ON THE ROAD
The Isle of Man has a rich history of two-wheeled sport, whether that’s through motorised or pedal-powered bikes, so with the launch of the Isle of Man Cyclefest - a long weekend of cycling centred on a gran fondo - it tempted us over the water to Ramsey
The Isle of Man Cyclefest joins the growing trend for British gran fondos, but can it hold its own?
The world famous Isle of Man TT course is used to speed, but it wasn’t squeezing it out of me today. Not now, not after what I’d been through. In 2006 New Zealander Bruce Anstey set a new speed record of 206mph on the infamous Sulby Straight and a decade later my crawl down the same stretch of road, towards the end of a savage and sometimes chaotic first edition of the Isle of Man Cyclefest Gran Fondo, is comprehensively, definitively at the other end of the spectrum.
Cycling breeding ground
Travelling at speed on two wheels of any kind is second nature to these islanders. The century-plus old TT race has made the Isle of Man a church for motorsport enthusiasts, though cycle sport fans have had plenty to get behind too.
Like the Basque Country or Brittany, it’s a true cycling hotspot. For an island of just 85,000 people it’s unearthed a disproportionately large number of riders since the ball started rolling in the 1950s, most recently the likes of Mark Cavendish and Peter Kennaugh. Even one of the island’s non-pro cycling sportsmen, another non-native and some-time training partner of Cav, Cal Crutchlow, cycles 15,000 miles a year and could probably hold his own in the pro peloton if he wasn’t so accomplished on a different type of two-wheel racing, MotoGP. It’s a complicated brew, this success, but to quote a long-running Private Eye item, cycling is in the island’s DNA.
That said, the existence of a prestigious cycling event on the island has been missing since the demise of Manx International Cycle Week in 2003. This year changed that. The Manx Trophy, three laps of the 37.75-mile TT circuit that’s seen the likes of Eddy Merckx and Fausto Coppi pitch up down the years, returned in April under the guise of the Manx International Cycling Grand Prix, and was swiftly followed by May’s event for amateurs, the Isle of Man Cyclefest, which is what tempted Cycling Plus over the water.
This ambitious event opened with pro racing (the opening round of the Tour Series) on the Thursday night, followed on Saturday by a mountain bike race, a superb closed-road hill climb called Storm the Tower (pictured opposite is a rider suffering in that race) and the showpiece event, Sunday’s gran fondo, an 80-mile (mostly) closed road event.
Gentle start
Proceedings began at a leisurely 10am (take heed, sportive organisers – this is when your event should start too. Less of this 6am nonsense), heading out of the festival grounds at Milntown Estate in Ramsey, and taking a figure-ofeight-of-sorts around the island.
I’m never a good starter on the bike, it takes time – increasingly as I hurtle through my 30s – for every cog and piston to jolt into action, so a big pat on the back to the route planner for sending us into the flat region north of Ramsey for the opening 15 miles, rather than, say, straight up the TT mountain course to Snaefell, the highest part of the island.
With just 270 riders for the gran fondo, around a quarter of whom were racing, the start wasn’t the hyperactive frenzy of a typical mass start gran fondo, but a rather civil affair, cruising through Ramsey’s streets and heading north along the seafront. Organisers have a threeyear contract to stage the Cyclefest and with good backing, including headline sponsor Isle of Man Bank, they have ambitions to turn it into an event that attracts thousands, so I savoured the solitude while I could.
Dipping inland, we rose and fell along gentle back lane undulations, with a deep blue sky, pleasant temperatures and rolling green pastures. Flanked by ocean either side, were we really in the middle of the Irish Sea? This could have been the Azorean island of Sao Miguel in the middle of the Atlantic.
Before the first of the three major hill climbs, Druidale, my riding partner and I felt as though we were on our own private ride. That all changed on the climb, a fiendishly difficult, arrow-straight road that averages double digits in its first mile. By the time it relented, I was surrounded by riders, some on their bikes, most of them on foot, all squeezed back together with a clenching of the climb’s iron fist.
Thankfully a lovely, flowing descent followed for a mile or so. It was a cunning deception, as it viscously ramped up, all over again, to similarly suffocating levels. In boxing parlance, it’s a brutal onetwo punch, and I crashed to the canvas, but was able to catch my
We rose and fell along gentle back lane undulations, with a deep blue sky, pleasant temperatures and rolling green pastures Hedgehogs don’t stand much of a chance anywhere; on the Isle of Man they must be an endangered species
breath as I waited for my mate, who was about to be hit by the same low blow I knew was coming. Further down the road and this might have been a knockout, but 25 miles in, and while winded, we both survived the count.
From over 1000ft up, we threw ourselves with gusto into the descent to the first feed station at St John’s, startled into life after a genteel opening by the horrors of Druidale. There were plenty of horrors on the road, too, squished roadkill decorating the tarmac a frequent sight on these often speed limit-free roads. Hedgehogs don’t stand much of a chance anywhere; on the Isle of Man they must be an endangered species. You wonder if they’re evolving differently on the island, developing more fast twitch fibres in their little legs in a futile Darwinian progression to fend off flying bikers.
We almost suffered the same fate as the hedgehogs, just after the first feed stop where the course intersected at a T-junction with the front of the race, heading in the opposite direction. Marshals screamed at us to keep right, which must have been the opposite instruction to the racers coming the other way because they went left. An ugly coming together was somehow avoided.
Open road risks
This first misstep by the organisation was swiftly followed by the second, just past the 40-mile mark where, despite averaging a not-too-shabby 14mph, we were surprised to see the ‘open roads’ car hurtling past us. This compares unfavourably to other closed road British gran fondos; the Tour of Cambridgeshire, for example, has a limit of 13mph (on very flat roads). Along with many others, we would have to negotiate the remaining 40 miles on open roads. No big deal, we’d done it once or twice before, except it soon became apparent that not only had the roads re-opened, the marshals had left and the route signs had been collected. This would be more of an issue…
Responding to a cry of ‘left’ coming from behind us, we beat a hasty retreat back up the road to the turn-off towards Injebreck. Had we carried on we’d have eventually ended up on the Douglas promenade and our hotel, which at that moment we wouldn’t have protested too much about.
Looking to vent, I got chatting to a local rider, also pretty perturbed, who brought me good news and bad. The good news was that there was little chance of a catastrophic wrong turn between there and home – it’s just straight up, right at the main
road, straight up, left, left again, straight down and right… I’m the sort of person who gets lost on the way to my local shops, so I’m not sure that merited good news. The bad news was that the imminent climb of Injebreck is an absolute rotter and his portentous words were still ringing in my ears as the ramps began to increase with the reservoir on my right. Druidale is objectively the harder climb but at over 4km in length and far too many 1 in 4 ramps for comfort, Injebreck will break many at this point in a ride.
I chatted to a rider at the summit who’d been there 10 minutes, contemplating his next move. Our viewpoint looked down onto the road that we’d soon be climbing, but there was a whole lot of descending and climbing before we’d reach that point as he’d been watching how long it takes riders to reach it. Alternatively we could make a quick dash downhill through a field and save ourselves a bunch of climbing – it felt like we both wanted to, though neither wanted to admit defeat. So, after a brief descent we returned to the crossroads where we reached the summit of Druidale and were surprised but relieved to see one of the long lost marshals, who we’d thought had clocked off for the day. “A marshal? Fancy that?” I said, before he shot me a knowing look.
Could do better
After a brief excursion onto the TT course near Snaefell, we turned onto the A14, a much quieter back road into Ramsey. With flowing straights and silky smooth tarmac, and a delicious switchback towards the bottom of the descent, it was a
stunning finale to a day’s riding that BBC Five Live film critic Mark Kermode would describe as problematic. The coup de grâce came when we crossed the finish line and walked into the registration area to find all the signage stacked into neat piles. “I know a much better place for those,” I said loudly, to nobody in particular, tongue wedged firmly in cheek.
The Cyclefest has huge potential, not least in the fabulous route, the laidback, festival vibe and a variety of rides and races that all cyclists, whether you favour tarmac or dirt, can get excited about. As for getting the basics right, the organisers had a stinker – signage that was often either non-existent or too small to recognise; no downloadable map; marshals who, when they were there, were sometimes too distracted to actually direct you; no freebie refreshments at the finish; and no swag unless you count an Isle of Man Bank-branded plastic pen.
To make this the mass participation event they want it to be organisers need to give as much consideration to the rider coming home at the end as they do to the rider winning the £1000 prize for crossing the line first. Otherwise it’ll remain what it felt like this year – a fabulous road race for a select few, with everyone else an afterthought.
To be fair to the organisers they acknowledged all these issues to Cycling Plus and have taken on board feedback from riders, which they’ll feed into next year’s event. They admit to having overstretched themselves for the first edition, in particular the decision to bring the Tour Series over. It won’t return next year, which will put all focus on the amateur races.
In my view they got the hard stuff right and the easy stuff wrong. It’s got the raw ingredients – essentially a spectacular island – to be a special weekend of cycling, and we’re looking forward to these tweaks being made for next year. Otherwise riders will be beating a path to the exit faster than a TT rider tackles the Sulby Straight.