The exit from the bottom of Barregarrow is taken in 5th gear and accelerating. The road is very bumpy and falls away at the left hand edge. This means that you can't use the full width of the road on the approach to the next right hander which is called Westwood (- lots of riders know this section as the 13th Milestone).

The entry is an off camber, bumpy, downhill, double apex right hander. Aim for the kerb of the second apex and let the bike run out to the left. As you head down into the dip, aim for the marshalling point on the right hand side of the road by the whitewashed wall at the bottom of the hill. The road widens out and is very smooth so you can take a long sweeping arc on a classic racing line. Make sure you keep to the left of the white line all the way through the bottom of Westwood – this sets you up for getting on the gas as you pass the last apex. The surface is very grippy indeed and is a very late apex – you can carry tremendous lean angle through the uphill segment of the corner and run all the way out to the right hand kerb on the exit. It's very fast and you're accelerating all the way. It's an important bend because you carry all the speed down the straight towards Douglas Road Corner and the entry to Kirk Michael.

You head down the hill towards Kirk Michael and can easily get back into 6th gear – the speed is deceptive as it's actually a fairly steep downhill incline.

I’ve tried time and again to find a braking marker for Douglas Road corner as it's a difficult corner and you can easily get sucked into it too quickly. As with all corners on the Mountain Circuit, if you’re not sure, back off. After a lap in the car with Nick Jefferies, I've discovered that you shut the throttle where the tarmac changes colour, just after a whitewashed stone cottage on the left hand side of the road. Get on the brakes and come back two gears. The turn in point for the corner is a yellow paint marker on a driveway entry wall on the left; just to emphasise the point, someone has also painted a small metal grating in the same bright yellow paint. Aim for the apex under the railings - the corner is a little bit bumpy and it feels like the road is running away from you under the front wheel. Get on the gas as you pass the apex, drift out to the left hand kerb and carry all the speed down the hill into the village.

As you accelerate down the hill into Kirk Michael Main Street, hook 5th gear just as you cross the slight right handed crest by The Mitre pub. It's an easy apex to spot as spectators gather in the excellent vantage point in the front garden of the pub.

By now you're bringing the bike upright and still accelerating. Further on down the street you'll be able to hook 6th and there's an enormous sensation of speed unlike anywhere else I've ever raced. You're doing probably something like 140mph on a 600 in what is normally a 30mph zone! Take the smoothest, straightest line you can to avoid upsetting the bike and retain as much speed as possible.

As you come over the little crest in the middle of the village, try to keep the bike in more or less the middle of the road. The right hand side of the road is VERY bumpy and you can be sucked into the camber, costing lots of time if you have to back off the throttle at all.

It looks as though you're heading into a fairly sharp bend by the cottage at the far end of the village but it's actually a fairly quick left-right-left sequence of bends. The correct line is almost up against the kerbs but it's a very fine judgement. Almost every ‘On Bike’ video mentions this by saying ‘yellow line, yellow line, yellow line’ – these are the things you need to aim for on the exit of the village before you round the corner by the filling station.

The exit of Kirk Michael is marked by the filling station on the left. We're now into a very fast section starting with Rhencullen and running into Bishopscourt.

As you exit Kirk Michael you'll be in 6th gear and it's tempting to try and keep the bike in this gear as you approach the right handed crest a couple of hundred yards after the filling station. (On the approach to the rise there used to be a telegraph pole in the background beyond the rise. You’d aim directly for the telegraph pole as you crossed the rise and you’d be absolutely on line. It’s a bit difficult to pick out something to line up on now that the pole is no longer there). What you need to do is to come back to 5th gear and get the bike driving over the crest (as any motocross rider could tell you). This stabilises the bike and let's you change direction just after the crest to make the right handed apex that follows. There's a bush at the end of the wall by the cottage on the right – this is the apex of the turn so aim for it. This leads into a fairly sharp dip and a left handed bend by a whitewashed house on the left. It's a real struggle to get the bike to change direction through here as it's a complex set of bends but carrying speed is important to a fast lap. Remember that you're in 5th gear through here so you're not hanging about!

As you pass through the left handed dip try to hold the bike on a tight line. The apex to aim for is the last left and you'll end up crossing the white lines on a diagonal path. There's a crest coming up that will launch the front end of the bike skywards and you need to have the bike absolutely upright and straight.  

On the exit of the Rhencullen section by the little cottage on the right, the crest leading into the drop into Bishopscourt is fairly sharp. This is another of the places on the circuit where you need to get your head under the screen in order to keep the front of the bike from launching itself skywards. If the bike isn't straight, you'll be making all sorts of shapes at this point. Backing off the throttle will also lose you a lot of speed into the very high speed Bishopscourt section. The bike will almost certainly wheelie and will likely leap off the crest but by burying your head under the screen you’ll be able to keep the power on and carry the speed down the hill.

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