Reacting to the Isle of Man TT Race (for the first time)

I was actively sweating while watching motorcycle racing on my computer. That was my introduction to the Isle of Man TT. Before viewers suggested it, I’d never heard of the race, despite living in the UK for nearly nine years. I knew we were about to see motorcycles and the Isle of Man. That was about it.

What surprised me wasn’t only the speed. It was seeing that speed outside somebody’s house, with people standing so close to the road. My only familiar comparison was the Indy 500, which my dad had once attended. This looked like a completely different world.

Racing past the front of a house

The first compilation I tried was a selection of 2024 TT footage. Within moments I was stopping to take in what I’d seen. A motorcycle had gone past a house at a speed I couldn’t judge, and spectators seemed to be right there without a barrier between them and the passing bike. The house was gorgeous. The situation was making me nervous.

That’s the setting I kept coming back to. These weren’t the pictures I associated with a purpose-built racetrack. I was watching residential roads and country lanes, with houses, stone walls and people on the roadside. I didn’t feel qualified to explain the sport, but I could explain why the view from my desk was so alarming.

The comparison I could make

We weren’t a racing family, and we didn’t watch it at home, but my dad went to the Indy 500 one year when a friend had tickets. Afterwards he talked about how hard it was to comprehend the noise and the speed. That was the racing experience I could reach for while trying to make sense of this.

In my mind, that meant cars on a track. Now I was watching motorcycles on a country lane, moving so quickly that the people at the side became blurs. I knew I was outside my own area of knowledge, so I wasn’t trying to make a technical comparison between the two events. It was the contrast in setting that I couldn’t get past.

The rider’s view was worse for my stomach

An onboard clip from the 2023 race put me much closer to the rider’s perspective. The bike was bumping around, the road was coming at us and I started feeling nauseous. From the outside, I could at least watch a motorcycle arrive and disappear. This view made me feel clammy and sweaty while I followed the road with it.

The later behind-the-visor footage with Davey Todd brought that feeling back. It made my stomach drop, and once again the people at the edge of the road were barely more than blurs. I hadn’t been to the Isle of Man, let alone experienced this in person. Watching from home was quite enough for my nerves.

Admiring the wall, then remembering the bike

I kept getting distracted by the places around the race. In one clip I started admiring a beautiful stone wall, then stopped myself because the motorcycle had suddenly arrived. I couldn’t even finish the thought about the wall. The racing took over again immediately.

I also found myself imagining the person who’d gone out to a remote filming spot and waited for a rider. You set up, the motorcycle passes almost instantly, then it’s gone. I knew that was probably part of the sport, but as somebody seeing it for the first time, it seemed wild.

I didn’t want to start watching crash footage. I could imagine enough from the road scenes, and I didn’t think I could deal with the crashes as well. Even without that, I’d found an entire racing world I’d somehow missed. By the end, I thought I might need a cold compress and a lie down.

Watch my video, Reacting to the Isle of Man TT Race (for the first time).