Title: Gironimo
Author: Moore, Tim
Published by: Yellow Jersey Press
Year: 2015
First published: Yellow Jersey Press, 2014
Date reviewed: 03.23
ISBN: 9780224100151

This is the fourth of Tim Moore’s books that I’ve read, and the ninth he has published. My reading is definitely non-sequential though: I read ‘French Revolutions‘, his third, in 2002; his tenth, ‘The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold‘ in 2017 and his eleventh, ‘Another Fine Mess‘ in 2020.

‘Gironimo‘, like ‘French Revolutions‘ and ‘The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold‘, is the story of an epic bike ride; this time he rides the route of what is claimed to be the hardest-ever edition of the Giro^*. He does it on bike of similar vintage to the 1914 Giro he is replicating, as authentic as he could make it, down to the wooden wheel rims and brake blocks fashioned out of bottle corks.

As crazy ventures go this is what we expect from Moore as he lurches from one breakdown to the next, one repair shop to another (when he can find one), as his narrative cuts between his own adventures and the historical record of the 1914 tour and its suffering riders. It’s makes an interesting read, but for me neither as engaging nor laugh-out-loud funny as his other cycling stories I have read.

* The Giro d’Italia, the Italian equivalent of the Tour de France.

It’s sixteen years since I read and reviewed Tim Moore’s “French Revolutions“, his first cycling book. Since then he’s written several other books including one about the notorious 1914 Giro d’Italia, “Gironimo”, in which he rides a vintage bike around the route of the race.

In “The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold” he is back on a classic rather than vintage bike, an East German Mifa shopping bike with 20-inch wheels and in most versions an open folding frame guaranteed to collapse. Fortunately he managed to find a non-folder, and someone to add a top bar for strength.

I first picked up the tale from his blog while he was riding south through the Finnish winter. Fascinated by this clear madness and remembering I’d enjoyed “French Revolutions” I followed his story. It turned out he planned to cycle on his Mifa from the north of Finland to the Black Sea coast along the line of the old Iron Curtain, a route sketchily defined as the Eurovélo 13.

Riding the Mifa means plenty of cycling episodes, but that’s not the main point of the book. It’s much more a social commentary on the various countries Moore passes through and how they have fared since the break-up of communist eastern Europe. He draws on historical sources and his own experiences of travelling through eastern Europe shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Criss-crossing the national borders along the route he meets people whose lives have been caught up in the sweeping historical and political changes in this part of the world. They range from taciturn and depressed to jovial and exuberant, depending on how the post-war years have treated them. The country that an exhausted, hungry endurance shopping-bike cyclist found most enjoyable? Surprisingly – Serbia!

Although his crazy journey could have suddenly ended at any time, he made it to the end – about 10,000km on a stupid bike. I liked the book. Oh, and I almost forgot to say — it’s very funny!

Title: The Racer
Author: Millar, David
Published by: Yellow Jersey Press
Year: 2016
First published: Yellow Jersey Press, 2015
Date reviewed: 04.17
ISBN: 9780224100083

Except of course he could be counted on. Here in 2014, his final season as a pro, Millar is a respected rider; the automatic choice for the job of team road captain. The directeur sportif plans the day’s tactics but he can’t be everywhere. It’s the captain on the road who sees how each rider is doing, calls the shots, redeploys the resources and hopefully guides the team to deliver their leader to the finish line. Millar knows how to read a race.

While the main thread of the book is Millar’s final racing season he dips into the past for some elements. From the start of the Spring Classics, through San Remo, Flanders and the Ardennes, the Giro, the Dauphiné, the national championships, le Tour, the Vuelta and the world championships Millar’s year unfolds. Along the way you’ll find out what it’s really like to ride a team time trial, to be in a major crash, or to ride Paris – Roubaix.

Two longer episodes stand out for me. Millar’s account of the stage in the Dauphiné when his Garmin team placed Andrew Talansky into the overall leader’s position above Chris Froome and Alberto Contador is a marvellous account of how a successful team works on the road. The other is the poignant story of his stage 3 win in the 2011 Giro when he came second on the stage and found himself in the overall leader’s maglia rosa, only to hear about the tragic death of Wouter Weylandt in a crash. Coping with that personally and on the following day on behalf of the whole peloton endorses Millar’s status as a respected senior rider.

He wasn’t selected for the Tour de France in his final year, which was a big blow. He uses the opportunity to describe the final stage of the 2013 Tour where he leads the race for most of the final laps. Here again the details of how to ride this world-famous circuit give a whole new insight into the race.

So thank you for this book, David. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Title: Africa Solo
Author: Beaumont, Mark
Published by: Bantam Press
Year: 2016
First published: Bantam Press, 2016
Date reviewed: 01.17
ISBN: 9780593076330

It’s 2015 and Mark Beaumont’s back on his bike. Round the World – done it. North and South America – done it. Then a break from the bike to attempt the transatlantic rowing record – not done it because the boat capsized and the team nearly died. Then marriage and a child, which would lead anyone to re-evaluate their life objectives. But if you’re committed to being a professional adventurer rather than an accountant you’ve got to have a plan. Mark doesn’t tell us what his Big Plan is (though he does say it won’t involve rowing), but breaking the record for cycling the length of Africa from Cairo to Capetown seems to be a part of it.

If you had all the time in the world you might be able just to get on a bike in Cairo and pedal off to Cape Town with very little preparation. You’d expect to run into all sorts of problems; visas, customs, border crossings, dodgy food, armed military check points, route finding, bike maintenance, gratuitous low-level hostility, robbery, maybe even being taken hostage. You wouldn’t expect to break any speed records and realistically you probably wouldn’t get very far. But the modern adventurer looking for a record time lives in a different world of meticulous planning, fixers, security guards, wifi, social media, sponsors and documentary film makers.

Mark doesn’t describe his ride as a journey, it’s a race: a race against time not other competititors. So the book is not really a travelogue of the countries he rides through, more a tunnel-vision view of Africa from north to south. To quote cycling writer Andrew Curry,

“Racers spend their time looking at the wheel in front of them, not the landscape on the side of the road.” Andrew Curry, “Isadore”; Rouleur magazine #67, 2016.

He describes his ride day by day and country by country. During the day he is focused on the road, the bike, his own physical and mental state, the weather, the road conditions, the kilometres ridden and the distance still to go. At the end of the day it’s finding somewhere to sleep, food, recovery. If this sounds repetitive, in some ways it is but it is certainly not dull for the reader who shares Mark’s highs and lows.

For me the book really came alive in the last 1000 miles or so when with the end metaphorically in sight Mark throws everything into huge daily distances as he hurtles towrads the finish.

Books like this are often described as “inspiring”. I admire Mark for his persistence, single-minded dedication, endurance, fortitude and other great qualities, and of course for his achievement. But personally I’m not inspired to copy his ride or try something similar. These days I couldn’t cope with the discomfort and pain, the lack of good food, a warm shower and a comfortable bed. In my cycle touring days I at least had the (sometimes dubious) benefits of old-style Youth Hostels. But as an example of what an extreme endurance cyclist can achieve – “Chapeau, Mark!”