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vuelta skelter - riding the remarkable 1941 tour of spain. tim moore. jonathan cape hardback. 325pp illus. £20

vuelta-skelter - tim moore

as a well-rounded luddite, i have no truck with modern-day streaming services, both visual and musical, therefore the programmes appearing on the likes of amazon or netflix are largely unknown to me. programmes such as 'jeremy's farm, in which the renowned mr clarkson, having purchased a farm and lamborghini tractor, subsequently makes a bit of a prat of himself while simultaneously highlighting the difficulties faced by 'real' farmers in today's, post-brexit agricultural world.

there's little doubt, however, that the principal premise behind the programme is one espoused by many before and no doubt, many to come. basically, mr clarkson, comfortably at home when surrounded by any four-wheeled vehicle (a lamborghini tractor, for instance), is completely out of his depth as a farmer. of course, having only inferred various scenarios gleaned from lunchtime office conversations, i may be doing mr clarkson a disservice, but i somehow doubt it. and there seems little doubt that it makes for good tv, as long as he doesn't succeed too much.

there is often great hilarity to be gained from placing mere mortals in superhuman situations, a premise exploited to the full by author and alleged bike rider, tim moore. his first publication entitled 'french revolutions', described his attempt as a non-professional and barely trained rider, to complete the 3,630km parcours of the tour de france route. for those who have yet to add this essential volume to their bookshelves, i doubt that i'm giving away too many secrets by informing you that it's hilarious.

he has also ridden 9,000km behind the iron curtain on a two speed, east german shopping bike, and ridden the route of the 1914 tour of italy on an authentic, wooden-wheeled gearless bicycle. you may already have begun to see a pattern to his authorship. it's been some six years since gironimo was published, but mr moore has scarcely lost his appetite for humorous adventure, though his enjoyably self-deprecating style mostly has us laughing both at him and with him, often at the same time.

vuelta skelter brings tim moore a tad closer to the present day, riding the route of the 1941 tour of spain and a bicycle bearing the name of its original victor on the downtube, julian berrendero. the inspiration for this particular undertaking was pretty much the only english language book dedicated to the spanish grand tour, viva la vuelta written by the inestimable adrian bell and lucy fallon.

Spain's national bike race is comfortably the least grand grand tour" [...] Eddy Merckx only bothered with it once, casually destroying the filed in 1973. [...]
"By page 25 I knew how I would be spending the next few months of mine.

vuelta-skelter - tim moore

if you've grasped mr moore's usual metier when it comes to embarking upon a highly unlikely velocipedinal task, simply acquiring a suitable bicycle and undertaking a high-pressure training schedule, prior to setting off, accompanied by a dedicated support crew is not quite the way it works. vuelta skelter is no different in that respect. but before the magic begins, there's the small matter of enlightening the reader as to the background of the eventual winner, whom mr moore intends to emulate. and alongside his own efforts, he keeps us appraised of happenings in the original race

the 1941 tour was undoubtedly chosen for other reasons, not least the fact that it took place only two years after general franco's overthrow of the spanish republic during spain's civil war, taking over as dictator until 1975. in fact, throughout moore's fraught ridden spanish cycle tour, the chapters take place in front of a background of atrocities carried out on behalf of franco's unhappy regime. but first things first; julian berrendero initially found himself in disfavour with franco's government on his return for having criticised the regime following participation in the 1936 and 1937 tours de france.

subsequent incarceration in his home country was fortunately relieved when the captain of rota prison, a former amateur cyclist, recognised berrendero, eventually procuring his release, following which his racing licence was restored, all in time to participate in the 1941 vuelta. berrendero's opinion of today's grand tour cyclists, as with many of that era, is scarcely complimentary. in his autobiography he moaned...

"I won the King of the Mountains without any gears. Now they have ten gear bikes lighter than the wind, you can get 70kmh out of them..."

and then, of course, there's the not insignificant matter of the bike on which mr moore's 'skelter' would take place. "The machine ... was no careworn, mass-market clunker, but a bespoke, race-ready, mid-Seventies beauty with Campagnolo stamped all over the gleaming bits that made it move and stop." it was a rare find, after considerable searching, a bicycle bearing the name of the book's inspiration from the spanish peloton.

unlike the professionals, tim moore's race preparation consists mostly of programming each day's stage into komoot, a smartphone app that he soon discovered that he barely understood and one that didn't seem to understand him. and instead of being transported to his luxury hotel each evening by a state of the art coach, he pretty much took pot luck as to what budget accommodation he could find each day. it seems a tad unfair, though not unexpected, to point out that, when it came to eating of an evening, mr moore was also woefully uninformed.

vuelta-skelter - tim moore

'Para comer?'
The waiter responded to my request with a look of frank bemusement, as if instead of asking him what there was to eat, I'd just invited him to draw on my face. [...] With much watch-pointing, the waiter explained himself: the kitchen didn't open until 8:30pm, giving me ninety minutes to keep ravening delirium at bay..."

the only 'outside help' on which mr moore relies, is a series of newspaper reports on the '41 tour, though frequently, they appear to have omitted mention of gradients and portions of the route that might have proved helpful. however, midst the humour and cycling, the spain of 1941 scarcely comes across as the ideal holiday destination, and even less so, the sort of place you'd want to live, if you were without general franco posters on your bedroom wall. i doubt that a chapter passes by without the mention of several major atrocities that took place under the general's dictatorship. and it appears that even today, many of these heinous acts remain part of spain's omerta.

tim moore is a very funny man and an excellent writer. his narrative is subtly compulsive, his observations acute and his tenacity most admirable. he's a man with whom it is not hard to identify; there are few who will not imagine themselves in precisely the same sticky situations as befall him. and it would be exceedingly unfair to leave this excellent book without mentioning the superb illustrations by steven appleby that top each chapter heading, and the jacket design that ideally complements the perception of tim moore that will inhabit your thoughts right up until the final page.

one can only imagine what he'll do next.

vuelta skelter by tim moore is published on thursday 12 august.

wednesday 11 august 2021

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................