Isle of Man @ Easter - Tour Report

Thought I'd throw up details of where I went this weekend in case someone else is considering the same trip.

Went with two mates from home around the Isle of Man (route here: http://alturl.com/pqrh). Left Friday evening on the 18:45 boat from Dublin Port to Douglas, Isle of Man and returned today to Belfast on the 07:00 boat and then the Enterprise home. Btw, only €15 from Belfast to Dublin and no extra fee for bikes is deadly. Stayed in the Edelweiss Hotel which was pretty good, guy even gave me superglue for free when I was fixing a puncture when I arrived, and they've a secure part of the house which the bikes were stored in.

Island itself is excellent for a day's spin. We left Douglas for Castletown which is the ancient capital of the island so it has a few castles. From Castletown we went to Peel which involved a few hills but near to peel a few sections of 17% descent first and then ascent happened. There's enough warning with road signs but it was very steep, if it was a bit sharper I'd have been afraid of going over the handlebars, but the hill up was great fun if again a bit of a shock.

Peel was a nice town, and probably after Douglas was the busiest of all the towns. Has a nice old castle which reminded me of Cashel, and what looked like a pretty good beach. From then on only two of the three of us went north towards the hills.

The roads were closed officially - we passed numerous signs warning us of the Mountain Road being closed, but as we had seen plenty of cars passing we pressed on, and indeed the roads were fine. Hills were great, not massively high but around an Irish level (think around 500 or 600 so metres) but still a good distance up to the top of the Mountain road. The descent into Ramsey though was nothing short of spectacular. First of all there's the sight of the Irish Sea opening up in front of you, but also with numerous sharp turns and hairpins, as well as fog appearing out of nowhere all means that there's something special there.

Once out of Ramsey the rest of the trip was pretty inconsequential, but still enjoyable. West of the island though is more scenic than the east.

Total journey according to a friend's speedo was 106.25km. My one, eh, I'm pretty sure was incorrect as it said we did 123km and I also had a top speed of 158.1km/hr!

Some pics attached. Would recommend people go for the same amount of time we did, as you get a good feel of the island that way.

And some more. Island itself is pretty close to Ireland in terms of scenery, but that's not really a bad thing, it's still very scenic.