| Race details | |
|---|---|
| Date | June |
| Region | Isle of Man |
| English name | Manx Trophy |
| Discipline | Road race |
| Type | Single day race |
| History | |
| First edition | 1936 |
| Editions | c. 54 |
| First winner | Charles Holland |
| Most wins | Jean Baldessari Tom Simpson Seamus Elliot Paul Curran (2 times) |
| Most recent | Mark Lovatt |
The Manx Trophy or Isle of Man International Road Race is a bicycle road race run annually on the Isle of Man. In the 1960s the race attracted the world's top professional cyclists including Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx.
The race was initially a feature of the Isle of Man cycling festival, an annual event which ran from 1936 to 2003 and was started by journalist and cycling enthusiast Curwen Clague. Despite the festival being discontinued after 2003, the Manx Trophy continues.
The first festival included a massed-start road race (a rarity in mainland Britain at the time but allowed in the Isle of Man, a separate country) which featured the top riders of the day. Despite closed roads the race saw many crashes and only a few riders finished. The first winner was Charles Holland of Birmingham, later one of the first two Englishmen to ride the Tour de France.
The first event involved riders racing a single lap of the famous TT circuit of 37.75 miles. The course runs from Douglas to Ramsey then climbs for five miles to a high point on the mountain of Snaefell at 1,384 feet before descending to Douglas. The distance was later increased to two and then three laps (113 miles).