Racing Pictures Around the World

Tours of the World: Paolo Pellizzari. 5 Continents Editions, 2004. 164 pages hardback, large format, £29.95. ISBN88-7439-169-2

A MAGNIFICENTLY-PRODUCED COLLECTION of photos by Pellizzari, illustrating eighteen of the world’s professional stage races, many of them little-known to your average fan: Guatemala, Qinghai Lake, Qatar, Japan, Burkina Faso (where Coppi caught malaria), the Canadian Tour de Beauce, Langkawi, Ireland (fine picture of the Mamore Gap), Bolivia, Martinique, and the Golan, as well as France, Spain and Italy - though not the Scandinavian or Swiss tours.

The pictures are all in wide, panoramic format: sometimes 4″ x 10″ on a single page, sometimes 7″x 18″ across two pages - the book is landscape in format. Within the limits of this format the variety is enormous: entire fields on a stretch of coast or desert, bunches or individuals climbing well-known cols, the pattern of hundreds of bikes in a bike park, cyclists glimpsed through the girders of a bridge, spectators in the African bush, a naff Australian roadside ‘decoration contest, time-triallists, curious shadows, riders resting after the stage in a school dormitory, a storm over the Altiplano,

The translation of the text (a 25-page intro) into English, presumably from the original Italian, is a bit creaky, as are the captions: Africans begging at a team-car window are described as ‘a riot to receive presents’. But it’s of little consequence alongside the stunning pictures. Published three years ago, the book is still available from Amazon.

Ramin Minovi

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