WK calls it ‘Marty’, we call it impressive.

WORDS: BRUCE WILSON IMAGES: GARY BAILEY/PICMAN PHOTOGRA PHY

I’ll even give you a minute’s head start, Bruce.’

“Don’t go revving it above 10,000rpm but make sure you’re not letting it sink below eight grand. And be sure to slow the thing right down before you crash through its ‘box, because it really doesn’t like that”, came two time TT winner Johnson’s words of wisdom. I never normally listen to Gaz, as his advice is assured to get me into trouble, but this was a topic he knew better than anyone. From the early days of WK’s TT programme, which kicked off six years ago with the support of Chinese powerhouse CF Moto, he’s been a linchpin to the team’s success which sawWK just miss out on their first podium by a mere two seconds in last year’s Lightweight TT… riding the same priceless bike I was now bumbling off down pitlane on amid a sea of anxious looking faces.

I’d been badgering the guys and gals at WK to let me go for a spin on this zebra-liveried commuter bike (well, that’s what it started off as) for as long as I can remember, and they’d finally given in. They must have been having a weak moment, which ironically reflected the power I was experiencing as I navigated my way around Barn corner and pinned the throttle back for the straight. It’d only taken me a few corners to forget Gaz’s golden nuggets that included the necessity to keep the motor buzzing like a spinning top on acid… which I wasn’t. It didn’t help that I was in the wrong gear either, which pretty much set the theme for that first, troublesome lap of Cadwell Park as I fudged my way from section to section trying to figure out what I was doing so wrong.

I’d never ridden a mini-twin racer before, or any bike quite like this come to think about it. It felt odd, being very tall in the saddle with broad open clip-ons and an all-encompassing screen which could’ve covered me plus five others and still had room for Vanessa Feltz to nestle in. The latter feature was perhaps the most unnerving of all, being so large that I couldn’t work out whether to sit up and see over it, or relax down low and watch the world through a bubble. I spent the next few laps undecided, though I did gradually manage to feel my way around the rest of the package and partially redeem my ineptitude with every circulation.