TT Reality.

An interviewer talks to a rider on the Glencuchery Road at the start of a TT race on the Isle of Man. The interviewer will walk back to the media centre and watch; the rider will reach 180mph in around 20 seconds plunging down Bray Hill, a quiet suburban street with houses and gardens each side. It bends to the left into a dip then over a rise where his bike will leave the ground. He will brake hard down the hill to Quarter Bridge, turn right, accelerate hard along the short straight to Bradden Bridge and swing left and right over it. He will sweep through Union Mills past the corner shop and out into the country. He will do this for two hours at an average speed of 130mph and do over 160mph for most of it, and all of it on 37 miles of country roads between banks, walls and trees, through villages and over ‘the mountain’ six times. His right wrist will control around 250 horsepower, his right fingers the front brake, his left foot the gears. He will experience a level of reality most of us including his interviewer never will. If he’s able he will come back next year to do it again.
Such is our craving for reality. Today I will potter in the garden, dig out some compost for the runner beans and chop up yesterday’s tree cuttings, and I will crave that reality, the kind of living that makes death worthwhile, and constitute the dreams of an old coward. May they all come back safely, and remind the rest of us there’s more to life than safety.