1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession

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A great example of what constitutes the best longform writing about sport - The New European You may also be interested in. Along the way Ned’s portfolio of work has expanded, annual credit includes coverage of the Tour of Britain and Vuelta a Espana.

Yes it's about cycling - more to the point Le Tour and a rider in the 1923 edition - but it's so much more. Had the book concentrated on the riders, the pieces in the film and the riders, it would have been a much better read. This book explores the wider situation in 1923, a period of history I have to admit to not knowing very well at all.Join him as he explores the history of cycling and France just five years after WWI – meeting characters like Henri Pelissier, who won the Tour that year but who would within the decade be shot dead by his lover using the same pistol with which his wife had killed herself.

Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item. Ultimately, it’s the enthusiasm that proves most beguiling here, not only for doggedly uncovering facts with extremely limited clues, but for bringing back to the light a remote, unsung figure and honouring his life – and career – even though it wasn’t one of garlands or headlines. Here, the alienated translator from The Cat and the City finds a book on the subway, leading her on a quest not just to understand the traumas and relationships between a strict old woman and her grandson in rural Japan – but the motivations of the book’s author, too.It sent Boulting down an intriguing rabbit hole as he explored the characters, places and contexts of 1923’s 412km stage 4. There are so many little facts and situations that I would never have known about and yet now I want to explore more. And so when he finds something that doesn’t fit the romantic portrait he’s painted in his head – such as the news that in later life Beeckman may actually have been a bit of an arse – he isn’t able to do as Daniel Coyle did in Lance Armstrong’s War and show that our hero is actually more like us than we realise. The other photograph, that one actually was taken in the Parc des Princes, where the Petit Tour de France was being held, a post-Tour track-meet Desgrange organised annually and which forms an early step on the road to today’s post-Tour critérium circuit. It’s that rich, because if you stare hard enough at any moment of recorded time, it will reveal shards of both the past and the future.