Gironimo!: Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy
About this audiobook
The 1914 Giro d’Italia was the most difficult bike race in history; eighty-one riders started and only eight finished. Now Tim Moore is going to attempt it himself, and he’s committed to total authenticity.
Twelve years after Tim Moore toiled around the route of the Tour de France, he senses his achievement being undermined by the truth about “Horrid Lance.” His rash response is to take on a fearsome challenge from an age of untarnished heroes: the notorious 1914 Giro d’Italia. History’s most appalling bike race was an ordeal of 400-kilometer stages filled with cataclysmic storms, roads strewn with nails, and even the loss of an eye by one competitor—and it was all on a diet of raw eggs and red wine.
Of the eighty-one riders who rolled out of Milan, only eight made it back. To truly capture the essence of what these riders endured a century ago, Tim acquires the ruined husk of a gearless, wooden-wheeled 1914 road bike, some maps, and an alarming period outfit topped off with a pair of blue-lensed welding goggles. As Moore rides up and over the Alps and then down to the Adriatic (with only wine corks for brakes), Gironimo! is an adventure that is by turns bold, beautiful, and madly inspiring.
About the author
Tim Moore ’s writing has appeared in Esquire and London’s Daily Telegraph, Observer, and Sunday Times. He is the author of French Revolutions and several other books. He lives in London.
Gildart Jackson is a professional actor with experience on stage, screen, and behind the mic. Best known for his role as Gideon on Charmed, he has narrated more than seventy audiobooks and has appeared on Providence, General Hospital, Stargate: Atlantis, Las Vegas, and CSI as well as in The Seagull, My Fair Lady, and Private Eyes at the Old Globe.
