A lifelong motorbike enthusiast from Argentina has returned to the Isle of Man TT for the 21st time, describing the event as unlike anything else in the world.

Simply known as ‘Marcelo’, he has also attended the Manx Grand Prix on around 14 or 15 occasions, and has been described as ‘straight talking, warm, and completely obsessed with motorbikes’.

A spokesperson from Isle of Man TT Marshals commented: ‘For a man who gets five or six weeks holiday a year, four of them reliably end up here!’

A lifelong rider, Marcelo has been riding motorbikes since the age of eight and has now spent 45 years on two wheels. He owns 14 motorcycles in Argentina and another four in the Isle of Man.

He also carries out all of the maintenance work himself, joking that his mechanic is simply ‘Marcelo’, as he trusts nobody else to work on the bikes.

For the last six years he has been stationed at Crosby as a marshal, one of the fastest sections of the TT course where bikes can reach speeds of around 180mph.

The spokesperson added: ‘”That real suspension sound is smashing” he says, not just describing it but acting it out. He grabs invisible handlebars and makes the noise himself, like he's reliving every single one of those 21 TTs.

‘He's marshalled at road races across the world, but keeps coming back to the TT. The marshals here, he says, are more professional than anywhere else he's been. That means something coming from a man who's seen a lot of courses.

‘21 TTs and counting.’

The Isle of Man TT Marshals are paying tribute to this year’s volunteers with Facebook posts titled ‘Behind the Tabard’.

To find out more about other Marshalls and their stories, you can visit ‘Isle of Man TT Marshals’ on Facebook.