The Isle of Mann TT is the world's oldest motorcycle race run mainly by privateers and it's long been my dream to attend. As a holdover, friends and I regularly did the Sunday Morning Ride when I lived in San Francisco.
The Sunday Morning Ride was a race to breakfast along sinuous U.S. Hwy 1 from Sausalito to Pt. Reyes, often involving dozens of riders leaving the ARCO station in small packs. Ironically, the ride was 36 miles, or the lap distance on the Isle of Mann. We were hooligans and it was a wildly irresponsible event, to be sure, but we all wore helmets, most wore racing leathers, and we did our best not to launch ourselves into the Pacific or oncoming traffic. Still, there was at least one terrible crash each season and there were lithe San Francisco women with AMA racing cards on FZR400s and CBRs who were all too happy to serve up your testicles for breakfast in Pt. Reyes if you didn't keep up. On balance, it's hard to imagine a more beautiful way to burn through my twenties.