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peaky climbers. anna hughes on behalf of paul mcIntosh and the peaky climbers. brown dog books paperback. 158pp illus. £10

peaky climbers

imagine, if only for a moment, that you, me and some other riding colleagues have decided to undertake the ride of the century. after a year and a half's worth of training and strict nutritional observance occupying every waking minute and several more while we're asleep, the intention is to take ourselves lock, stock and barrel to the continent and commit ourselves to a purgatorial route across the most mountainous terrain we could find.

at the moment, you're thinking 'so what?', based entirely on the knowledge that there are similarly deluded individuals doing this sort of thing, year in, year out. but wait for just a minute; rather than all this being in the name of narcissism and self-aggrandisement, we're going to do it to raise as much money for charity as possible. at which point, you'll no doubt point me in the direction of that initial thought...

'so what? after all, there are people who do this sort of thing all the time and not just on bicycles.

but let's suppose that, alongside all of the above, i let you know that the entire undertaking will be documented in both words and photographs to end up as a self-published book, which will also be sold to raise even more money for the, as yet, un-named charities. running true to form, that strikes me as hardly the best idea any of us have had, particularly the book bit at the end. that, to be quite blunt, sounds terrible.

but the real thing, sitting on the arm of my armchair as i write, is very far from terrible. in fact, not to pre-empt my review, 'peaky climbers' is quite brilliant.

though something of a sweeping generalisation, self-published books rarely compete with what we might, for the time being at least, refer to as the professional product. but sit this next to one of the latter, and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

the book is subtitled, 'how eight amateur cyclists became kings of the mountains', from which you might reasonably derive that the object of their charitable velocipedinal attentions, was a selection of tour de france mountain tops. quite probably every road cyclist harbours dreams of ascending the alps and pyrenees to add to their palmares. but in those visions, we're most likely imitating the grimpeurship of the professionals. in other words, we climb like gods.

reality isn't like that, a fact that our eight, considerably less than deluded heroes discovered en-route to a successful conclusion to their challenge. but first things first; before enjoying a well-written, concise and smartly paced narrative, the reader is met with a dedication to the memory of maisie norton and valerie mcintosh, the deaths of whom inspired this seemingly eccentric undertaking. proceeds from the sale of every copy of peaky climbers are being donated to the 'caring cancer trust' and the 'british lung foundation'. if my review stopped here, that would surely be reason enough to purchase.

chapter one introduces the eight protagonists, setting the tone for the often whimsically self-deprecatory text. "Graham Cherrill, the most capable cyclist of us all. [...] essentially riding to help the rest of us out - there's no point in making it any easier on him than it needs to be." over a period of seven days, yet eighteen months in the making and beginning with the 1520 metres of the hautacam, the octet of cyclists rode up one mountain, descended the other side and immediately started on the next. this undertaking in excess included the three ascents (and descents) of mont ventoux. just for good measure.

the blame, should any need to be apportioned, for subjecting eight pairs of legs to quite so much climbing - including one rider who suffered from vertigo - lies squarely at the pedals of narrator, paul mcintosh.

"...I was approaching my 50s, and I needed to do something momentous." roping in seven colleagues to go climb some french mountains was apparently seen as a more fitting means of satisfying his mid-life crisis than buying a porsche. the sadly motivating reason for the undertaking, was the premature death of his mother from idiomatic pulmonary fibrosis and the equally premature demise of maisie norton from cancer at the age of only 17. "If I could raise a substantial amount of money for the British Lung Foundation and increase awareness of the disease..." monies are also being donated to the cancer caring trust in memory of maisie.

however, if you're of similar mind to yours truly, the prospect of reading 158 pages about eight, well-meaning amateurs riding up and down whacking great mountains, is not one that might fill you with glee. at which point, it gives me great pleasure to eat humble pie, because on more than one occasion, i found myself reading much larger chunks of the book, at one sitting, than i'd intended, completely engrossed throughout. the narrative makes repeated reference to the trials and tribulations incurred while preparing for those days in french france, intertwined with the agonies of climbing such big hills in such short order.

"Each day we fall behind schedule, and it is often dark as we roll into our B&B"

the fact that the peaky climbers raised a substantial amount of money for charity while wearing out both of paul mcintosh's knees, and that the proceeds of the book's sales are designed to bolster that amount even further, could be seen as reason enough to buy a copy for yourself and one for everyone you know in the peloton as a christmas present. (they set out to raise £30,000. at the time of writing, they'd raised £61,088). the added bonus is that it's a story well worth reading in and of itself.

truly, we are not worthy.

peaky climbers - the book

friday 26 october 2018

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................