GLADIATORS READY?

Doing a 180mph wheelie past someone’s living room? The Isle of Man is where you'll find the real speed freaks, this we had to see for ourselves

- WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE

I'M LYING ON A MATTRESS IN ROS'S FRONT GARDEN, arms folded over her garden wall. Half a mile away the first bike leaves the line. Before it gets to us in about 13 seconds time it will already have had to negotiate the jump at St Ninian's crossroads, the steep plunge down Bray Hill, the kink by the traffic lights in the dip and Ago's Leap, a practically invisible crest that's significant enough to make the bikes wheelie and jump. But then they are doing 185mph.

Nose poking tentatively out over the pavement, I've got a view down to the kink and have heard every single gearchange. They've all been screaming flat upshifts. I wait for the first bike's arrival. It turns out there are some things you can't prepare for, no matter how many TT onboards you've watched. I might be able to hear them coming, but being this close as they flash past like fireworks my response is entirely involuntary, entirely primeval: it's a jump scare.