So this is it for this trip, the final day. The boat is about 7pm so unfortunately that means no viewing of the practice session tonight. That’s one of the bad points on coming over for Practice Week from Northern Ireland – the sailings aren’t perfect, but I suppose there is no way round it unless the Steam Packet put on an 11:00pm sailing – Hint Hint…
On getting packed up the hotel kindly offered to look after my gear and panniers so I could go and enjoy the mountain again – just another reason why I absolutely will go back to this hotel without any qualm.
After a meet up with the guys in Douglas, some breakkie and a quick walk around the town and a catching of the sights it was time to head out back out towards the track.
It was on this walk around the town that I called into the RoadSkin pop up store and purchased myself a nice Roodskin motorcycle hoodie (which I have been wearing regularly ever since) and a pair of jeans (which I have yet to pull on) – the pop up store saving me well over £100 on these two items alone, oh and I picked up a couple of neck warmers too.
(Long Term Review to follow on the RoadsSkin Gear)
The rest of the morning was spend was taking a walk through the pits, taking some photos and watching the teams working hard getting the hard their bikes ready for the next session. Now that the practice sessions were well and truly underway the teams were working hard on their prep and the pits were in full swing it was awesome!
Gallery : Day 4 – The Pits :
After another ridiculously tasty burger I took myself off exploring the Island again. This time I headed towards Peel for one big ancient reason – The Castle. As part of the 2016 Adventure Bike Rider Website Challenge I was visiting and photographing Castles. Castles were listed from all over the UK and Ireland but nothing from the Isles. As I was on the Isle of Man I thought it would be rude to not visit Peel Castle and even though it carried no points have it added to my ABR Challenge Record – Have a look at it if you are interested in that sort of thing – there is also a great map detailing the locations of all the mentioned Castles.
Gallery : Peel Castle, Isle of Man :
So there we have it, my first trip to the Isle of Man for the TT. This is so easy to summarise, it is awesome! Will I be back? Yes! That is all.
Actually the second the 2017 ferries were released I was booked back on them, as soon as the hotel was taking bookies I was booked back in. At the time of writing this it is 100 days to the North West 200, that means it is pretty much 114 days to the Isle of Man TT and I am excited! See you soon 2017 Isle of Man TT Races.
UPDATE : One other thing. On my way home I picked up a copy of MCN to read on the ferry. I generally like MCN, I read it a lot, however this was disappointing…
Near the start of the paper the Editior publishes this…
It screams of ‘Yeah Yeah, Guy Martin, we don’t need you’ but then you have this…
So yeah yeah Guy Martin we don’t need you at the TT – but hey readers make sure you buy our Guy Martin Special Edition!
Then 2017 happens. Read the article again, especially the bit about the bloke wearing the John McGuinness cap wandering through the pits. Well now in 2017 John McGuinness and Guy Martin are Honda Team mates. There is already a huge buzz about the return of Guy Martin to the TT and guess what MCN have changed their tune… and Guy Martin is back on the front cover. I know it is their job to sell copies – and I will continue to buy it, but come on stop treating your readers like idiots, and stop the attempts at headline grabbing. You’ve got the market – treat your readers and your cover stars right and you’ll keep it. Don’t and you wont!
And my opinion – it’s already pretty obvious from my postings throughout this blog – Let’s Go Guy Martin!
