Black Dub to Handleys Corner
Competitor Guide with Steve Hislop
On through 5th and 6th gear up towards Glen Helen. You just roll the throttle going around the very first part, let the bike glide out onto the right hand side of the road, hook back 2 gears around the tight part to give you loads of road around the tight parts so you miss that wall as you go in towards the car park area at Glen Helen. Hook back to 3rd gear just before you go into Glen Helen proper and then there's the long climb up the hill towards Sarah's and basically just hold 3rd up there.
You can short shift to 4th but most of the time you hold 3rd and then a late apex into Sarah's and then you've got a real twisty climb up Cregwillys Hill. It's the sort of place where you think the straightest way up there would be the natural racing line and it probably is, but you have to start to use the road to your advantage, because the further up you get the faster you're going and it's getting tighter. The last left hander before Lambfell is the big problem. If you just go pitching into every other turn before that, you'll end up nearly running into the pavement. You've really got to use the road to your advantage to give yourself a lot of road so you daren't cut the kerb on the exit.
Out onto the Cronk-y-Voddy where you're pulling top gear along there, it's fairly bumpy. The problem is at the far end, or just beyond Sartfell Crossroads as it steps up about 3 or 4 feet at the end. If it's a calm day and there's no wind, you should be able to get a 750cc flat in top gear through there but the problem is, as you crank through the end, and as the road drops away, the bike starts to wheelie. That's OK on a calm day, but if the wind catches it, it starts to take the bike towards the bank. You lose all your steering in effect so you have to watch there. You go down towards the 11th milestone which is probably one of my favourite sections because there is a little rise just before the 11th and, just as it dips, the thing comes up on it's back wheel. Then you go straight through the middle of the right hand lane, through the first bit, let the bike glide into the left bank, back shift a couple of gears and then into the real tight right hander at the bottom. If you just aim to dangle your knee over the kerb on the left, work hard at the right hander and the whole road just opens up and there's about 3 left handers including the little bridge. You're just splitting the road on each, right through the middle and it's perfect, similar to the Verandah.
You get through there and along towards Handley's. Now Handley's is quite scary because of the high wall. As you go into the left, as you change direction, there's a bit of a dip in the road and on a couple of occasions, as I've changed direction, my foot has come off the foot rest and I've had some nasties. I think it was on one of the videos a couple of years ago that I nearly clipped a hedge on the exit there, purely because it can catch you out. There's a left, right, left towards the top of Barregarrow, it doesn't half bottom out, it really belts your chest onto the tank just as you touch that straight. Then you get along towards the top of Barregarrow and there's a bit of a rise just before the little cottage on the left, as it comes over there it starts to lift the wheel but if the wind gets under the faring the thing doesn't want to go down and you're getting towards the top of Barregarrow, desperate to get it down to change direction!
On the big bike like a 250cc or a 600cc you'll get through the top of Barregarrow, the left hander at the church you get it absolutely flat-out, you just throw your whole body weight against it, but on a big bike you just hook back to 5th and just throw all your body weight onto the left and it just pulls itself through and just keeps itself away from the kerb and short shift into 6th and drive it hard down towards the bottom of Barregarrow.
There's quite a few people say they can take Barregarrow flat-out - I've never ever known anybody, even guys on 250's always roll it at the last minute. What I tend to do is to come down the hill and just back shift 1 so that, as you hit the bottom, you just nail the throttle again and it actually takes the weight off the front. If you load the front forks up, you get in a real tank-slapper all the way along that straight towards the 13th. It's better to keep the power on and it takes the weight off it. You can probably go through the bottom of Barregarrow, I would say, in 5th gear on a big bike. You're talking about 140 to 150mph through the bottom of there!