TT 2022 ??

[Bandits]

Just now, Passing Time said:

Have you started drinking extra early today?

It appears you have though. There’s quite a few saddo’s on a rampage in this thread today. 

[Passing Time]

Just now, Roxanne said:

Is this where I get to make my joke about the four skin divers?

Definitely better than the muff variety...🤭

[Meoir Shee]

1 hour ago, Banker said:

The police have mentioned they came off cycle tracks but must have been aware of TT & rules, anyway ignorance of law is no defense!

I can categorically state I have come up from the Narradale boards to the East Mountain Gate, turned left and dropped into Ramsey, wondering why the road is quiet only to discover the road was closed from the Gooseneck due to an accident on the veranda.  By the letter of the law, the road was closed but I was totally oblivious.  Not the same circumstances but it is easier than you think when you come off an off road section onto the road.  I don’t understand why this context involved going the ‘wrong way’, that bit doesn’t add up.

[Shake me up Judy]

I respect Max Power's view on this as on most things, but I wonder if others who've survived major trauma feel the same ? Do the families ? Surely most live out quiet lives and try to rebuild their shattered lives. Who knows what they really feel ? Could others adopt a coping strategy and self-respect by living out their days as a veteran and a survivor, but forever clinging on to who they were as a young man. This is common among military survivors of combat and life changing injury. I respectfully wonder how Steve Mercer feels, after a senseless and stupid decision by others. He was denied even the self-respect and 'glory' of achievement that ends most racing careers.

[Ghost Ship]

5 hours ago, Roxanne said:

I thought Gene McDonnell hitting the horse in 1986 would have done it, or the bike going into spectators at the bottom on Bray Hill - but here we are. 

It was the Gene McDonnell incident that marked the beginning of my change in attitude to the TT.  It was a stupid and ridiculous accident.

I was pretty much born and bred on the TT course, and from the first 18 years of my life some of my earliest memories are of watching the racing from the foot of our garden.  My father and my older brother had some involvement in the event and I was a great supporter of it.

I was also a Guardian reader in the late 70s and 80s so I had very split loyalties when it came to their annual TT bashing.  But I was defiantly pro-TT.

I also introduced my (non-Manx) wife to the TT in the early 80s and she absolutely loved all of it.  The noise, the spectacle, the rows and rows and rows of bikes on the prom - everything.

But the Gene McDonnell death left a really bad taste in both our mouths, and neither of us have ever been back to watch the races.  Interestingly, my father and brother pretty much just shrugged it off as another unfortunate TT death.

My wife and I still watched it on TV and bought the DVDs each year, but we just gradually came more and more to the view that the cost - in terms of the loss of life - just wasn't acceptable or sustainable.

I think the two incidents that finally made me think none of it was really worth it were the spectator deaths at the 26th milestone and the Mercer collision.  I couldn't even tell my wife about the latter as she told me "I don't want to know!"

And the obsession with ever faster and faster lap speeds just seems childish and tasteless to me...

[Ghost Ship]

25 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

...I have lost a couple of friends to the TT and in every case, the family don't hold a grudge against the event. Maybe a few of the anti TT brigade on here should sit down over a coffee and have a chat with the families

Have you considered that it might just be possible that - having lost a loved one to the event - relatives and close family members might actually find it difficult to be critical of the event?  Perhaps they might just see it as being in some way disloyal to their memory of the person who made the choice to race and died doing so.  

[Itsmeee]

3 hours ago, 0bserver said:

We should be giving them the freedom to do what they enjoy even if they risk death. They know the risks etc..

Crucial difference: riding a bicycle the wrong way on a closed road where cycling is forbidden during TT is illegal. Racing a motorcycle in the TT is not illegal. 

[WTF]

3 minutes ago, Ghost Ship said:

Have you considered that it might just be possible that - having lost a loved one to the event - relatives and close family members might actually find it difficult to be critical of the event?  Perhaps they might just see it as being in some way disloyal to their memory of the person who made the choice to race and died doing so.  

ask any of the kneen family ,  one of Dans uncles still races, his dad and another uncle do recovery at Jurby , not sure if Ryan still races or not .

[Happier diner]

2 hours ago, Banker said:

The police have mentioned they came off cycle tracks but must have been aware of TT & rules, anyway ignorance of law is no defense!

Ignorance of the law is no defence that's correct. However ignorance of the fact is. If you can demonstrate that you had not been made aware that a road was one way or closed then that is not ignorance of the law. 

[Happier diner]

Just a thought for all those who say the riders have the right to choose the risk they take when they do the thing they love, how come cyclists are banned from the mountain road during TT. Surely they too are doing what they love and have the right to choose the risk. 

I wouldn't even think about.

1. Racing TT or

2. Cycling over the mountain on mad Sunday.

But should I equally defend the rights of both choices or should I be a hypocrite and say it's all right to kill yourself of a MC but not a push bike?

Just a thought for discussion.

 

[0bserver]

25 minutes ago, Itsmeee said:

Crucial difference: riding a bicycle the wrong way on a closed road where cycling is forbidden during TT is illegal. Racing a motorcycle in the TT is not illegal. 

In this case the law makes no sense. The cyclists know the risks. 

[Shake me up Judy]

I knew Dan as a lad - nice fella. He'd be in his late thirties now, maybe with kids. I don't know. But I think if I was his dad I'd regret every day that I let him get on a motorbike. I probably couldn't have stopped it but I'd always regret it. He didn't die a hero, he just died, doing something really dangerous, and it was all forseeable.

[Declan]

In a way it's crazy that a normal rural road is turned one-way, that cyclists are banned and is regularly shut to deal with accidents because motorcyclists can't be trusted to ride it safely. But yeah these cyclists are bonkers. 

[HeliX]

1 hour ago, Shake me up Judy said:

I respect Max Power's view on this as on most things, but I wonder if others who've survived major trauma feel the same ? Do the families ? Surely most live out quiet lives and try to rebuild their shattered lives. Who knows what they really feel ? Could others adopt a coping strategy and self-respect by living out their days as a veteran and a survivor, but forever clinging on to who they were as a young man. This is common among military survivors of combat and life changing injury. I respectfully wonder how Steve Mercer feels, after a senseless and stupid decision by others. He was denied even the self-respect and 'glory' of achievement that ends most racing careers.

 

44 minutes ago, Ghost Ship said:

Have you considered that it might just be possible that - having lost a loved one to the event - relatives and close family members might actually find it difficult to be critical of the event?  Perhaps they might just see it as being in some way disloyal to their memory of the person who made the choice to race and died doing so.  

So people who have lost loved ones/been injured in the TT must either dislike it now, or be mentally compromised into still liking it. Lovely work chaps.

[Mr Helmut Fromage]

13 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

I knew Dan as a lad - nice fella. He'd be in his late thirties now, maybe with kids. I don't know. But I think if I was his dad I'd regret every day that I let him get on a motorbike. I probably couldn't have stopped it but I'd always regret it. He didn't die a hero, he just died, doing something really dangerous, and it was all forseeable.

Yep 100% agree & same here know the family and network of cousins, nephews- as a family very blinkered to the racing thing.

Unfortunate as it was there was a definitive feeling that he was trying to justify the Big Boy ride too soon.

One thing I’ve never understood is when you have perished hitting a tree is your name commemorated in a cartoon style “splat” sticker