Giro D'Italia : The Story of the World's Most Beautiful Bike Race

In a manner perfectly fitting for cycling, the Giro d’Italia was inspired by a mixture of enmity, chance, cunning and risk. Sport had very little to do with it. Not in the pure, Corinthian sense, anyway, because fundamentally, the Giro was born to sell newspapers.Whereas these days we associate the media with reportage and opinion, reaction to recent events and rumination on things soon to come, the nineteenth-century press tended to take a far more hands-on approach to filling column inches, whether through the serialisation of fiction or the staging of attention-grabbing events, such as the sponsorship of Hattie and Darwin McIlrath on their three-year, cycling circumnavigation of the globe by Chicago’s Inter-Ocean newspaper in the late 1890s. Born of tumult in 1909, the Giro d'Italia helped unite a nation. Since then it has reflected it too; the race's capricious and unpredictable nature matching the passions and extremes of Italy itself. A desperately hard race through a beautiful country, the Giro has bred characters and stories that dramatise the shifting culture and society of its home: Alfonsina Strada, who cropped her hair and raced against the men in 1924. Ottavio Bottecchia, expected to challenge for the winner's Maglia Rosa in 1928, until killed on a training ride, probably by Mussolini's Black Shirts. Fausto Coppi, the metropolitan playboy with amphetamines in his veins, guided by a mystic blind masseur; and his arch rival Gino Bartali; humble, pious and countrified (and brave: recently it emerged he smuggled papers for persecuted Jewish Italians). The Giro's most tragic hero - Marco Pantani, born to climb but fated to lose. Halted only by World Wars, the Giro has been contested since 1909. The 2017 edition will be its one hundredth. This book celebrates it in all its kaleidoscopic glory. The Story Of The Giro D'italia - Italy's Equivalent Of The Tour De France, And Its Superior In The Eyes Of Many - Is As Dramatic And Full Of Extraordinary Characters As The Story Of Italy Itself. Heroism, Suffering, Feuds And Betrayals, Tradition Under Threat From Modernity All Play Out Against A Timeless Landscape. The Iconic Riders, Mythical Stories And Career Defining Exploits Are Conveyed In Rich, Vibrant Prose. The full, rich story of the legendary Giro d'Italia, published to celebrate its 100th edition.