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To Scandinavia. But first….
- Jun 3
- 9 min read
Updated: Jun 8
…......a job to do on the Isle of Man
By Jon Newey: Retired Architect, Blood Bike rider, Adventure traveler - with Tigger, Triumph Tiger 800 XRX.
If you’ve been following Tigger’s travels from the beginning you’ll know that it wasn’t supposed to be like this: The original plan was for me to ride Tigger round the world.
In the original plan, I fancied going west, west, and further west until I eventually got back home, a bit like Ewan and Charley did 20 years ago except in the opposite direction. If you have followed Tigger’s travels from the beginning then you’ll know that the original plan, let’s call it Plan A, didn't make it across the start line.
Firstly, shipping a motorcycle across the Atlantic isn’t as easy as it may have seemed. Secondly, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the resultant sanctions against Russia, meant that more than half of the intended route suddenly became off-limits. Thirdly, alternative east-west routes were stymied by some crucial international borders remaining closed long after the end of the Covid pandemic. And finally the fall-out from Brexit has caused passport-related problems for Brits in various key places around the globe.
So….I needed a Plan B.
Plan B. Plan Beautiful: Head off to each of the compass points in turn, taking Tigger as far as the various restrictions (and my own limitations given that I’m not getting any younger) will allow.
And so, for Big Beautiful Adventure number one, Tigger and I began at the westernmost bar on the Atlantic coast of Ireland and rode all the way across to the easternmost bar on the Black Sea coast of Romania. That’s the EU’s biggest possible bar crawl. From there we carried on further east into Bulgaria and Turkey, before eventually doubling back through Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia. What a ride! We finished off by crossing the Alps on the Grossglockner Pass, riding through Austria and Germany and heading back home to Scotland from there.
The second Big Beautiful Adventure took us south. Making our way down through Portugal and Spain we took the one-hour ferry over the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa. Africa! A few weeks spent criss-crossing the Atlas mountains and shimmying round the shirt-tails of the Sahara took us close to the border with Mauritania, before looping back through Essaouira and Casablanca (“Of all the gin joints…” etc), back across to Spain, over the Pyrenees, into France and home. You cannae whack it as they say round here. Fantastic!
Which brings us to the here and now. Big Beautiful Adventure number 3. It’s time to go north.
Obviously Scotland is already quite a long way north to begin with, but there are places even further north that I’ve yet to explore. Can one really call oneself an Adventure Motorcyclist if one hasn’t been to Nordkapp? Or hasn’t blasted along the black gravel roads of Iceland? Or ridden a lap of…Lapland?
So Tigger is serviced – oil, tyres, clutch cable, chain, sprockets. Saddle bags are packed. To begin with we’re not going north because there aren’t any ferries to Europe from Scotland these days. So I will have to head south into England first. In any case I have a big detour planned. It’s the end of May and the Isle of Man is gearing up for TT fortnight and I have a job to do there.
I’ve been to the TT races before. It’s an awesome spectacle and an amazing all-round festival for everything bike-related. It’s a bucket-list event for petrol-heads from all over the world. The last time I went it rained so much that I didn’t see a single racing bike go past. This time I’m doing something a bit different. I’ve registered myself as a Race Marshal, and I will be marshaling two evening sessions during Practice Week.
It’s an early start from home. The ferry from Heysham to Douglas will leave at 14:00. Tigger and I need to be there 90 minutes before it goes. It’s a 4-hour ride from here to Heysham, give or take. It’s motorway all the way. It's not the most exciting ride ever. We cross from Scotland into England. It is windy and wet as we cut through Cumbria. Before long Tigger is parked in the quay-side queue for the Steam-Packet ferry company.
As expected there are hundreds of bikes and bikers going across to the island today. Waiting in line behind me is an American called Chip. About my age, maybe a little older, he’s riding a UK-registered Dakar 650. He tells me that he has a pal in Scotland who keeps the bike for him so that he can fly over from the States from time to time and ride it. He went to Romania and Bulgaria one year, Italy another. After this visit to the TT he’s heading for Morocco. He’d like to ship the bike back to the States after that but import restrictions say ‘no’, so he plans to sell it and buy an identical US registered one when he gets home. We swap stories of places we’ve both been and I commiserate with him about the difficulties of shipping bikes across the Atlantic. Been there, failed to do that!
The ferry is a new one, the Manxman. There are teething problems but nothing too serious. Bikes are packed in so tight that saddle-bags squish on footpegs and mirrors mash on bar-ends. A German lady on a big GS has to remove one of her enormous panniers to get Tigger untangled. Everyone is in a good mood, though. It's a four-hour crossing. The sea is as smooth as a millpond and by early evening Tigger is rolling down the metal ramp onto Douglas Quay. We head left, and then uphill round the outskirts of the town before joining the TT course at Quarterbridge. The course is just normal roads, of course, which get closed to traffic for part of each day during TT fortnight for use as a race track. The 37.75 mile-long lap encircles most of the top half of the island. You can tell when you’re riding on the course because stone walls and lamp-posts are protected along the way using foam padding and bales of straw. I’m not sure I would want to fall off and hit any of these at my sedate 40mph, never mind at four times that speed….
I’m booked into a campsite on the far side of the island. It has a beach facing west over the Irish Sea. On sunny days the sun puts on a fiery show as it settles into the salt-water over the horizon. It is a nice place to be. I sign in, choose a flat grassy spot, pitch my tent and relax.
I have an early start the next morning. The roads will close at 10am and before that I need to get back to Douglas. I have to get to the paddock behind the start/finish line, find the TT Marshals marquee, sign in there and collect my warrant card, jacket and hat. I grab an egg and bacon bap from the campsite’s café for breakfast and then trace the route back to the east side of the island. I park up, sign in at the marquee, and hey-presto: I’m a marshal!
I’m not entirely sure what I have let myself in for. I’ve never marshaled anything before. The online training course only took me 20 minutes to complete. I’ve selected ‘Sector 1’ as my marshaling area and I’ve been told to report to Braddan church for tomorrow’s session. I’m given a What-three-words location. That’s it. Meanwhile, the rest of today is free. I wander through the paddock. I say hi to John McGuinness as he goes past me on an electric scooter. Connor ‘Conrod’ Cummings is signing autographs. Ian ‘Hutchy’ Hutchinson is posing for selfies with fans. Peter ‘Hicky’ Hickman is showing people round his marquee. Visiting bikers see my jacket and hat, assume that I can answer complicated questions about race times, places to park and such. I confess that I have no more idea than they do.
At 10am the roads are closed and the first practice sessions get under way. Twenty minutes later it starts to rain, the Clerk of the Course calls a halt, and with that the day’s racing is done. Typical Isle of Man. The TT is a dangerous race at the best of times. Racing here on wet tarmac is out of the question. It’s not just the wet tarmac that causes problems, though. Part of the route goes over ‘The Mountain’. That’s the hilly section on the final sector, the road from Ramsey back to Douglas. On this section bad weather can cause fog and high winds. Riding a motorbike at 150+ mph on narrow country roads in such conditions would be suicidal. More importantly, though, these kind of weather conditions make it impossible for the rescue helicopter to fly. No helicopter means no racing.
The roads are re-opened to the public so I ride my own lap of the course. It takes me one hour and sixteen minutes to get round. Michael Dunlop lapped it last year in seventeen minutes. Seriously. Seventeen. Minutes. In the evening I head over to Peel to have dinner with some friends who are holidaying in the south part of the island. By the time it gets dark I’m back in my tent.
Next day the roads are due to close at 6pm. I amuse myself for most of the day, visiting museums and castles and generally exploring the island. By 5:30pm I’m at Braddan wearing my jacket and hat and awaiting instructions.
The first job is to put barriers across various side roads to keep traffic off the course. Then we shepherd any straggling pedestrians behind the barriers. We have flags and fire extinguishers at the ready. I’m stationed a little way along the track with an experienced marshal called Carl. We patrol our 200m-ish section of the course, removing any loose debris, sweeping away any bits of gravel. The safety car goes past. Flags at the ready and WHAAA the first bike belts past us six feet away. At most race tracks in the UK there are noise restrictions. There are no noise restrictions at the TT so the bikes all run with open exhausts. Man are they deafening! I have earplugs at the ready but we need to be able to hear the walkie-talkie so it’s a case of fingers in ears whenever you see a bike coming. Jeepers they are faaaast! These riders are crazy people! WAAAA. WHAAA. Then the sidecars go past. EEEEEEEEOOOO. They have 600cc engines revving at 16,000 rpm. Those poor little engines are dragging the outfit and two people at 120mph. Sidecar engines tend to blow with regularity. Watch out for oil on the track! Keep the cement dust handy! The sidecar passengers perform insane acrobatics inches above the tarmac. There’s no spectacle quite like it.
Today’s session is three hours long. By the end my feet ache and my ears are ringing but it’s the best ring-side view you’ll ever get. Tonight Dean Harrison managed to average 133mph on his first lap from a standing start. Another record broken.
Sadly poor Hicky had a nasty ‘off’ which ended his TT campaign for this year. He was battered and bruised but OK after a free helicopter ride to Noble’s hospital. He was very lucky, and very thankful to all the volunteer marshals and medics….
Eat, sleep, repeat. The next evening I’m at a different location marshaling with Nina, Raquel, Sally and Kelvin. I’m given the specific task of moving a fallen rider off the racing line if need be. Other marshals will move the bike.
I’ve previously done the ‘Biker Down’ course. In a normal road crash you would not move a fallen rider unless they were in danger. Here a fallen rider is always in danger, so they get moved, fast! Grab the leathers at the neck and drag! Fortunately, this new skill isn’t needed today. The session passes without incident. That’s how the marshals like it. If there’s nothing for them to do then everyone’s done their job right.
And all of a sudden that’s it. My two ‘novice’ marshaling sessions are complete. I have one more day to spend on the island before heading back to the ferry. I decide to make the most of the various discounts available to me as a registered marshal. I visit the motor museum at Jurby. I get 20% off food and coffee in various places. I log in to TT+, the online tv channel for the TT, and use my free access code. For more experienced marshals there are discounted ferry tickets so maybe I’ll qualify for those next time. Taking part as a marshal is well worth the effort if you feel like giving it a go one year. Each race session needs 500 marshals and the organisers are always crying out for more volunteers.
And then it’s my final day on the island. My phone wakes me at 05:30 because I have to strike camp and ride across to the ferry port for 07:15. I roll up the tent, stuff Tigger’s saddle bags, pull on my helmet and leathers, and press Tigger’s start button.
The campsite has gradually filled up with more and more tents over the past couple of days. Everyone’s still sleeping so I chug slowly up to the main road, and make my way back to Douglas. The ferry port is crowded with bikes - bikers who, like me, have been here for practice week but can’t stay for race week. Deep inside the ferry the bikes are being packed too close together again. I’m not overly precious about Tigger’s paintwork. He’s tough, he can look after himself, but not everyone feels that way about their Multistradas or their GS1300s. Tempers rise. Arms are waved. But all the bikes get strapped down and before long we’re off. Off back to the UK mainland.
So where next? Once this ferry docks at Heysham I’ve got a couple of days to ride across England, visiting friends and family along the way, before heading to Harwich for a ferry across to Holland. And then I can really start heading north!
Scandinavia beckons!
Tigger miles in 2023 = 8,024
Tigger miles in 2024 = 6,259
Tigger miles in 2025 so far = 668
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