Another great day, let's hope this keeps going!

To my knowledge I'd never been to the Isle of Man before, but judging on how great it was yesterday I will be going again.

The interview I gave from Liverpool went out in the morning, and although it only got one person on the road with me it was gold medallist Peter Kennaugh's dad! We met at the sea terminal, so I could thank Brian for organising the donated ferry crossing before setting off. Now, the island had just suffered it's worst snowfall in 50 years so a good section of the place was unavailable, but we made do. There were some good hills, great scenes (once the snow stopped) and, as it turns out, some interesting history. Pete Senior was a top tour guide and inevitably very knowledgeable about cycling and particularly Manx riders so we talked about track and road cycling, Cavendish, Ben Swift (he just bought a house on IoM) the Kennaugh brothers and the Olympic experience. It was an brilliant insight to a world 'normal' people just don't see. After the tour and some lunch in a proper, quaint little teashop we made our way round to Onchan and visited firstly his son's gold phonebox (nobody else has one of these) followed by his postbox.
I also took a picture of Pete Sr at Pete Jr's box.

On my way back to the ferry port, as it would have been rude not to, I stopped off at the TT starting point, as I know a few of my friends are into that kind of thing, so there's also a couple of pics of that...

My next couple of days are going to be a bit brutal, but I feel well rested and I'm reasy to get it done. Today it's a casual jaunt over Snake Pass between Manchester and Sheffield, through the Peak District. Only a relatively short day, but a lot of climbing. Head down and keep pedalling is the key!