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Review
`If you read only one sporting book this year, make it Pedalare! Pedalare! ... Absorbing, compelling and brilliant' --Evening Standard
`Sparkling ... alive with terrific characters ... The key to [Foot's] success lies with the larger-than-life characters who people these pages' --Spectator
`Extraordinary events and people feature in this century of Italian cycling' --Guardian
`An expert on sport, but more importantly on Italian culture, history and society, [John Foot] has now turned his eye to cycling ... If you want to understand Italian cycling, read this book ... Fascinating'
--Cycle Sport
`Sparkling ... alive with terrific characters ... The key to [Foot's] success lies with the larger-than-life characters who people these pages' --Spectator
`Extraordinary events and people feature in this century of Italian cycling' --Guardian
`An expert on sport, but more importantly on Italian culture, history and society, [John Foot] has now turned his eye to cycling ... If you want to understand Italian cycling, read this book ... Fascinating'
--Cycle Sport
Review
If you read only one sporting book this year, make it Pedalare! Pedalare! ... Absorbing, compelling and brilliant Evening Standard Sparkling ... alive with terrific characters ... The key to [Foot's] success lies with the larger-than-life characters who people these pages Spectator The first general account in English of the second biking culture ... As this year's Giro d'Italia hopefuls head out over a dramatic parcours, the ghosts Foot evokes will stir once more Independent on Sunday An expert on sport, but more importantly on Italian culture, history and society, [John Foot] has now turned his eye to cycling ... If you want to understand Italian cycling, read this book ... Fascinating Cycle Sport
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
John Foot is the son of famous British campaigning journalist, the late (alas) Paul Foot; however he is not himself a journalist but an academic, specialising in recent Italian history and culture.
He has previously brought his skills to bear upon the history of Italian football and football fandom (including the 'ultras') and of the Italians' continuing relationship with the so called 'beautiful game', in the well received 'Calcio'. In 'Pedalare! Pedalare' (Ride! Ride! - as screamed by many an Italian (and other) DS to their team members), John Foot applies his expertise to the historic and current relationship of the Italian public to the sport of cycling - with, understandably, an emphasis on the great Italian stage race, the Giro d'Italia.
As a moderately knowledgeable fan of professional cycling I found this book a fascinating read, since until very recently, astonishingly, there had been exactly ZERO books published in English on the history either of the Giro, or of Italian cycling in general. (There are books on individual riders, Franco Balmamion and Fausto Coppi to mention but two; but of general books there were none until the start of 2011.) Here an expert tells the tale of how Italy first fell in love with the bicycle, then as both the times, and more importantly perhaps the economy, changed, almost fell out of love with it again ... only to find a new enthusiasm for bike racing during the 1980s and 1990s as Italians had Giro success once again. But by then cycling was a different sport, competing for television time with short-attention-span-friendly rivals like football, and with its participants sometimes driven to desperate measures to retain their prestige, and with it their sponsors' lire and later euros. The name of Marco Pantani remains for ever on the list of this era's greatest casualties, and sporting tragedies.
John Foot recounts all this with an academic's precision and ability to sort truth from fairy-tale. Right from the start, he makes it clear that for the most part, he is telling the story of an era long passed: the time when the bicycle could take those with sufficient talent and application quite literally from rags to riches; when the great bike racers were the greatest of heroes to the Italian public. While there have been excellent riders, both Italian and otherwise, since the great days of Coppi and Bartali, things could never be the same; here, there really was a 'golden age' which shall not come again.
The excellence of this book consists in the ability of the writer to convey all this, complete with an academic's analysis of the historical and cultural trajectories behind the changes in the world of professional cycling in Italy. He even manages to make a plausible case for cycling being the one firm foundation upon which Italian unity was first based, as riders arose from various provinces and social strata to capture the attention of a whole nation.
All that being said, this is not a heavy nor an overly 'academic' volume; there are notes and references, but they do not intrude into the text. It is as exciting to read as any novel, and has the authenticity of the eye witness also, as John Foot has had first hand contact with some of the story's most notable characters.
Recommended to anyone interested in professional cycle sport - and in particular to the English-speaking fan, who for far too long has had to be satisfied with oblique references to the Giro and its stars gleaned from works on other races and issues.
Thank you John Foot.
He has previously brought his skills to bear upon the history of Italian football and football fandom (including the 'ultras') and of the Italians' continuing relationship with the so called 'beautiful game', in the well received 'Calcio'. In 'Pedalare! Pedalare' (Ride! Ride! - as screamed by many an Italian (and other) DS to their team members), John Foot applies his expertise to the historic and current relationship of the Italian public to the sport of cycling - with, understandably, an emphasis on the great Italian stage race, the Giro d'Italia.
As a moderately knowledgeable fan of professional cycling I found this book a fascinating read, since until very recently, astonishingly, there had been exactly ZERO books published in English on the history either of the Giro, or of Italian cycling in general. (There are books on individual riders, Franco Balmamion and Fausto Coppi to mention but two; but of general books there were none until the start of 2011.) Here an expert tells the tale of how Italy first fell in love with the bicycle, then as both the times, and more importantly perhaps the economy, changed, almost fell out of love with it again ... only to find a new enthusiasm for bike racing during the 1980s and 1990s as Italians had Giro success once again. But by then cycling was a different sport, competing for television time with short-attention-span-friendly rivals like football, and with its participants sometimes driven to desperate measures to retain their prestige, and with it their sponsors' lire and later euros. The name of Marco Pantani remains for ever on the list of this era's greatest casualties, and sporting tragedies.
John Foot recounts all this with an academic's precision and ability to sort truth from fairy-tale. Right from the start, he makes it clear that for the most part, he is telling the story of an era long passed: the time when the bicycle could take those with sufficient talent and application quite literally from rags to riches; when the great bike racers were the greatest of heroes to the Italian public. While there have been excellent riders, both Italian and otherwise, since the great days of Coppi and Bartali, things could never be the same; here, there really was a 'golden age' which shall not come again.
The excellence of this book consists in the ability of the writer to convey all this, complete with an academic's analysis of the historical and cultural trajectories behind the changes in the world of professional cycling in Italy. He even manages to make a plausible case for cycling being the one firm foundation upon which Italian unity was first based, as riders arose from various provinces and social strata to capture the attention of a whole nation.
All that being said, this is not a heavy nor an overly 'academic' volume; there are notes and references, but they do not intrude into the text. It is as exciting to read as any novel, and has the authenticity of the eye witness also, as John Foot has had first hand contact with some of the story's most notable characters.
Recommended to anyone interested in professional cycle sport - and in particular to the English-speaking fan, who for far too long has had to be satisfied with oblique references to the Giro and its stars gleaned from works on other races and issues.
Thank you John Foot.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The sub title "A history of Italian Cycling" is a bit of a misnomer as the author has skilfully woven in the cultural and historical details that supported the dynamism of Italian cycling for well over a century.
I found it hard to put down, the characters I knew of as being cycling names long before I turned a pedal came to life again. I was left feeling that I had become very much closer to the passions of the tiffosi that line the routes of the Giro'd'Italia and other classic cycle races than I thought possible.
This is a book very different to most other books covering cycling, to partially quote an advertising phrase, it reaches the parts others do not. Reading it was a very fullfilling experience.
I found it hard to put down, the characters I knew of as being cycling names long before I turned a pedal came to life again. I was left feeling that I had become very much closer to the passions of the tiffosi that line the routes of the Giro'd'Italia and other classic cycle races than I thought possible.
This is a book very different to most other books covering cycling, to partially quote an advertising phrase, it reaches the parts others do not. Reading it was a very fullfilling experience.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Pedalare! Pedalare! is possibly the finest, most profound and certainly the best written book on cycling I have ever read. And I mean on cycling, not just Italian cycling, which would be faint praise indeed.
The history of Italian cycling is not just about Coppi and Bartali and nor is it a list of Giri winners. So, for example, Pedalare! has the space and breadth to devote a 20 page chapter on the myths surrounding Bartali's Tour victory in 1948. Magni has a 24 page chapter and so on.
Nor does the author gloss the drugs issue. Quite the reverse and he debates when cycling "died". Was it in 1984 when Moser blood-doped his way to the 1 hour record or as late as 1999 with Pantani?
Most sports books are written by sports journalists and it shows. Pedalare! has been written by a historian and that shows as well. Context is everything: How the Giro came about. How the great cyclists became cyclists to escape grinding poverty. And why Vespas and Fiat 500s destroyed everyday cycling in Italy.
Few books on cycling are worth reading, fewer still are worth buying but Pedalare! Pedalare! is to buy, read, lend to others, retrieve and then read again.
The history of Italian cycling is not just about Coppi and Bartali and nor is it a list of Giri winners. So, for example, Pedalare! has the space and breadth to devote a 20 page chapter on the myths surrounding Bartali's Tour victory in 1948. Magni has a 24 page chapter and so on.
Nor does the author gloss the drugs issue. Quite the reverse and he debates when cycling "died". Was it in 1984 when Moser blood-doped his way to the 1 hour record or as late as 1999 with Pantani?
Most sports books are written by sports journalists and it shows. Pedalare! has been written by a historian and that shows as well. Context is everything: How the Giro came about. How the great cyclists became cyclists to escape grinding poverty. And why Vespas and Fiat 500s destroyed everyday cycling in Italy.
Few books on cycling are worth reading, fewer still are worth buying but Pedalare! Pedalare! is to buy, read, lend to others, retrieve and then read again.
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