Touris trophy, we had always wanted to go to the Island. The epic nature of its exploits was ingrained, from a blurry childhood lost in the late 60s, in the translated chronicles of correspondent Mick Woollett, reread a thousand times on the parchment-like pages of Motociclismo when it was "the international magazine for all motorcyclists." Black leather Lewis suits and Cromwell helmets in the Hailwood-Agostini duels were static black-and-white images memorized for life in the strange race, on the opposite side of the pavement. Another era, another motorcycling, less circus in the Continental Circus. Sport in the cradle of "fair play" with two-color canvas advertising; Champion, Castrol, Dunlop or Ferodo on the asphalt two-way roads between Douglas and Ramsey; between Ballaugh Bridge and Creg-ny-Baa.
There, they raced at over 100 mph, with death as a passenger between curbs, houses and stone walls. Parlotti and Herrero were killed, but today they still dribble the quick chill on lines memorized to the millimeter. We had always dreamed of going to the Island, and now the time had come. A report on race week was the perfect excuse to embark on a different route. Honda lent a Shadow 600 for testing, which would accompany the muscular Harley Davidson Heritage Softail from '90. Without much time for preparations and with the anxiety of the asphalt and improvisation in our saddlebags, we set off for Somosierra on a threatening May afternoon, darkened as we crowned the 1,404-meter pass. With our rain suits flapping in the wind, we left Burgos for the Basque Country, illuminated by a sun that dried the road. The orange light of dusk sank in the west, prolonging our shadows in left turns. After passing Irún, darkness was total, and the fleeting border crossing led us into France, where endless straight roads were framed by the ghostly presence of poplars lining imagined fields on both sides of the road. Muscles stiff from the heat, rain, and twin-cylinder vibrations over the miles demanded a truce, and a Fina sign announced a stop for food and lodging. The gas station, its mini-bar, and the pine forest behind it completed a long 10-hour day on the highway. Edmundo Rivero whispered a tango from a pocket minicassette, under the starry sky that quickly faded into the subconscious. A veiled French sun dawned, blurring the shadows around Bordeaux. We had to be very wary of the gendarmes and their hungry radars, because the law is predatory with the inexperienced, and violations are paid instantly, under penalty of vehicle immobilization. They dozed, crouched behind their BMW Boxers, waiting to complete their monthly quota of fines as soon as possible. - Adieu mon ami gendarme. We left the boring and expensive toll highway and drove on forgotten secondary roads between Angouleme and Cognac; patched up roads that shone in the afternoon sun. Driving through small towns significantly slowed our average speed, and we opted once again for the toll roads to Paris, passing Tours, Blois, and Orleans. The speed increased on four lanes, and the hurricane-like passage of BMWs and Porsche Carreras elevated the category of the French vehicle fleet above a utilitarian European average.
THE SPACE-TIME EQUATION DOES NOT APPLY ON THE BRITISH ISLE OF MAN, A MYTHICAL PLACE WHERE MOTORCYCLING STARRED IN GLORIOUS FEATS.
The traffic jam around the great city of the Seine woke us from the rectilinear stupor we had been in for hours and, focused on deciphering the moving hieroglyphics, we forgot about the small tank of the Shadow, running on its minimal reserve in the midst of a maelstrom of traffic between guardrails. The shoulder was a ledge violently shaken by the passage of eighteen-wheel MAN trucks that made the three hundred kilos of the Harley vibrate as they passed 80 cm from our crouching butts. We were in that situation, with the rubber hose, the gas tap, and the bitter gulp, when we saw a red chopperized Sportster approach and stop next to us. Its rider gestured to us the exit to a three-level Scalextric that led to an industrial estate near Orly, where an Antar station provided us with fuel. Concentrating again on the labyrinth, we lost our way and headed for Senlis-Arras-Calais. Without realizing it, after the excitement of the episode, the cold unexpectedly made itself felt, although we held out for 100 more kilometers and on the plains of Péronne we entrenched ourselves to spend the night in the open, illuminated by flashes from the highway. The tense muscle of the journey did not relax, and the night became icy and spasmodic.
The first light of morning is pearl grey, and the static mists on both sides of the highway hint at the ghostly vision of fields sown with white crosses in memory of ancient battles: the dead of the Somme 1914-18. It's 10 o'clock at 10 degrees Celsius when, buffeted by unusual icy gusts in May, we arrive at the Calais crossing where we embark. The sea is turbid-brown and does not inspire confidence as the sturdy cavalry of the ferry begins its first propeller strokes. In the distance, the white cliffs of Dover can be seen, and Perfidious Albion approaches in a zoom at 18 knots.
It is freezing cold at Her Majesty's customs, however, the process is once again simple and we quickly head along the uniform pavements of the A-20 towards Folkestone, where the M-20 Motorway begins, heading northwest towards London. The tall grasses on the verges dance wildly to the rhythm of the whirlwinds and intermittent gusts coming from the north, while a shy sun, impoverished by the mists, blurs shadows. Traffic is dense but disciplined; a constant and uniform flow of vehicles spread across the six-lane motorway. Driving in the middle lane, we leave behind us vehicles with millions of kilometers, rust from the 70s punished by the severity of the climate on underbodies, doors and joints. Crusted cars of pure colors;
Escort, R-5, Fiesta, and some vans that would fail a strict ITV. Ford Transits infested with the cancer of corrosion and wet leprosy, with thousands of miles on their rusted axles. Anglias and Morris Minors, survivors of other decades, drove along cheerfully on the left at a steady 60 mph, a testament to their good maintenance and tuning. It is not uncommon to overtake a Jaguar or Bristol from the 30s and witness the visual and auditory spectacle of a lost era: locomotion and luxury on the asphalt. The police are present on the shoulder, but their punitive function is rarely noticeable. There is a certain permissiveness in speed limits, a tacit understanding between law, order, and the user; it is "British phlegm." We continue in the middle lane at a cruising speed of 140 km/h, pushing the throttle to 160 when overtaking, and very attentive to the right rearview mirror to let Porsche 924s or Jaguar XJS V-12s pass, which burst in a meteoric flash and disappear without further ado, flogging their hearts over 200 hp in a very fast, almost dizzying image. We also overtake eighteen-wheel trailers whose turbulence shakes us from left to right and makes it necessary to accelerate radically to avoid being absorbed into their dangerous wake. Around Maidstone, the Honda's reserve light comes on again; 20 kilometers until completely empty: 15, 10, 5 and no Gas-Station on the left lane of the M-20. The stop is imminent. Stop! The solution to the problem is on the opposite side of the highway. Without thinking twice and with Spanish inertia, we entered a forbidden direction racket. It was about 500 meters to the U-turn bridge, but in the middle of the illegal maneuver, the flashes of the blue and red lights of the law brought an imminent reality to the table: Problems. Once stopped, and with cynical politeness, they began to orally state the articles of the Code infringed, accompanied by the corresponding penalty for their violation. In a flash of lucidity, we played dumb from Chamberí and, with gestures and manipulated phrases, pointed to the tank and the gas station. These were moments of confusion in which victory was ours due to the local surprise. Her Majesty's representatives understood little of the barrage of words and had no choice but to turn a blind eye.
A leap, a jolt in their meticulously studied script of gestures, laws and condemnations, only to, moments later, offer to escort us to the service station using all their paraphernalia of flashes and then verify - in situ - the authenticity of our shortcomings. Downplaying the stroke of luck, we filled the tanks with 4 Stars and drove back onto the highway towards London. The M-25 is a very British M-40, widely used by all light and heavy traffic heading to or trying to bypass the city on the Thames. We circled Greater London which, always on our right, inhales and exhales its crown of blackened "smog," protecting its pale inhabitants from the absolute sun. Factories and depots fade into the distance and are framed under an opaque sky where air traffic denotes its incessant activity. We are in Heathrow, where DC-9s, 747s, and even the 11:30 Concorde hum with its supersonic roar, thundering on odd days around Surrey county. London recedes to the southeast and to the north the clouds churn quickly and black, menacing. Miles and kilometers, kilometers and miles in a straight line to Birmingham where the storm of water and darkness breaks out at tea time. We have to stop under a bridge to put on our rain gear, the waterproof plastic flapping in the gale during the kilometers of storm. The artificial night brightens for moments after fifty kilometers of downpour and an illuminated afternoon makes its way between two impressive cumulus clouds. The air, now clean, has exchanged its lash for the logical breeze of cutting the wind at 140 km/h without fairing. In Croft, a radiant sun shines in vivid yellow as we turn west on the M-621, breathing the humid proximity of the Liverpool River. The port city receives us resplendent and coppery in the afternoon light, and the streets, brilliant from the received water, reflect a pure blue sky. The docks are empty and among its abandoned warehouses, an exhausted activity, as if from another time, is breathed. The old information booth suffers on its worn greenish wooden boards the passage of years and the storms of the Irish Sea. It is closed and on a yellowed sign, the ferry schedules can barely be read. Today it is too late for boarding and our tires roll indecisively towards rest on cobbled streets, between port buildings closed tight. The bright and sad city does not have much to say and its neighborhoods denote a provincial feel. One can guess a nineteenth-century splendor that perhaps had in its structure two docks from where the Blue Star liners departed for New York and Boston. Today, alone and desolate, the Birkenhead ferry sails every hour on the short and tedious journey between Liverpool and the opposite bank of the Mersey estuary.
The center is a large, now dead, shopping street, full of common places: Marks & Spencer, McDonald's, Wimpy, a few pubs in "happy hour" and Mathew Street, where perhaps some nostalgic person can hear the distant echo of the Beatles inside a fake Cavern for tourists, although that resonance, distorted by time, only serves to lull a sad afternoon/night among pints of warm beer.
The morning appears clean through the windows of the bed & breakfast where we slept, exhausted from the rectilinear monotony of the British "motorways". The Lady of Mann awaits us and the excitement becomes apparent upon arriving at the boarding esplanade. There are hundreds of machines in logical and orderly rows. Japanese products abound in all their variants, although BMW and Ducati are also well represented. License plates indicate origin; D, GB, NL, B, French and many Italians. Norwegians, Swedes and Danes arrive; new Vikings wanting to reconquer the island that was once theirs in the 10th century. Some Germans board amidst the sputtering of two-strokes and the rotund sound of the boxer; BMW with sidecar and a Bultaco Metralla with a Düsseldorf license plate. From a rusty Ford Transit, the crown jewels are being unloaded: Triton Wideline 650 and BSA A-10 café racer. Cult machines ridden by veteran English rockers. Tea, quiffs and Gene Vincent in black leather. The golden age of the purest motorcycling: England, 1950s.
They all settle into the belly of the packet boat, an old iron seasoned by countless crossings through a dark sea. When the hold is full, the remaining motorcycles are arbitrarily tied to the deck. It's an oily, roaring landscape; machines embraced by the great machine. The gasoline falls silent and the diesel slowly propels the 4,000 tons of the old ferry, where other stories are whispered, real or invented feats by the knights of the asphalt, a different motorcycle dynasty, not common in other lands; Spain, for example. A brotherhood on pilgrimage to the blessed holy land of speed: The Isle of Man Tourist Trophy.
Four hours later, with contained emotion, land is sighted to the west. The docking maneuver brings us back to reality after the brief, mystical, three-meter wave-laden, and once again warm beer-laced voyage.
“There they raced at over 100 mph, with death as a passenger between curbs, houses and stone walls. Parlotti and Herrero were killed, but today they still dribble the quick chill on lines memorized to the millimeter”
The magical island does not seem still from the railing, buffeted by high tide, and the ramp greets the breakwater of the port. The holds of the Lady of Mann vomit white smoke from imperfect combustion, and the mechanical hearts of the Paneuropean, GSX-R 750 or BMW K-100 regain life. Some relic of the empire coughs and limps, while the distracted Bobbies are bored by routine. The spectacle is magnificent in noise, smell, grease and other noble materials.
The smoky flow disperses upon reaching Douglas promenade, where a multitude of small Victorian-style buildings look out onto a kilometer-long, ugly beach that borders the city. The rhythmic and uniform sound of the sea is constantly altered by excursions beyond the red lines of the rev counters of Japanese multis, which howl at 12,500 revolutions per minute. Every now and then, a twin roar - Made in England - balances the hyper-acute tone of Suzukis and Kawasakis with its bass. The coming and going is constant; colors, glitters, lights and tones in a common denominator of motorcycles, motorcyclists, 100 percent motorcycling, full-time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week from June 1907.
The air is clean, cold, and the setting sun gleams and reflects on the perfect chrome, drawing imagined scenes in the pubs overlooking the bay. Hundreds of customers, gentlemen of leather and asphalt, drink Newcastle Brown Ale from their transparent bottles in the late afternoon. If you drink, don't drive, but if you have to drink, make it Newcastle.
We have to reach Ramsey, also on the east coast but 20 miles north of the capital. The road is narrow and cambered to two waters. The pavement is perfect, abrasive and non-slip; dark grey and delimited at all times by menacing curbs. The line must be clean, without amendment, because errors are paid for with the sharp cobblestone. The paint is dense and bright, complemented by fog-proof retroreflectors of predictable utility. The immemorial route cuts between wind-swept hills and small valleys shaded by birches, all framed by boundary walls that, literally glued to the asphalt, drown any escape. We cross Baldrine and Laxey surrounded by their tiny houses terraced to the medieval road with a greed for space, and upon exiting a sharp right turn, we are surprised by the luminous presence of a crowded pub, just after crossing Laxey River. It's called Coach & Horses and is the perfect place to connect with the locals. We stop.
In the adjacent meadow, the exhausts of a Club 59 gathering roar, full of café-racers fraternizing. A black and white image of satin leather and polished metal. Inside, the chords of rock & roll enthrone the rhythm of engines tuned with Eddie Cochran's 4x4, amidst quiffs and pints of beer. A few Newcastles later, we enter the conversation, in an accented and gestural way, facilitated by the native multilingual camaraderie. A veteran encased in leather is interested in our origin. - Ah, Spain. Not many come to the island. '69 was very good; Santiago Herrero, yes, a blond guy who raced an Ossa Stroker against the official Yamahas. Incredulous and surprised by the comment, amidst the bustle, Vince Taylor and the Newcastles, we continued listening to the expert. - Yes, he died in '70 at mile 13. Very good, the last Spaniard to race the TT. At that moment, Jerry Lee was singing "Chantilly Lace." It was enough. We toasted again and made our way through the vociferous crowd towards the door. Outside, the Club 59 machinery exhibition continued, whose honorary president, Reverend Father Bill Shergold, in the early 60s, managed to lay the foundations for an extravagant association of rockers, between chain attacks and collective penances from North Circular Road to the parish of St. Mary's, Paddington Green, in the most pop London of 1963. Ora et labora: and meanwhile, they tuned their Triumph T-120 Bonnevilles in the bustling esplanade of the Ace Café.
We continued along the narrow, uphill road, passing tiny villages; Dhoon, Glen Mona, until we reached the sea again in Ramsey Bay, lashed by severe northeast gusts from Scotland. The hotel was comfortable, and in its parking lot rested several purebred high-class machines: a Norton Commando "Yellow Peril" (a special early 70s preparation), alongside a Laverda 750 SF-2 and several BMWs from all eras. After settling in, we went down to the hotel bar where, under the shelter of a few Guinnesses, we cleared out the crowded race calendar; seven days full of smoking events. Everything had actually started a week earlier, with morning private practice waking the island from its winter slumber. Although the starting flag, the genuine rocket blast into the purest motorcycling fun, erupted on "Mad Sunday"; a curious and dangerous, unavoidable event for any motorcyclist at the Tourist Trophy. The circuit used for the official races - daily local roads connecting various towns, closed to ordinary traffic for the exclusive use of two-wheeled enthusiasts who dared to carve it, with no speed limit whatsoever, during the early hours of a different Sunday.It's not uncommon for one of the most classic TT souvenirs to be a t-shirt with the inscription: "I survived Mad Sunday." Everything unfolds normally; a minor scrape here and there, a few injured to varying degrees, and a regrettable fatality or two. It's a calculated and accepted risk.
At our latitude, 54° 05' N, the nights are short, and by five in the morning, there's enough light for official practice to begin. Thus, from a drowsy slumber in the early hours, one can hear, in the distance, the four-cylinder howls of Japanese superbikes ascending the mountain along the winding ramps, from Gooseneck to Guthrie's Memorial.
We need to pick up our accreditations in Douglas, in the press room of the main building located right on the starting straight, so we head south early on a clear, cold, sunny morning. The traffic, mostly motorcyclists, is constant, up and down, in search of ideal locations to watch the race. The yellow license plates with black characters indicate British origin, exuding highway mastery in their disciplined movement, without histrionics or dazzling cut-offs with the throttle. The Germans, omnipresent and more boisterous, have signs in their own language, relentlessly stating the direction of travel. "Remember, drive on the left." The right is for overtaking or crashing. We pass some "torries" (small delivery trucks), mostly beer trucks, and upon reaching Douglas, we make a wide detour to bypass the track where a heat of the Ultralightweight-125 cc category has begun. Attracted by the unnerving and high-pitched noise coming from the track, we clamber onto a black slate wall to see that on the other side, about 90 centimeters away, the pure competition unfolds, without cushioned run-offs or high-tech inflatable protections. The chilling speed at which the interminable descent of Bray Hill, down to Quarter Bridge, is negotiated, produces a different sense of danger. At 200 kilometers per hour on a track no more than 5 meters wide and hemmed in by sharp slate walls, any mistake means death, and confidence is a safety valve to ward off fear. Upon arriving at the "paddock" and after collecting our "no limit" passes, we ascend to the grandstand on the straight, which until a few years ago was wooden, from where we enjoy a magnificent view. All the open-air garages with mechanics and team managers, and opposite, the legendary waxed scoreboard with the variable times of each rider at the different key points of the circuit, still chalked by a legion of boy scouts. Behind the gigantic checkered board, and sheltered behind elms and cypresses, Douglas's large cemetery bears witness to "the greatest motorcycle race in the world." Life and death separated by a worn brick wall.
We contemplate the smoky spectacle without losing sight of details and gestures. It is a race against the clock and adversaries; there is no room for shrewd infiltrations in the treacherous bends, and participants must have the circuit engraved in their minds, meter by meter, yard by yard, to fight against themselves in a game of memory and precision. In the reports, beneath the helmet, an intense, extraordinary concentration is evident, and while the assistant cleans the visor of embedded insects, rival times and strategies are whispered by the "team manager" to the rider, who, with a lost gaze, assents, eager to feel again between his legs the docile beast of feverish explosion. The speech ends, and with a snap, the man-machine binomial moves away, pushing relationships to their limits in an echo-less howl towards pure speed.
It's time to enter the parc fermé, which, open to the general public, is bustling with activity. Green-carpeted by spontaneous grass, it's strewn with small vans with their rear doors open to the civilized curiosity of the connoisseur. A single "motor-home" stands out in black in the background; it's the Rotary Norton Team. Dozens of tents serve as improvised workshops where private machines waiting for the track are sheltered and sleep. A large tent stands centrally as a pub, and inside the hustle and bustle is noticeable, and the beer warm. The crowd is varied; riders, mechanics, press, fans; all form a disparate sporting community. "For the love of the sport," one could read on Mike Hailwood's fairing. An extinct religion whose worship survives in this isolated, uncontaminated corner, perhaps despite itself, by the advertising and circus-like woodworm of other more flamboyant competitions. Outside the tent, the menacing clouds coming from Ireland cross the sky swiftly towards the northeast, in the direction of Scotland.
Text by Edi Clavo, Ruta 66.
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