Gironimo!: Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy

Description

The author of the bestselling French Revolutions does Italy - cycling the course of the 1914 Giro d'Italia on a wooden bike. 'Bill Bryson on two wheels' Independent A 3,162 km race. A 48-year-old man. A 100-year-old bike. Made mostly of wood. That he built himself. Tim Moore sets off to recreate the most appalling bike race of all time. The notorious 1914 Giro d'Italia was an ordeal of 400-kilometre stages, cataclysmic night storms and relentless sabotage - all on a diet of raw eggs and red wine. Of the 81 who rolled out of Milan, only eight made it back. Committed to total authenticity, Tim acquires the ruined husk of a gearless, wooden-wheeled 1914 road bike with wine corks for brakes, some maps and an alarming period outfit topped off with a pair of blue-lensed welding goggles. From the Alps to the Adriatic the pair relive the bike race in all its misery and glory, on an adventure that is by turns bold, beautiful and recklessly incompetent.

Having ridden the route of the Tour de France in French Revolutions, led a donkey on a 500-mile pilgrimage in Spanish Steps and driven round the worst places in Britain in an Austin Maestro for You Are Awful (But I Like You), Tim Moore can loook back on a towering career in misadventure. Gironimo!, his latest and most imposing pedal-powered endeavour, is a story of predictable over-ambition trumped by frankly staggering over-achievement. Moore lives in London with his wife and three children, and still wears those welding goggles at Christmas.

A considerable achievement -- Duncan Craig * Lonely Planet Traveller * Painfully funny -- Tim Dowling * Week * A wonderfully written, extremely funny book... You read Gironimo! with a permanent smile on your face * UK Press Syndication * A superbly funny read * Cycling Weekly * Readers of Moore's French Revolutions will not be disappointed by this hilariously painful, and poignant, adventure -- Anna Carey * Irish Times *