Border Crossing
Matt Hodges
(Scorton, Lancashire)
Mary and I visited the Isle of Man mainly with the object of gathering the answers to the CTC British Cycle Quest questions based on the island. We didn't do much rough stuff but did ride the Heritage Trail from Quarter Bridge to St John's.
The entrance at Quarter Bridge has a rather misleading sign prohibiting pedestrians. Apparently during the TT Races this section is used to allow motor vehicles across the course and gets very congested. For us it was very quiet, we only saw two cyclists and less than a dozen walkers all the way to St John's. There were several locked gates across the trail and most had a kissing gate alongside, fine for pedestrians but we had to upend the tandem.
At St John's we had to lift the tandem over a low stile to get out to the road. We were told the horse riders have keys to the gates. All the trail was rideable except for one short muddy patch. We didn't use the last section as there was a flail hedge cutter working and the driver said he had done it all the way to Peel, so we diverted to the road.
We found most of the roads good and fairly quiet except at commuting time around Douglas and the Airport. Many of the roads are very hilly. From the IoM government web site http://www.gov.im/ there appear to be a number of "Greenways" with rights similar to our BOATs. We didn't explore any of them.
We had a one day explorer ticket which took us on the steam railway from Douglas to Port Erin and back then on the electric railway to Laxey, up and down Snaefell, then on to Ramsey and finally back to Douglas on the bus. Excellent value at £12 each. The steam railway will take bikes and tandems subject to space in the guards van. The electric railway is said to take bikes but advises you to ring first to check for available space.