1999 Yamaha R1

When Madonna said “I touch myself”, for many people that was the end of it. Of-course, what she actually meant was “I’d love to ride pillion on an R1 and, while that would be much better than sex, I’d also like to meet any R1 riders for fully penetrative, cautiously unprotected fun. No pressure.” And I had a hunch that it might take her to the 2002 IOM TT.

The weather was pretty bad on the way up to Heysham, but all I could think about (apart from Madge’s flexibility) was “Will I be killed or, worse, embarrassed on Mad Sunday?”. The guys at the motorway services were up beat. It was my first time to the TT and I guess they could tell I was in need of bit of a boost.

“You’ll never make the ferry now.”

The Mannin Hotel in Douglas proved a convenient location from which to launch my assault. As I headed out on the Friday morning it was dry and warm, and it didn’t take long to find the TT route. In fact I’d been on it for about 5 minutes, thanking the Lord that people didn’t have to race on such roads, when I noticed the occasional cushion taped to a lamp post, the odd throw-rug over a phone box, and the various signs entreating competitors to veer left or right.

These guys must be certified nutters, I reasoned.

The R1 had just been serviced and was going pretty well. The EXUP valve was seized solid, the tacho needle was jerking around like an epileptic Brownian particle, and I hadn’t checked the tyre pressures for almost two years. BAU, SNAFU etc.

On the down-side, the front pads had been replaced, and there was some risk of the massive braking improvement lasting the weekend before plummeting back to normal. I reassured myself that the DOT4 had never been replaced and was mostly a solution of air, and that the original hoses were bulging hugely along their carefully misrouted lengths. For a place like the Island, I figured it was important to know one’s bike intimately. I didn’t need any surprises.

The R1 proved itself the perfect tool for the IOM’s challenges, enabling me to accelerate wildly on the straight bits and slow down to walking pace for anything approaching a bend. I’d had some success with point and squirt techniques in other walks of life and the R1 allowed me to do it even faster.

Inexplicably, I caught up with two 2002 R1s (probably being run in) just as they were starting to get a bit of a move on round the mountain section. I immediately dialled in full chat, intent on arriving at unknown bends far faster than I was capable of negotiating them. Visibility on the mountain was good (or would have been had I not just taken a mate’s advice about Brasso being great on visors), and it was the work of moments to under-brake the other bikes and run wide up the side road at Creg Na Ba. Realising how poorly the circuit had been designed, I decided cowardice should be the better part of valour and cruised sedately back towards civilisation, head held as high as my aching neck would allow.

Up to this point there had been no sign of Madonna herself, although a number of her songs had been listed on jukeboxes around the island, surely a sign that she was around there somewhere.

The Friday held a further 3.5 laps, and Mad Sunday another 3, which would both have been more if we hadn’t had to stop every few miles for the emergency services to scrape people up. Even with the R1 running a bit wider than I thought it should, its power and good manners almost made up for my incompetence, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t embarrass myself too much. There was the trapping of the foot under the right peg round the first decent corner on the mountain, and the involuntary overtaking of about 5 other bikes approaching a narrow bridge when I left braking a smidgen late, but all in all I felt fairly good about myself and the bike. Mad Sunday was so busy that speeds were much reduced from Friday anyway. More like normal UK mainland, really.

By 6pm on that first day I was ready for a shower and a couple of beers. Inevitably, impatience got the better of me and I faced the bright lights of Douglas smelling much like a toilet in a Greek tourist resort. The R1 had performed flawlessly, and now stood on the kerb across the road from the hotel amidst a sea of almost identical bikes. They shoal like sardines, I thought aloud, for protection from opportunist thieves and other predators, no doubt.

Later that evening, imagine my elation to learn that the basement of the hotel contained live strippers. £5 entry proved to be a rip off, but I didn’t know it at the time. The rest of my brief holiday comprised the grandstand for the Senior TT and the sidecars, enough lager to kill a whale, falling over while trying to hold up car tyres in some daft bar competition, and marginally better exotic dancing establishments. If Ms Ciccone was there, I didn’t see her.

So that’s about it. I remain a big fan of Madonna (and have the solicitors’ letters to prove it), and next year’s TT will again see a svelte 18st drunk leering hungrily at some of the ugliest strippers in the western world. And I can’t think of a better companion than my R1. Unless Madonna’s reading this.