Herbie Sykes promised never to write about Fausto Coppi. Visitors to Italy will find even village tobacconists sell magazines and books and these include often many cycling books, especially biographies of past Italian riders from the region. A resident of the Piemonte, the home of Coppi, Sykes had seen too many books about the man, a palimpsest of texts had obscured the past. But this is different.
This is a collection of photos accompanied by short accounts from 21 riders who were contemporaries of Coppi. The photography is excellent and surpasses the normal sports clichés. If there are one or two podium photos, there’s not one image of a victory salute.