The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

 UK Kirkus review
People die completing the Tour de France. This fact would normally be enough to put off any but the keenest of cyclists from attempting the route, but not so Tim Moore. This is a man who is unable to ride a bike without both hands firmly gripping the handlebars and yet his imagination becomes fired by thoughts of such an extreme physical challenge. After consulting some experts, he decides to tackle all 3630 km of the 2000 Tour in the month or so before the professionals depart. He sets off in high spirits, with nothing but a slathering of Savlon between him and the agony of a sweat-induced intimate infection. Along the way he finds himself battling against unhelpful tourist board officials, enraged pizza chefs, hostile hotel receptionists and a group of old men under the misapprehension that Roger Moore is his father. The leading Tour de France cyclists average 50 kilometres per hour, making Moore's 19.1 average seem decidedly puny, and he soon finds himself calling in the cavalry - in the guise of his profoundly unsympathetic wife and children. The result of his self-induced ordeal is the ultimate guidebook in how not to cycle long distances. Moore weaves accounts of his own heroic exploits with sobering, and sometimes infamous, tales about the race and the racers, and uses his brand of zany comedy to create a comic catalogue of misadventures. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of Bill Bryson, he persuades the reader to suffer bewilderment and frustration with him and to share his emotional highs and physical triumphs. Whether this book is likely to tempt the reader to undertake a similar challenge is doubtful, but that is hardly the point. Its purpose is to entertain and that it does in abundance. (Kirkus UK)