Here’s What It’s Like to Ride in the World’s Deadliest Motorcycle Race
It’s incredible how the brain adjusts to its surroundings, regulating and fine-tuning reactions to what’s happening around it—all to keep the mass of flesh and bones beneath it safe. And that becomes all the more incredible when traveling at 170 mph, on streets best described as backroads, begins to feel normal.
I’m nearly two weeks into my second year at the Isle of Man TT—the oldest and most famous motorcycle race in the world, and, easily, the deadliest. The speeds no longer faze me, nor, oddly enough, is the rate at which my BMW S 1000 RR reaches them.
That’s because, during this period, I’m living a life so far removed from modern society that it may as well be a movie. The same is true for everyone involved in the TT, be they riders, team members, visiting spectators, and local residents themselves.
The TT is a vortex that sucks in everyone around, and does so for a fortnight. The 37.73-mile TT Mountain Course is the longest circuit on the planet, weaving in and out of towns, past people’s front porches, and over Snaefell Mountain, with the top riders reaching over 200 mph.
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Imagine seeing a 250 hp race bike screaming down your local country road at that clip. It looks like reckless lunacy from the grandstands, but from the handlebars, it can be counterintuitively serene as the mind adjusts, slowing down your perception of time and space. To race the Isle of Man TT, you must have control of your emotions. You need every ounce of your mental capacity to keep your motorcycle on the grey strip rolling under your wheels. In fact, “stay on the grey bit, not the green bit” is a revered phrase from the man who tops the all-time winner’s list with 26 TT victories, the late Joey Dunlop, and its validity can’t be overstated.
I start this edition of the TT with the Wilson Craig Honda team, but I don’t end it there. Persistent mechanical issues culminate in three violently terrifying moments in which the Honda’s gearbox drops into the void between fourth and third gear—this during approaches to the daunting Greeber Castle, Doran’s Bend, and Barregarrow corners. Those three scares are too much for me and I decide to leave the team on the fourth night of practice, despite having no backup plan other than grabbing a pint.
I figure leaving the team with all my arms and legs in tact is a better option than riding a bike I no longer have faith in. Yet in a bout of good fortune, I’m offered a chance with the Kibosh Racing Team run by former dentist Andy Wilson and his son, Dr. Richard Wilson, a surgeon. The latter is on a new Honda CBR1000RR-R SP in the same classes that I was supposed to compete in for the Superbike, Superstock, and Senior TTs.
Richard’s old BMW S 1000 RR was lying around waiting for a rider, and I fit the bill. An hour later, my number 57 adorns the red-and-white bodywork, and three hours later, I’ve managed to qualify for all my races by the skin of my teeth.
Piloting a properly sorted 1,000 cc superbike around the TT Mountain Course is something few will experience in their life, and I’m aware of this. I try my best to soak in every second of the action from behind the BMW’s screen, while at the same time going fast enough so as to not make a fool of myself as the only journalist in a sea of full-time, professional racers.
This is the fastest edition in the 114 years the TT has been held. The great Peter Hickman, who won the Superbike and Senior TTs here last year, breaks the overall lap record in the second Superstock race with a scarcely believable average speed of 136.359 mph. That pace takes into account two near-dead-stop hairpins, countless second- and first-gear corners, and plenty of absolutely full throttle, sixth-gear sections. To thread the needle between the walls at such speed requires the precision of a surgeon (which must explain why Dr. Wilson rides so fast).
My results are not as impressive as Hickman’s four wins in 2023. The BMW’s electronics fail on the fifth lap of the Superbike TT, which is a real kick in the teeth after nearly 90 minutes of white-knuckle racing. But things improve, and I come in 34th place in the first Superstock race and 31st in the second. My hope to keep the momentum going with the main event, the Senior TT, comes to a grinding halt, though, when a gear-linkage problem causes me to retire the bike at the end of the second lap.
Sure, it’s an anticlimactic way to end my 2023 TT, but it could always be worse. At least I’m heading home to my wife and son, whereas Spain’s fastest road racer, Raul Torras Martinez, is not so fortunate. Martinez loses his life following a crash in the first Supertwins race, reminding us all that this racetrack has the sharpest of teeth.
You need to be selected to race the Isle of Man TT, and, yes, it’s a relic of a bygone era, but that’s part of its allure. As personal freedoms are eradicated on a daily basis across the world, this storied competition stands defiant. As for the participants, we all take part out of our own free will, that sacred choice, the import of which the Isle of Man TT magnifies.
Click here for more photos of the 2023 Isle of Man TT.
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