Book Review: Sometimes a party is so good you dont want it to end. For those of us who love the Giro dItalia, the final day always come too soon and then we have the palate-cleansing races like the Dauphine Libere and the Tour de Suisse and then the Tour comes and pink is replaced by yellow. But thanks to Maglia Rosa: Triumph and Tragedy at the Giro dItalia by British author/Italian resident Herbie Sykes we have not only an English-language history of the Giro dItalia, which is in itself distressingly rare, but an extraordinarily entertaining book that will take us through until the tifosi migrate to Italian roadsides again in May. Published by Rouleur, this is not an inexpensive book and my first thought on pulling my limited- edition volume out of its slipcase was that it is not very large. But at over 300 pages of quite dense type and featuring a marvellous collection of photos, it is actually quite exhaustive in detail but reads like a thriller that draws you in further and further. Bike racing had begun in Italy in 1870 and as Italy, a nation of peasant-farmers, began to transform into an industrialized country, although at a very unequal rate as the northwest enjoyed rapid economic growth while the south, which suffered massive immigration to other countries at the same time, remained mired in poverty. Literacy was at 52%. Milan, representing the wealthier part of the country, was a hotbed of cycling and new events...
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