Greeba Castle to Glen Moar Mills

Competitor Guide with Steve Hislop

The next thing you're looking for is the black and white markings on the right hand kerb approaching Greeba Bridge and you use those as a peel off point. You'll brake probably just about 100 yards short of them, jab back 2 gears to 4th and then just as you get to the black and whites you start to peel in.

You're feathering through there and as soon as it's upright you're back on the gas. You're 5th, 6th and then you carry 6th gear all the way through there just missing the big padded bale and the telegraph pole on the exit. Over the old Ballagarraghyn and then the next thing I'm looking for, whether I'm on a big bike or a small bike, is the 2 big trees on the right hand side just before the Dairy at Ballacraine. I always brake at the trees and depending on what bike you're on you judge your braking and sometimes it's 2nd gear and sometimes it could be 3rd gear through there. On a proper 250cc you could set the gear box so fine that you could have a low 3rd gear so you might carry a lot of corner speed through there whereas a big bike it's quite tractable, it's got a broad spread, basically a road gear box in a super bike. You probably hook 2nd and just drive it through there in 2nd.

It's then a hard drive up towards Ballaspur. You're probably just hooking 4th and feathering it through the top of Ballaspur, round the right down towards Ballig, you're up into top gear down towards Ballig Bridge before Dorran's. Hook back 2 gears, 4th around Dorran's and the Hope corner opens up. You're probably carrying a lot of speed through there, you often feel that the suspension bottoms out. There's a bit of a dip just in the bottom, it's enough to actually sit the thing down. On a bike like an RC30 you can just hear the collector pipes (the 4 pipes collect at the bottom before they go up to the silencer) buffing on the road and it can flatten your pipes, so on places like that you've got to have that in the back of your mind. A newcomer might just throw it into there, flatten his pipes and wreck his race, the motor would just go off, whereas some might just hold it back a little bit and then drive harder out of the corner.

The place I hate is the approach to Laurel Bank. The very first bit with the rocky face that's always scary and then you've got the little flick left, probably Laurel Bank proper, the 2nd part with the padded wall, that's not even as scary as the first part, but you'd probably hook back to 2nd gear around there. It's quite ripply through there so you just have to let the front end feel it's way around there and then it's a hard drive up in 4th gear up towards the 9th milestone and then through the Black Dub. Exiting the Black Dub is the scary bit because you throw it left then right but because you're so far over, especially on the big bike, you're well over on the right driving hard in 4th up towards Glen Helen and it's just purely because you're right on the sidewall of the tyre. When you've got a lot of fuel you can actually feel the rear tyre of the Honda just starting to slither away there. You're actually starting to leave lines on the road so you've just got to have a lot of feel for a section like that.