OT Sitting rather than kneeling

[John Stevenson]

which ended up with a trip to Hospital (in my car with all my wet weather gear ). He was still smiling that evening though!

Aaah the famous Louth General.
I fell off that many times I was on first name terms with the nurses, even used to get a Christmas card from them.

Funnily enough it was this that got me into home shop engineering.
Whilst I was making myself 7 sets of footpegs for the next weekends racing some guys [ better riders than me ] would ask me to make them a set.

I gradually realised that I enjoyed making bits and it was far less painful

[EVguru]

Cadwell Park on board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAysV...eature=related

Video footage never does justice to the inclines!

The first time I rode The Mountain it looked like a vertical wall of tarmac.

[John Stevenson]

Years ago the entrance to the paddock was at the top of the mountain and not at the bottom as it is now.

When an outfit broke down, at the end of the race someone would pull them back, no nancy tow trucks then.
The passenger used to face backwards, hang on with one hand and grip the other passengers hand.

OK until you came to the mountain and it about pulled your arm out the socket. That's why 1960's sidecar passengers need deep pockets



The shiny bit on my left shoulder was from the wall on the previous corner

[rohart]

I'd have been there when the video was shot. I went there, first weekend of September, for four or five years running, 74 to 78 I think.

One year I'd got a bit tanked up in Edinburgh, and need the usual leak. Jumped on a car boot (trunk), on to a Transit bonnet (hood), across the narrow pavement (sidewalk), right foot between the spikes (bayonets) of the railings for the square (park), and jumped down. But the leg of my jeans (pants) got caught on the spike so my right foot was late, and went over. Ripped the deltoid ligament.

The result was that as a spectator at Oliver's Mount (had to have my boss drive me down in my MGB - what ignominy, and what a bad driver) I could only walk round the mountain anticlockwise (widdershins), with the bad foot below the other. Anyone who knows it knows this was the wrong way.

But back to the racing, it was the brakes that were needed at the bottom of the down slope before the finish straight that amazed me.

[John Stevenson]

Watch the video carefully.
The sidecars don't have brakes, only the bike. As they come down the hill they put the sidecar wheel onto the kerb to help slow it down.
Same applies at other corners where they use the grass verge.

Drivers have one thing in common, trying to get round as fast as possible and being deaf to passengers who complain about all the bruises.

Passengers are consumables.

[Mcostello]

I don't see how pants would ever fit a passenger in a side car that was driven like that. No room for a set THAT big!

[Circlip]

Don't knock our mini IOM Sir J. Mountside hairpin (about 2.10) determined that a Tiger Cub s brakes were bloody useless, thanks for the slip road.

Regards Ian.