Description
History's most appalling bike race was an ordeal of 400-kilometre stages, cataclysmic night storms and relentless sabotage. 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, some maps and an alarming period outfit. What unfolds is the tale of decrepit crock trying to ride another up a thousand lonely hills, then down them with only wine corks for brakes. From the Alps to the Adriatic, the pair steadily fall to bits, on an adventure that is by turns bold, beautiful and recklessly incompetent.