This week, Mike Sansbury, of The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley, reviews Gironimo, by Tim Moore, Yellow Jersey Press, £4.99 (paperback)

As Ilkley prepares itself for the Tour de France, we could be forgiven for thinking it the most gruelling cycle race in Europe, so it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that there are other, equally brutal road races on the continent.

Spain has its Vuelta but, according to author Tim Moore, the toughest of all is the Giro d’Italia, which in its 1914 incarnation proved the most arduous, destructive and downright deadly of all time.

Tim Moore is the master of the eccentric travelogue, having previously crossed Europe in a battered Rolls Royce and followed the Camino de Santiago with a donkey, but perhaps his best-loved book so far has been French Revolutions, covering his attempt to ride the route of the Tour de France.

Now, disillusioned by the many drugs revelations surrounding that race, he has set his sights on retracing the circuit followed by the Giro competitors a century ago, on a vintage bicycle and in period garb.

This might sound contrived, and it is, but if you allow yourself to be drawn into Moore’s convoluted adventure you will find him an engaging, self-deprecating raconteur.

In fact, it sometimes seems that he has absolutely no shame, such is his willingness to be humiliated en route. Readers of Continental Drifter will be familiar with his reluctance to waste money on such fripperies as accommodation, and will probably not be surprised to see the embarrassing results of his frequent searches for cheap sustenance.

Behind all this amiable buffoonery, however, there is a more serious story to be told, concerning the sheer courage and determination of the competitors in that last pre-war race, in particular the winner, Alfonso Calzolari.

We read of riders accepting lifts in cars (which, amazingly, resulted in a time penalty rather than disqualification) and taking death-defying cocktails of brandy and strychnine in order to survive the fiendishly difficult 3,000 kilometre race in which only eight of the initial 81 riders reached the finishing line.

Calzolari is the hero of the book but Moore has praise too for those who show him kindness on the way; mechanics, hotel proprietors – like the one who washes his woollen cycling kit and returns it to him several sizes smaller – and everyone who assists him in one of the most interesting sections of the book, the actual purchasing and reconstruction of an authentic period bicycle.

This machine, a Hirondelle known affectionately as Number 7, with its prosecco cork brake pads and painfully genuine saddle, is the other real star of the book.

This is really several books in one; we have the stirring story of the 1914 riders, battling with a route seemingly designed to defeat them, the painfully humiliating adventures of an eccentric Englishman and his ultimately successful attempt to prove to himself that, at 47, he still has the stamina to complete a hugely challenging ride.

It could also be seen as one man’s part in reclaiming the honour of cycling by paying tribute to those Italian pioneers.

Tim Moore points out that Lance Armstrong only completed the Giro once, finishing 11th, while the best ‘Lord Wiggo’ has managed is 40th. Moore complains that “while at 35 you can still cut it, at 47 you’ve forgotten where you put the scissors”.

Moore manages to transform himself from someone whose idea of a biathlon was sitting on an exercise bike while watching the football, into a cycling hero, albeit one in a very strange jumper and a big, floppy cap.

  • Tim will be one of the authors taking part in the Ilkley Literature Festival’s Cycling Words weekend on June 28/29.