Il giro d’Italia illustrato

For more than a hundred years, the Giro d’Italia has been a celebration. Of course, the Giro is primarily a race—a bicycle race with teams, a few champions, and a thousand helpers. But it’s as if every year in May, a grand and colorful popular spectacle is staged on the streets of Italy, captivating both young and old.

Cycling, more than other sports, resembles the chivalric legends that tell of battles and tournaments where champions, mounted on their steeds, faced off with lance and sword. Because, even though cycling is a team sport, at the crucial moment of a race, the champion is alone with his bicycle, battling against the rival who accelerates, against the uphill road, against the ticking clock, against the adverse weather, against waning strength, or simply against his own body and mind.

This book takes us inside the Giro d’Italia, its history and its forms over the years, and then to the cities and towns, the landscapes and adventures it has traversed and continues to traverse from 1909 to today: how the race has evolved and changed, who its protagonists and supporting characters have been, which stages are memorable and which climbs legendary, what objects—the bicycles, the jerseys…—and curiosities have made it an ageless sporting myth for all ages.