100 years of TT motorcycle racing

Vintage machines mark centenary on Monday of first competition at the Isle of Man

May 26, 2007

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

On Monday, a group of riders on 100 vintage motorcycles will meet in the town of St. Johns in the Isle of Man to celebrate 100 years, to the very day, since the start of the first Tourist Trophy race.

Shortly after the unveiling of a commemorative plaque at the original starting line by six-time world motorcycling racing champion Geoff Duke, the first of the 100 bikes will depart to circle the original 25.6 km course.

The bikes will leave in pairs at 30-second intervals; the first to leave will be a 1907 V-twin Peugeot-engined Norton, which was ridden to a win in the twin-cylinder class of that first 1907 Tourist Trophy, or TT as it's familiarly known.

Also among the 100 pre-1940 bikes will be a 340 cc Humber V-twin that won the junior class of the 1911 TT.

This re-enactment will highlight the two weeks of motorcycling in the small island in the Irish Sea that has become a legendary destination for motorcyclists the world over. Held annually except for periods during the two world wars, the TT races will be run this year for the 89th time.

It has been said that motorcycle racing started five minutes after the second motorcycle was built.

While there may be just a grain of truth to that statement, it is a sure thing that motorcycle racing in the early 20th century was in serious trouble not only as a sport in itself but as exactly the wrong way to gain public acceptance of motorcycles.

A French effort to establish an International Motor Cycle Cup Race covering long distances on public roads from 1904 to 1906 had floundered badly on strange rules and massive cheating.

The motorcycles were limited to a total weight of 50 kg (110 lbs.) in an era when even an engine alone would weigh around 36 kg (80 lbs.).

The result was an incredibly flimsy and dangerous contraption, rather like a modern racing bicycle with a Harley-Davidson-like engine driving the spindly rear wheel with a narrow leather belt.

Such monstrosities could be ridden only by a few daring experts and even then crashes were routine.

Motorcycles were quickly falling into disfavour with the public and were being generally regarded as noisy and dangerous toys.

In England, the fledgling motorcycle industry, desperate to increase sales in a time of depression, decided upon a new type of competition to promote its products. This would feature standard production motorcycles – as sold to the public – with all usual road equipment and ridden on a public road course.

The route would feature all the usual road conditions likely to be met by the ordinary motorcyclist. They would even require a reasonable level of fuel economy to prove how economical and practical were their products.

As road racing was not permitted in Great Britain due to the 32 km/h speed limit and the authorities refused to sanction road closings, the event had to be held on the Isle of Man, a self-governing island.

Its roads were mostly rolled loose gravel and simple narrow country lanes.

The race could not then actually be a head-to-head mass start event but rather a time trial with two riders starting each minute over the winding 25.6 km course, which had to be completed 10 times.

Some of the motorcycles entered in that first event were of now-forgotten makes like Rex, Vindec, Bat and Kerry; a few names like Matchless, Norton and Triumph are still familiar. All the bikes except the Triumphs had pedal gear for assistance to the engine on the steep hills; the Triumph riders got off and ran beside their bikes, pushing the 68 kg motorcycles when the engine faltered or the drive belt slipped.

Charlie Collier won the single-cylinder class on a Matchless at 62 km/h for the 256 km race length and used just under 3.0 L/100 km of fuel. The second-place Triumph had been required to use its engine all the way and turned in a remarkable fuel consumption figure of just less than 2.5 L/100 km.

Rem Fowler, using a lot of pedal work on his Norton, won the twin-cylinder class at 59 km/h but had managed the fastest lap at 69.6 km/h.

The next year, the use of pedals was prohibited and the fuel consumption limits were even stricter. The entries were up, the speeds were up – and more important, motorcycle sales were up.

Jack Marshall won on his Triumph single with a miserly fuel consumption of 2.4 L/100 km and an average speed of 65.5 km/h.

For 1911, the course was changed to a longer 61 km course, most of it still unpaved, which ran up the mountain of Snaefell in the centre of the island. The course was again altered slightly for the 1920 races but has remained much the same in route and distance, although it has been all paved since the 1920s.

In 1911, the American Indian company managed a 1-2-3 finish with its rugged chain-drive V-twins, the first, and last, time an American company would "sweep" the TT.

Today, the TT races are a spectacle of blindingly fast speeds over those same narrow roads. The 2006 Senior TT was won at an average speed of 204.5 km/h with the second place rider just 32 seconds behind and the third place rider only four seconds farther back. This, after nearly two hours of all-out racing.

The single lap record for the 61 km course currently stands at 209.84 km/h.

afjohnson@sympatico.ca

Toronto Star