Ray Baxter

Back in the Isle of Man

[Mat Oxley @matoxley]

Paying my respects to one of the greatest motorcyclists and the greatest motorcycling writer…

Boa is a top-gear machine, as sweet in that as most single-cylinders in middle. I chug lordlily past the guard-room and through the speed limit at no more than sixteen. Round the bend, past the farm, and the way straightens. Now for it. The engine’s final development is fifty-two horse-power. A miracle that all this docile strength waits behind one tiny lever for the pleasure of my hand.

Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England’ straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek: while the air’s coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits, and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar’s gravelled undulations.

Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks: and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into face or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boanerges is warming up. I pull the throttle right open, on the top of the slope, and we swoop flying across the dip, and up-down up-down the switchback beyond: the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus.

Once we so fled across the evening light, with the yellow sun on my left, when a huge shadow roared just overhead. A Bristol Fighter, from Whitewash Villas, our neighbour aerodrome, was banking sharply round. I checked speed an instant to wave: and the slip-stream of my impetus snapped my arm and elbow astern, like a raised flail. The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln. I sat hard in the saddle, folded back my ears and went away after him, like a dog after a hare. Quickly we drew abreast, as the impulse of his dive to my level exhausted itself.

The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms, and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. Over the first pot-hole Boanerges screamed in surprise, its mud-guard bottoming with a yawp upon the tyre. Through the plunges of the next ten seconds I clung on, wedging my gloved hand in the throttle lever so that no bump should close it and spoil our speed. Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts: it swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for thirty awful yards. Out came the clutch, the engine raced freely: Boa checked and straightened his head with a shake, as a Brough should.

The bad ground was passed and on the new road our flight became birdlike. My head was blown out with air so that my ears had failed and we seemed to whirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields. I dared, on a rise, to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky. There the Bif was, two hundred yards and more back. Play with the fellow? Why not? I slowed to ninety: signalled with my hand for him to overtake. Slowed ten more: sat up. Over he rattled. His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin, hung out of the cock-pit to pass me the ‘Up yer’ Raf randy greeting.
They were hoping I was a flash in the pan, giving them best. Open went my throttle again. Boa crept level, fifty feet below: held them: sailed ahead into the clean and lonely country. An approaching car pulled nearly into its ditch at the sight of our race. The Bif was zooming among the trees and telegraph poles, with my scurrying spot only eighty yards ahead. I gained though, gained steadily: was perhaps five miles an hour the faster.

[BBC Sport @BBCSport]

GOLD! 🥇

Matt Weston has done it! He is the first British man to be Olympic skeleton champion 🤩

[Fun Tom 🇨🇦 💂 @funtomvids]

🟥 WOW ... 🇬🇱 🇩🇰

This defiance and solidarity video for Greenland is EPIC. 👌🏼

[Ray Baxter @ManxRay60]

Hey, I'm starting Joe's 10-Minute Fat Burner Challenge on The Body Coach app. Let's smash it together 😅 https://t.co/dVHmJPaUlI

[Ray Baxter @ManxRay60]

Hey, I'm starting Joe's 10-Minute Fat Burner Challenge on The Body Coach app. Let's smash it together 😅 https://t.co/dVHmJPaUlI

[Ray Baxter @ManxRay60]

@historyinmemes @matoxley Yeah, they love it

[Simon Patterson @denkmit]

25 years today since Yer Maun left us. Doesn’t feel like it one bit. The actual GOAT.

[K9 X Ltd. @K9X16]

Bear the rescue Chow Chow 🐻

It was lovely meeting 2 year old Bear with his new family. He has a great temperament, especially considering his unsettled start to life.

Bear is in good hands now with people who want to give him the best 🫶🏻

[K9 X Ltd. @K9X16]

We met the wonderful Evie and her doting family for an initial consultation where we covered and made practical progress with:

▪️Lead walking

▪️Recall

▪️Returning ALL the way back with her ball

▪️Releasing the ball on first command

▪️Getting in the car

[Transform Politics 🦋 @tf_politics]

“If you’re ripping off the state and off taxpayers, we’ll take money directly out of your bank account”
Rachel Reeves

Why does this not apply to tax evaders, private utility companies, Dido Harding, Michelle Mone, banks, hedge fund companies, the City, the Royal Family?

[Peter Stefanovic @PeterStefanovi2]

With senior Tories now calling for a policy to leave the ECHR here is a reminder of why joining Russia and Belarus as the only European countries outside the ECHR is a very bad idea

[K9 X Ltd. @K9X16]

Some elements of dog training take a bit more time and perseverance 😅

This however was done in minutes, which is always good when it’s something that impacts daily.

Well done everyone and thank you for working with us ☺️

[K9 X Ltd. @K9X16]

Big Vik ✌🏻

[Mat Oxley @matoxley]

This is super fuckin cool 😎😎

[IOM Shepherds @IomShepherds]

Police Dog Astra of Cumbria Dog Section 🇬🇧 4 years old from our ‘C’ litter, works alongside her brother PD Moose 🫶🏻 🐾 🇮🇲

Over the years the bitches we have produced have proven to be formidable - don’t underestimate the girls 😈 🐕

[IOM Shepherds @IomShepherds]

IOM SHEPHERDS Chase ❤️🎄🇮🇲

[K9 X Ltd. @K9X16]

Ki Ki! As if we couldn’t love you anymore ❤️ 🤩

So glad to have you back in the team and to see that the tough time you have had hasn’t dented your character 🙌🏻

[K9 X Ltd. @K9X16]

Beau 🧡

(Previously featured in one of reactivity transformation videos 🎥 )

[MotoGP™🏁 @MotoGP]

😎 @88jorgemartin, the Fresh Prince of Turn 5 in Barcelona 🔥

#SolidarityGP 🏁