facebook feed, (courtesy of the Geordie Gruppetto group who I had had the pleasure of tackling the tour of Flanders with in 2016) riding the iconic Isle of Man TT circuit on closed roads had me hooked instantly. Initially I thought 3 laps of the famous 37 and 3/4 mile circuit would tick the century ride box but further investigation revealed the Isle of Man Cycle Challenge Sportive was a few days from my birthday and so the plan of a birthday weekend away and a cycling tour of the Isle of Man including one lap of the TT circuit was hatched. Rocky jumped at the plan and his wife Karen along with Shirl were soon convinced it would be a great weekend away courtesy of the package deals provided by the steam packet holiday company in conjunction with the sportive organisers.
The Isle of Man is a self governing British crown dependency but the association of British Counties includes it on its map of 92 historic British counties so happily this intriguing little island takes its place in my challenge amongst the 91 other counties to be visited.
Covid-19 continues to hold nations at ransom but with vaccinations continuing to lead the fight against the virus the trip to the Isle of Man didn’t require any additional tests, just a few minutes on the internet proving our vaccination status to gain us each an entry permit and a QR code to say we were virus free!
The Steam Packet Holiday company https://www.steampacketholidays.com/Isle-of-Man-Holidays/festivals_and_events/IsleOfManCycleChallenge were offering excellent value ferry and accommodation deals in association with the Isle of Man Cycle challenge organisers, we plumped for a Friday evening outbound ferry and a Monday evening return with a stop at the 3* Ellan Vannin Hotel located on the grand promenade in Douglas no more than 400m from the ferry terminal. This would allow us to leave the van in Liverpool (no jokes about returning to it propped up on bricks please!) and travel as foot passengers aboard the Manannan catamaran for our 2 3/4 hour sailing.
Never plan anything that involves a drive up the M6 on a Friday evening is one of those life lessons I try and abide to, but needs must and that is exactly what we would need to do. Typically a two hour journey from Solihull to Liverpool I had agreed to pick Rock and Karen up at 3pm leaving a couple of hours contingency before boarding time just in case.
Programming the sat nav I was a little concerned to see a predicted travel time of 3 hours reducing that contingency by 50% before we’d even pulled off the drive!
The days’ news had been dominated with rumours breaking about a lack of tanker drivers (pandemic and Brexit fallout cited as the reason) leading to potential petrol shortages. It was only as we tried to pass the first petrol station en-route to Rock’s that we realised, fuelled by social media induced panic, petrol station forecourts were already starting to get besieged by motorists desperate to fill up before the pumps ran dry. This unexpected congestion coupled with it being school run time meant Rock was anxiously ringing me to check if we were on our way as the time pressed on. Fortunately we were just approaching his road when he called and would soon have everything packed in the van and ready to go by 3:15pm. A forecast 3 hour trip would still give us 35 minutes to park up in Liverpool and get to the ferry terminal – plenty I convinced myself!
As the time ticked by it was pretty clear that our contingency was down to nothing, getting on board would be touch and go, Shirl crossed her legs for the last hour of the journey and with Karen pulling out all the stops to hoof two suitcases up the stairs out of Liverpool One Q-park we were pretty much two minutes past final boarding time when I got to the kiosk ahead. Credit to the terminal employee he just said “you can try and get on if your lucky it’ll be five minutes before they close the doors”. To complicate matters the bikes needed to go up the vehicle ramp at the stern of the vessel whilst the girls took the pedestrian gang plank to get on board. As Rock and I wheeled the bikes on board up came the stern doors and we looked at each other, breathed a sigh of relief, chuckled, then panicked – what if the girls hadn’t got on in time?
Thankfully Shirl and Karen had scrambled aboard on time and with passenger numbers still low due to covid travel uncertainty there were plenty of tables available and we settled down with a beer for the 3 hour sailing ahead.
The Irish sea was kind to us and a calm crossing meant our sea legs weren’t put to the test and we arrived in Douglas eager to have a quick look around and a cheeky beer or two.
The Ellin Vannin hotel was a short walk from the ferry terminal and the Brothers Gibb cheerily welcomed us to their town of birth as we passed by!
Bags and bikes were rapidly stowed in the room, Rock seemed suitably pleased at the prospect of sharing his room with his bike as well as Karen. In no time we embarked on a whistle stop tour of Douglas’s promenade. Currently undergoing extensive refurbishment the promenade is still proudly home to many of the original features and attractions going back to Victorian times. The Gaiety theatre was reputedly one of the finest theatres outside of London in it’s day and the Tower of Refuge on Conister Rock a short distance out into the bay is pivotal in the story of the birth of the RNLI. The lifeboat service which so many people owe their lives to began life in Douglas. Following numerous shipwrecks on the rocks which are submerged at high tide Sir William Hillary the founder of the RNLI proposed a sanctuary be built on the rocks and the poet Sir William Wordsworth christened it the “Tower of refuge” on his visit to Douglas, the island and sanctuary has been known by this name ever since. Every year at the lowest spring tide thousands of fundraisers still walk out to the tower to raise funds for the RNLI.
The evening ended with the inevitable trip to the towns’ Irish bar O’Donnells but to be fair it was a dispiriting affair with virtually nobody in the bar, this may have been down to the inability of the barman to serve up a decent pint of anything other than Guinness. After his 10th attempt to pull a pint of the locally brewed Okells IPA I gave in and accepted a Guinness in its’ place!
The weather held fair and we passed our time happily wandering the streets of Douglas and pottering round the town museum before ticking the “we tried the local ale” box with a bottle of Okell’s Pale Ale, only a 6/10 from me for this one I’m afraid, nothing notable about the flavour to encourage me to buy more than one.
We squeezed a 20km ride in on the afternoon whilst the girls checked out the shops. Just enough to check out the TT grandstand to get our bearings for the start of Sunday’s ride and to test the legs on a couple of steep climbs away from the promenade. All good, legs and bikes in full working order, or so we thought……
My planned Saturday night carb loading for the big ride on Sunday was forsaken for a protein overload courtesy of Rocky spotting Rio’s BBQ and Rodizio restaurant virtually next door to our hotel. The Brazillian BBQ was a chance for him to reminisce about fantastic meals he had enjoyed whilst working in Sao Paulo. Rio’s didn’t disappoint, for a fixed price of £32 we were treated to an all you can eat salad bar with a fantastic variety of salad and breads accompanied by a never ending supply of meats from the BBQ delivered to your plate directly from the sword like skewers used to cook them on the BBQ. The selection of chicken, beef, lamb and pork with a variety of marinades was absolutely superb perhaps not the perfect pre-ride dinner but we weren’t complaining.
It would have been rude not to try the Brazillian national cocktail – Caipirinha a powerful mojito like drink fuelled with fiery Cachaca alcohol and tempered with crushed ice, lime and brown sugar it was certainly not a drink to be taken lightly, extremely authentic was Rock’s judgement on the Douglas version of this Brazillian classic.
https://m.facebook.com/riosbbqiom/
So with our stomachs full of Brazillian meat and alcohol we took the short journey next door back to the hotel and to complete Rocky’s perfect night we were greeted by a bar full of locals at the hotel and live entertainment in the form of “Dickie Kelly” country and western singer. Now I’m no country and western fan and was sorely tempted to head off up the steep hotel staircase for an early night but I was cajoled into a pint of Keenan’s with a promise of being free to leave the gang to it if the music was as bad as I anticipated.
But no! Dickie was a great entertainer and could sing a bit to be honest, we stopped until late into the night entertained not only by Dickie but a few of the locals also, who perhaps weren’t as talented! A couple of Beetles songs from a guy who looked like he’d walked off the set of a 1960’s sitcom had Rocky struggling to hold back the giggles. However, in fairness when Dickie returned to the microphone and asked our Beetles fan to accompany his next song with his harmonica 60’s sitcom man was suddenly in his element, perhaps John Lennon’s Love me do riff was his musical inspiration!
When entering the Isle of Man Cycle challenge, you can complete 1,2 or 3 laps of the famous TT circuit in this normally closed road sportive but unfortunately due to the low number of entries this year presumably due to Covid-19 the police had refused to close the roads. The TT grandstand was an ideal headquarters for the event and just to prove what a small world we live in when Rocky asked if the mechanic had a track pump we could borrow he was pointed in the direction of a tall, impressively bearded, character who he immediately recognised as Sean who he had marshalled a road race with just a couple of weeks earlier.
The organisers warned us at the event briefing that the marshal at the Ramsey turning may direct us away from the mountain road to the summit of Snaefell if the wind and visibility was too poor and hazardous at the request of the police. We would instead have to take the coast road via Laxey if this was the case, reputedly as challenging a route but we really hoped this wouldn’t be the case we had come to ride the TT course and then go exploring the island.
The organisers set us off in groups of about 10 riders, our group was an eclectic mix, certainly not a bunch of out and out roadie racing snakes!
Now I’m not overly competitive but getting dropped by this motley crew was not something I was willing to countenance. My stealth combativity kicked in and after a couple of rolling hills where we would yo-yo with the rider on the folding e-bike the young rider let slip he had a 15 mph limiter active so with that information to hand the first long steady downhill we had we said a cheery goodbye to him and crossed our fingers that we would have enough of a gap on him not to suffer the ignominy of him passing us up the mountain pass when his battery power assistance would come into its’ own!
Next couple to be despatched were the athletic looking lads who as we suspected were on their first sportive ride and as the road kicked up about 15 km into the TT lap they said “we’re not gonna try and keep up with you up there, we’re knackered”
Except for a brief stop for jaffa cake refuelling courtesy of the organisers the next few kilometres absolutely flew by on wonderful cycling roads. As we neared Ramsey in the North of Island our thoughts were dominated by the Mt Snaefell climb that awaited us as soon as we turned away from Ramsey.
We pulled up at traffic lights in the town and exchanged pleasantries with local riders doing the sportive who stressed how careful we needed to be on the climb with the strength of the wind and poor visiblility obviously concerning them.
Unfortunately their fears were soon borne out as we exited Ramsey we were met with the event marshal waving frantically telling us the mountain road had been deemed too unsafe for the event and we were to take the coast road to Laxey instead.
The A2 provided more great cycling roads from Laxey back to Douglas and we were joined for a good few kilometres by a local rider in his late fifties returning to cycling after many years away from the sport.
Coincidentally his club jersey was identical to a Solihull CC jersey except for the club name obviously. He spoke enthusiastically about cycling on the Island and when we told him we were doing a hundred mile circuit he was delighted to tell us that the reason the Isle of Man has produced cyclists like Peter Kennaugh and of course the Manx missile himself Mark Cavendish was because it is hilly everywhere!
We were accompanied by a squally shower as we entered Douglas where we picked up the last few milestones and named bends of the TT course before arriving at the grandstand. We signed off the sportive, picked up our medals and certificates and spent a few minutes chatting with the other riders and thanking the organisers for putting on the event despite the difficulties caused by covid-19. We remarked that not climbing Snaefell or riding the full TT lap had given us the perfect reason to come back for another bash at their sportive. Our planned route took us passed our hotel where we dropped off the certificates and medals with reception before heading out of town looking forward to marine drive, the coastal route out of Douglas towards Castletown the Manx capital up until 1869.
Constructed originally for the Douglas Southern Electric Railway the former trackbed was declared unsafe in 1949 and was unused until a major project in 1960 which took two years to complete converted it to a spectacular road to drive or ride.
Due to subsidence once again making the road unsafe for vehicles we had the pleasure of riding this beautiful stretch of coast traffic free, just a shame the wind was trying to blow us back to Douglas!
With the weather improving and the fantastic Marine Drive behind us all disappointment from not tackling Mt Snaefell had gone from our thoughts but unfortunately the days’ biggest disappointment was just a 17% incline outside of the little village Crogga away.
No sooner had I joked with Rocky that I doubted the 17% sign was what he wanted to see there was a crunch, a snap and a bang from Rocky’s rear wheel and his legs were spinning but the wheels were rolling backwards!
Investigations beside the side of the road revealed the pawls in his freehub were no longer springing out and he had no drive forward at all. This was about as terminal a mechanical fault as you can get.
With no hope of a repair, Rocky was despondent at his ride being brought to an abrupt end at exactly the halfway mark. With a quick check of maps and Isle of Man steam train timetables the rescue plan was sorted. It was downhill virtually all the way from the crest of the hill we were on down to Santon railway station where the next train would take Rock to Port Erin where he could meet up with Karen and Shirl before catching the return train back to Douglas. Once we had got to the station and confirmed the train would take him and his bike to Port Erin I bade my farewell and began my ride to Port Erin alone.
The weather continued to improve with the occasional glimpse of the sun seeming to transform the colours of the sea with every turn. Rubbing shoulders with the islands airport I detoured across the spit of land that connects the very smart Castletown Golf Links to Derby fort before heading into Castletown. The fort was built by the Earl of Derby during the English civil war to protect the port of Derbyhaven which was busy in those times but is now quiet.
Castletown with its’ narrow streets and small fishing cottages by the quay is unsurprisingly dominated by Castle Rushen, a fortress and residence for the Kings and Lords of Mann. Built back in 1265 the castle was scene to sieges and battles between the Norse, Scots and English.
The wind was growing ever stronger on the Southern coastline with the waves busily bashing the sea defences as I cruised along the promenade into the centre of Castletown.
A quick look at the watch and I knew if I cracked on I would make the other side of the island and be in Port Erin just in time for Rocky’s arrival aboard Puffing Billy or whatever name his steam train went by. With the weather changing once again I was treated to moody views across the bay to Port St Mary, just a short spin later I was on the platform at Port Erin having beaten the train and the weather was once again warm autumn sunshine. Whilst waiting at the station for Rock the girls informed me they were tucking in to a Sunday roast at the Bay Hotel in Port Erin – not exactly the craft beer and cafe stop we had planned for!
The station cafe served up good food and excellent coffee and amusingly there was a “naughty corner” to banish Rock off to for breaking his bike with only half the ride done!
With my coffee and cake downed I was on my way, the delays had meant getting back to Douglas before dark was no longer certain, I had lights so this wasn’t a massive problem but it was certainly my preference to get back in the daylight.
No sooner had I left Port Erin the Garmin climbpro feature cheerfully advised me that a 6.5km climb awaited my cafe dulled leg muscles. As I climbed towards Dalby Mountain it was obvious there would be no stunning views from the summit as I nudged remorselessly up into the cloud cover above me. With no traffic at all and my riding partner heading back in the comfort of the train my mood turned into more of a getting the job done frame of mind than swashbuckling adventure mode. Still at this stage I wasn’t aware that this was still far more fun than Rocky was having! Rock had manged to break his free hub, destroy his cleats walking up hills whilst pushing his bike, put holes in his socks walking around Port Erin then to top things off had dropped his Garmin under the stream train resulting in an embarrassing request to the driver to reverse up a little bit to allow him to get his Garmin off the track beneath the train – you couldn’t make it up!
Descending off the mountain I was met with extremely strong winds on the Western coast around Dalby and Niarbyl but this just made the ride along the coastline even more invigorating, it was one of those sections of a ride that made you feel totally exhilarated and in total respect of the power and beauty of the natural world around you.
Peel on the East coast would be my turning point back towards Douglas and provided that moment which I have had on all of my century rides at some time where any doubts about fatigue or fitness failing were banished with a solid confidence that the legs would get the job done and see me back to the Hotel. A hundred miles on a bike is perfectly achievable for any rider with moderate fitness but there is always that nagging doubt, will the hills be tougher than I thought, will the headwinds be horrific, or will it just be “un jour sans” – a day without as the French would say, the day all cyclists dread, that day when your legs just don’t want to play.
Just a short ride from Peel and I was atop Tynwald Hill believed to be the site of the oldest continuous parliament in the world. Since the Norse Vikings settlers held parliament here over a thousand years ago the hill, which is now four tiers high, has been home to an open air parliament every year since. As the rain returned in a very light drizzle I was pleased I had worn my Orkaan short sleeve jersey and bib-shorts which had proved to be ideal for the varied autumnal conditions I had encountered all day. It was only a short ride back to Douglas now but unfortunately the detour earlier in the day had seen me already visit Laxey so I had no real desire to retrace my steps to complete the original route and plumped for a short ride back out of Douglas along the coast road and back to clock up the century.
I’d returned in daylight and ticked off another county with a truly memorable day out on the bike, it may not have gone to plan and I really felt for Rocky missing out on probably the most scenic parts of the island but, it had been a great way to see this little island and we both vowed to come back another day to complete the TT lap and see in a bit more depth everything the island has to offer. We had a couple of hours to spare before boarding the ferry the next day and after hunting out the statue of George Formby leaning up a lampost we enjoyed a sunny stroll along the promenade before heading home on choppy seas – A quite brilliant weekend.
Oh – and if your wondering about the title of this blog? In the Isle of Man if they are going North they say they are going down North and vice versa they are going up South – rumour has it that this was influenced by the geography in the south which is more hilly, I rather suspect its’ just a case of them wanting to be different!
Once again Komoot made route planning simple and effective. The route can be found here
The ride in numbers
162.5km Distance
2218m Elevation gain
7hrs 44 min moving time (21.0 km/h)
5 Torq Rhubarb and Custard gels
1 Flapjack
1 Cheese and Ham toastie
3 coffee stops
5 bottles of water
Lots of beer – If you include the whole weekends efforts!
13 different styles of Brazillian BBQ’d meat
0 punctures
1 trashed free hub
2 worn cleats
2 shredded socks
1 lucky Garmin
13 categorised climbs
2 Steam Trains
Finally if you got a spare quid in your pocket my justgiving page to raise vital funds for the Midlands Air Ambulance is now live Keith Jones is fundraising for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity (justgiving.com)
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