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Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain
Tim Moore completes his epic (and ill-advised) trilogy of cycling's Grand Tours.
Julian Berrendero's victory in the 1941 Vuelta a Espana was an extraordinary exercise in sporting redemption: the Spanish cyclist had just spent 18 months in Franco's concentration camps, punishment for expressing Republican sympathies during the civil war. Seventy nine years later, perennially over-ambitious cyclo-adventurer Tim Moore developed a fascination with Berrendero's story, and having borrowed an old road bike with the great man's name plastered all over it, set off to retrace the 4,409km route of his 1941 triumph - in the midst of a global pandemic.
What follows is a tale of brutal heat and lonely roads, of glory, humiliation, and then a bit more humiliation. Along the way Tim recounts the civil war's still-vivid tragedies, and finds the gregarious but impressively responsible locals torn between welcoming their nation's only foreign visitor, and bundling him and his filthy bike into a vat of antiviral gel.
Julian Berrendero's victory in the 1941 Vuelta a Espana was an extraordinary exercise in sporting redemption: the Spanish cyclist had just spent 18 months in Franco's concentration camps, punishment for expressing Republican sympathies during the civil war. Seventy nine years later, perennially over-ambitious cyclo-adventurer Tim Moore developed a fascination with Berrendero's story, and having borrowed an old road bike with the great man's name plastered all over it, set off to retrace the 4,409km route of his 1941 triumph - in the midst of a global pandemic.
What follows is a tale of brutal heat and lonely roads, of glory, humiliation, and then a bit more humiliation. Along the way Tim recounts the civil war's still-vivid tragedies, and finds the gregarious but impressively responsible locals torn between welcoming their nation's only foreign visitor, and bundling him and his filthy bike into a vat of antiviral gel.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
39 people are currently reading
270 people want to read
About the author
Tim Moore
35 books212 followersTim Moore is a British travel writer and humorist. He was educated at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith. In addition to his seven published travelogues to date, his writings have appeared in various publications including Esquire, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Observer and the Evening Standard. He was also briefly a journalist for the Teletext computer games magazine Digitiser, under the pseudonym Mr Hairs, alongside Mr Biffo (aka comedy and sitcom writer Paul Rose.)
His book Frost On My Moustache is an account of a journey in which the author attempts to emulate Lord Dufferin's fearless spirit and enthusiastic adventuring, but comes to identify far more with Dufferin's permanently miserable butler, Wilson, as portrayed Dufferin's travel book Letters From High Latitudes.
In 2004, Moore presented an ITV programme based on his book Do Not Pass Go, a travelogue of his journey around the locations that appear on a British Monopoly board.
Moore lives in Chiswick, West London with his Icelandic wife Birna Helgadóttir and their three children, Kristján, Lilja and Valdis. He is also a brother-in-law of Agnar Helgason and Asgeir Helgason, and son-in-law of Helgi Valdimarsson.
His book Frost On My Moustache is an account of a journey in which the author attempts to emulate Lord Dufferin's fearless spirit and enthusiastic adventuring, but comes to identify far more with Dufferin's permanently miserable butler, Wilson, as portrayed Dufferin's travel book Letters From High Latitudes.
In 2004, Moore presented an ITV programme based on his book Do Not Pass Go, a travelogue of his journey around the locations that appear on a British Monopoly board.
Moore lives in Chiswick, West London with his Icelandic wife Birna Helgadóttir and their three children, Kristján, Lilja and Valdis. He is also a brother-in-law of Agnar Helgason and Asgeir Helgason, and son-in-law of Helgi Valdimarsson.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
October 24, 2021
The arrival of a new Tim Moore travelogue is like being reacquainted with an old friend – albeit one with a penchant for herculean, monumentally difficult adventures that border on reckless stupidity. Having been a follower of Moore’s travel-writing for almost 20 years now, I believe “Vuelta Skelter” might just be his finest book to date.
In 2020, seeking a respite from the lethargy of lockdown, Tim Moore set out to cycle the route of 1941 Vuelta a Espana. This is a not insignificant undertaking; not just because it involves traversing a 4,500km route in blistering mid-summer Iberian heat, but also because Moore is the wrong side of 50 and hadn’t been on the business end of a bicycle for many years. In doing so, he takes inspiration from Spanish cycling legend Julián Berrendero – who won the 1941 Vuelta only months after being released from a fascist-run concentration camp where he had been imprisoned for supporting the republican side during the Spanish Civil War. Berrendero’s heroics on the bike - and eccentricities off it – form a recurring motif throughout “Vuelta Skelter”, as does the incredibly bloody war between Spanish left and fascist right.
Anybody familiar with his work will know that Tim Moore is a brilliantly funny writer. “Vuelta Skelter” is no deviation from that course, as during his journey we see the author having to haplessly navigate mechanical catastrophes, unbearably stifling weather conditions, forest fires, and the disapproval of small-town landladies who view Moore as a virus-ridden Covid-carrier – a one-man super-spreader event on wheels. There can be few travel journalists who write as vividly and hilariously about cycling across Extremadura in 45°C heat – subsisting on a paltry 2 energy gels across 200km of desert – or the unique challenges of having to slather Savlon all over the most intimate parts of your body in preparation for another tortuous stage.
But as befits a book that details a journey against a backdrop of genocidal civil war and fascist dictatorship, “Vuelta Skelter” is often a more sombre affair than Tim Moore’s earlier works. Showing his increasing maturity as a writer, Moore describes how the horrors of the Civil War still cast a pall over modern-day Spain, where a conspiracy of silence persists about the unspeakable atrocities that were committed. It is Moore’s immense credit (and testament to his skill as a writer) that the transitions between the absurdities of his adventure and the dark past of the land he crosses never feel like an abrupt change of gears. “Vuelta Skelter” pulls off the achievement of writing sensitively about a murky history, while remaining hilariously irreverent about one’s own shortcomings and misadventures.
In 2020, seeking a respite from the lethargy of lockdown, Tim Moore set out to cycle the route of 1941 Vuelta a Espana. This is a not insignificant undertaking; not just because it involves traversing a 4,500km route in blistering mid-summer Iberian heat, but also because Moore is the wrong side of 50 and hadn’t been on the business end of a bicycle for many years. In doing so, he takes inspiration from Spanish cycling legend Julián Berrendero – who won the 1941 Vuelta only months after being released from a fascist-run concentration camp where he had been imprisoned for supporting the republican side during the Spanish Civil War. Berrendero’s heroics on the bike - and eccentricities off it – form a recurring motif throughout “Vuelta Skelter”, as does the incredibly bloody war between Spanish left and fascist right.
Anybody familiar with his work will know that Tim Moore is a brilliantly funny writer. “Vuelta Skelter” is no deviation from that course, as during his journey we see the author having to haplessly navigate mechanical catastrophes, unbearably stifling weather conditions, forest fires, and the disapproval of small-town landladies who view Moore as a virus-ridden Covid-carrier – a one-man super-spreader event on wheels. There can be few travel journalists who write as vividly and hilariously about cycling across Extremadura in 45°C heat – subsisting on a paltry 2 energy gels across 200km of desert – or the unique challenges of having to slather Savlon all over the most intimate parts of your body in preparation for another tortuous stage.
But as befits a book that details a journey against a backdrop of genocidal civil war and fascist dictatorship, “Vuelta Skelter” is often a more sombre affair than Tim Moore’s earlier works. Showing his increasing maturity as a writer, Moore describes how the horrors of the Civil War still cast a pall over modern-day Spain, where a conspiracy of silence persists about the unspeakable atrocities that were committed. It is Moore’s immense credit (and testament to his skill as a writer) that the transitions between the absurdities of his adventure and the dark past of the land he crosses never feel like an abrupt change of gears. “Vuelta Skelter” pulls off the achievement of writing sensitively about a murky history, while remaining hilariously irreverent about one’s own shortcomings and misadventures.
October 7, 2025
The best of Tim Moore's Grand Tour trilogy, focusing on a bike race set in the aftermath of the spanish civil war and the horrors therein.
August 14, 2021
I’ve been feeling tired all day, weak legs, stiff all over, aching feet. It’s warm, 29ºC, the kind of muggy heat that makes you feel a bit sick. All of this following a 26km bike ride this morning. I’d wanted to set off early, but insomniac daughter was slow to get going. I offered to go on my own, but she wanted to come, so it was gone 9 o’clock by the time we set off down the hill. And the cool air on the way down, in the shade of the trees, was the last cool air we’d feel – all day, but certainly until the last painful grind up our hill, on wobbly legs and with my right foot burning, as usual.
And that’s my limit, an hour or so in the saddle and I’m done, and more or less useless for the rest of the day. Exercise! It’s good for you! It was the kind of ride that has you throwing your bib shorts in the bin as soon as you get undressed for the shower: those are too uncomfortable, you say, slamming the lid of the bin down.
That being my limit: the weak legs, the burning feet, is why I like to read Tim Moore’s various books of cycling adventure. There was his hilarious Tour de France opus, French Revolutions, and more recently his vintage Giro d’Italia travails, Gironimo! And now comes Vuelta Skelter, his retracing of the route of the 1941 Vuelta d’Espagna on a 40-year-old bike sold by the shop run by that race’s winner, Julián Berrendero.
Moore, as a man of a certain age, makes me feel better about my struggles on the bicycle, because he details his own struggles in such an entertaining way. It’s one of his great gifts as a writer that he can find 300 different ways to detail his pain and exhaustion without boring you. But whereas he is deliriously hungry and puking after 140km over mountains in the Spanish heat, I feel that way after 26km. He achieves feats of endurance that are really quite incredible, especially for a lone cyclist, and his various misadventures in hotels and bars and petrol stations around Spain are all part of the fun. A favourite passage:
…I wobbled into the first petrol station in a state of some disarray. There, in the shadow of a refuelling tractor, I struggled to ingest four bags of cheese puffs. It was all the apologetic attendant could offer me to eat, and as I wanly crunched through smelly handfuls of air and yellow dust, it felt as if the process was expending more calories than it replaced.
Moore’s refusal to take nutrition seriously is very funny, when you consider all the column inches dedicated to gels and electrolytes in the cycling press. He needs around 7000 calories a day, but these take the form of whole bottles of red wine, humungous sandwiches and unappetising chocolate pastries. He does have the odd gel, but what the (all right, this) reader envies is his ability to sit down of an evening and eat two whole pizzas – and still lose about 7 kilos over the 6 weeks of his ride.
All of this was taking place against the backdrop of the pandemic, as he manages to arrive in Spain and complete his adventure in the brief hiatus between the first and second lockdowns. More seriously, the 1941 Vuelta was only the third in that race’s history, and the first after the devastation of the Spanish Civil War. This lends the book a different tone to the others, as it’s impossible to escape the grim, brutal history of that conflict – especially as the race’s winner spent the previous 18 months in a concentration camp. Only 32 riders started the race, and less than 20 finished, in an era when the race organisers would confiscate drink bottles because of their belief that real athletes didn’t need to hydrate and when half the country was starving.
It still brings me up short to remember that Spain was a fascist dictatorship well into the 1970s, in the era during which many Brits experienced their first foreign summer holidays. So the darker sections of this book are a stark whiplashy counterpoint to Moore’s usual self-deprecating buffoonery.
And that’s my limit, an hour or so in the saddle and I’m done, and more or less useless for the rest of the day. Exercise! It’s good for you! It was the kind of ride that has you throwing your bib shorts in the bin as soon as you get undressed for the shower: those are too uncomfortable, you say, slamming the lid of the bin down.
That being my limit: the weak legs, the burning feet, is why I like to read Tim Moore’s various books of cycling adventure. There was his hilarious Tour de France opus, French Revolutions, and more recently his vintage Giro d’Italia travails, Gironimo! And now comes Vuelta Skelter, his retracing of the route of the 1941 Vuelta d’Espagna on a 40-year-old bike sold by the shop run by that race’s winner, Julián Berrendero.
Moore, as a man of a certain age, makes me feel better about my struggles on the bicycle, because he details his own struggles in such an entertaining way. It’s one of his great gifts as a writer that he can find 300 different ways to detail his pain and exhaustion without boring you. But whereas he is deliriously hungry and puking after 140km over mountains in the Spanish heat, I feel that way after 26km. He achieves feats of endurance that are really quite incredible, especially for a lone cyclist, and his various misadventures in hotels and bars and petrol stations around Spain are all part of the fun. A favourite passage:
…I wobbled into the first petrol station in a state of some disarray. There, in the shadow of a refuelling tractor, I struggled to ingest four bags of cheese puffs. It was all the apologetic attendant could offer me to eat, and as I wanly crunched through smelly handfuls of air and yellow dust, it felt as if the process was expending more calories than it replaced.
Moore’s refusal to take nutrition seriously is very funny, when you consider all the column inches dedicated to gels and electrolytes in the cycling press. He needs around 7000 calories a day, but these take the form of whole bottles of red wine, humungous sandwiches and unappetising chocolate pastries. He does have the odd gel, but what the (all right, this) reader envies is his ability to sit down of an evening and eat two whole pizzas – and still lose about 7 kilos over the 6 weeks of his ride.
All of this was taking place against the backdrop of the pandemic, as he manages to arrive in Spain and complete his adventure in the brief hiatus between the first and second lockdowns. More seriously, the 1941 Vuelta was only the third in that race’s history, and the first after the devastation of the Spanish Civil War. This lends the book a different tone to the others, as it’s impossible to escape the grim, brutal history of that conflict – especially as the race’s winner spent the previous 18 months in a concentration camp. Only 32 riders started the race, and less than 20 finished, in an era when the race organisers would confiscate drink bottles because of their belief that real athletes didn’t need to hydrate and when half the country was starving.
It still brings me up short to remember that Spain was a fascist dictatorship well into the 1970s, in the era during which many Brits experienced their first foreign summer holidays. So the darker sections of this book are a stark whiplashy counterpoint to Moore’s usual self-deprecating buffoonery.
September 8, 2021
Brutal, tortured and insane. A bike ride and a civil war.
I opened the first pages of Vuelta Skelter in excited anticipation. Tim Moore, a man in his 50's a couple of years older than I, about to embark on another epic cycle adventure, aboard a vintage bicycle. A 4,500km lap of Spain following the 1941 route of La Vuelta. In interminable heat, up tortuous, endless mountain climbs, and in an all too brief window when Coronavirus had relented before resuming with avengence. Tim Moore's books are a delight. Each travelogue is written with humour (and Vuelta Skelter is hilarious), self deprecation, and insight. In the case of Vuelta Skelter, Tim's own struggles with route planning, weather, age and a recalcitrant bicycle of advanced years, are juxtaposed with those of Julian Berrendero, winner of the 1941 Vuelta, incarcerated in a concentration camp during the Spanish Civil war and a man of fierce, unstinting sheer bloody-mindedness. He had few friends on the road, made enemies easily, but delighted in crushing them on his bike.
What was a stark and sobering contrast to the humour, travails and journey Tim Moore undertakes is the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. Episodes of brutality, a bloodlust and vengeance, the murdering of innocents, refugees, reflects a terrible period of European history, and indeed was a precursor to the rise of the atrocities inflicted by the Nazis.
It would have been a great book without the history, but it is a superb book because of it.
A brutal, tortured and insane challenge for a brilliant writer who I have enjoyed ever since Frost on My Moustache. A brutal, tortured and insane period of history that needs to be more understood - especially as there is an (understandable) reluctance to discuss it in Spain as Tim Moore discovers. Add Vuelta Skelter to French Revolutions (following the 2,000 Tour de France route) and Gironimo (following the 1914 Giro de Italia on a 100 year old bicycle) and you have a Grand Tour triptych.
As with all Tim Moore's travel books, highly recommended. I can however still smell his cycling gloves....some things never leave you.
I opened the first pages of Vuelta Skelter in excited anticipation. Tim Moore, a man in his 50's a couple of years older than I, about to embark on another epic cycle adventure, aboard a vintage bicycle. A 4,500km lap of Spain following the 1941 route of La Vuelta. In interminable heat, up tortuous, endless mountain climbs, and in an all too brief window when Coronavirus had relented before resuming with avengence. Tim Moore's books are a delight. Each travelogue is written with humour (and Vuelta Skelter is hilarious), self deprecation, and insight. In the case of Vuelta Skelter, Tim's own struggles with route planning, weather, age and a recalcitrant bicycle of advanced years, are juxtaposed with those of Julian Berrendero, winner of the 1941 Vuelta, incarcerated in a concentration camp during the Spanish Civil war and a man of fierce, unstinting sheer bloody-mindedness. He had few friends on the road, made enemies easily, but delighted in crushing them on his bike.
What was a stark and sobering contrast to the humour, travails and journey Tim Moore undertakes is the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. Episodes of brutality, a bloodlust and vengeance, the murdering of innocents, refugees, reflects a terrible period of European history, and indeed was a precursor to the rise of the atrocities inflicted by the Nazis.
It would have been a great book without the history, but it is a superb book because of it.
A brutal, tortured and insane challenge for a brilliant writer who I have enjoyed ever since Frost on My Moustache. A brutal, tortured and insane period of history that needs to be more understood - especially as there is an (understandable) reluctance to discuss it in Spain as Tim Moore discovers. Add Vuelta Skelter to French Revolutions (following the 2,000 Tour de France route) and Gironimo (following the 1914 Giro de Italia on a 100 year old bicycle) and you have a Grand Tour triptych.
As with all Tim Moore's travel books, highly recommended. I can however still smell his cycling gloves....some things never leave you.
August 28, 2022
Since I am interested in the Vuelta and Spain and the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, I did find it very interesting and it did make me laugh as his books usually do. But it ended up being rather repetitive , especially the humorous bits. I think the idea for the book struggled rather in the face of the absolutely appalling events of the civil war.
October 15, 2022
With the Tour and Giro now under his belt, the Vuelta is simply the next logical step for Tim Moore in this excellent chronology of his personal Vuelta, set against a haunting Covid backdrop that he writes of compellingly and with deep humanity. Moore’s experience means less writing about his own personal toil and more exploration of both the brilliant story of the 1941 Vuelta and this book’s real main character, Julian Berrendero, as well as intrinsically linked to that, the Spanish Civil War. Moore’s prowess as a journalist embodies itself here, as he expertly digs into its haunting and terrifying stories and how Spain today deals with its past. Highly recommended for fans of cycling but equally for those who want an excellent bit of historical exploration.
January 21, 2025
I love Tim Moore, especially his cycling adventures. This one is out of the top drawer. The challenge is extreme but what’s really interesting is the history. I didn’t know anything about the Spanish Civil war despite a number of holidays to the country. It’s just not something that anyone ever mentions, as Tim finds out. I doubt you have to be obsessed with bikes to enjoy what is essentially a travelogue but I do love how he unpacks the story of the 41 Vuelta and his hero JB. Great start to the reading year. A wonderful thoughtful Christmas present.
June 30, 2024
This was recommended to me by a fellow cyclist and was my first foray into Tim Moore's biking memoirs. He has apparently replicated several grand tour rides while mounted on bikes that pay homage to cycling history. This 2020 tour of Spain is completed on a 1970's model formerly sold in the shop of the 1941 winner of the Vuelta. This book follows the author's experiences as he attempts to cycle the 1941 route around Spain. It is a curious mix of cycle-lore, toilet humour and disturbing Spanish civil war history. The seriousness of this unearthing of the past jars with the juvenile descriptions of the physical pain of consecutive days in the saddle.
February 28, 2022
What a book. Tim Moore has to be the craziest cyclist (of his age :)) to do such crazy race route in the midst of worst pandemic world has ever seen.
Most fab thing abt this book is the description of the time when race was held in Spain under rule of Franco. How things were and how world denounced spanish cyclists just coz they were under the rule of a dictator.
Its a must read book for any cyclist or history buff or anyone who loves travelog /history lesson / crazy incidents. Brilliant book.
I think I'll be buying all of his books.
Most fab thing abt this book is the description of the time when race was held in Spain under rule of Franco. How things were and how world denounced spanish cyclists just coz they were under the rule of a dictator.
Its a must read book for any cyclist or history buff or anyone who loves travelog /history lesson / crazy incidents. Brilliant book.
I think I'll be buying all of his books.
September 3, 2025
As ever, Tim Moore's latest cycling travelogue is fascinating, uplifting & highly entertaining 😀
August 17, 2022
Another triumph from my favourite travel writer. I knew next to nothing about Spain’s civil war before picking up this book but Tim’s journey through the country brought the terrible events of this period of Spains history to life. Don’t be put off by the rather harrowing subject matter because Tim ensures there are plenty of laughs along the way.
August 14, 2022
[b]Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain [/b]- Tim Moore
Tim Moore goes out on yet another of his epically stupid long-distance bike rides, trying to recreate the 1941 Tour of Spain. It was the first major Spanish bike race after Franco had won the civil war and in the rest of Europe WWII was raging. The only other country that sent any riders was Switzerland, but only one of the four Swiss riders finished the race.
Moore completed the tour in the summer of 2022 between major waves of covid restrictions, and in the blazing Spanish heat. It took him six weeks to finish the 4500km, which (considering that he had several rest days) means that he averaged well above 100km per day, and often with onerous climbs. And he did it all on a fifty-year old bike, originally branded by a certain Julián Barrenero.
The winner of the 1941 Vuelta was Julián Berrendero, who had spent 18 months in a Spanish concentration camp for voicing his opinion on the Franco coup during the earlier days of the civil war. He was an incredibly unfriendly character by all accounts, and never seemed to be happy, unless he was riding solo up a steep hill.
He follows two different threads - most obviously the 1941 Vuelta, but also the Spanish civil war, which was very fresh back then. The Nationalists were still consolidating their grasp on power, and Spain would never be the same again. The civil war saw some unparalleled brutality (and this was in the same century as Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot) and the Spanish never came to terms with it. In Germany, the post-war decades were marked by an intense 'denazification' and especially the 1968-generation took pride in distancing themselves from their forebears. That never happened in Spain, where former Francoist ministers and officials kept their jobs well into the 21st century.
Moore writes in his trademark mixture of erudite research and puerile self-mocking commentary. He makes some remarkably stupid mistakes, such as setting his GPS route finder to 'hiking' rather than cycling and ends up having to carry the bike, but also describes the cruelty of the Franco regime in appalling detail.
Five stars, not so much because it's any Great Literature, but because I was in a good mood when I read it.
Tim Moore goes out on yet another of his epically stupid long-distance bike rides, trying to recreate the 1941 Tour of Spain. It was the first major Spanish bike race after Franco had won the civil war and in the rest of Europe WWII was raging. The only other country that sent any riders was Switzerland, but only one of the four Swiss riders finished the race.
Moore completed the tour in the summer of 2022 between major waves of covid restrictions, and in the blazing Spanish heat. It took him six weeks to finish the 4500km, which (considering that he had several rest days) means that he averaged well above 100km per day, and often with onerous climbs. And he did it all on a fifty-year old bike, originally branded by a certain Julián Barrenero.
The winner of the 1941 Vuelta was Julián Berrendero, who had spent 18 months in a Spanish concentration camp for voicing his opinion on the Franco coup during the earlier days of the civil war. He was an incredibly unfriendly character by all accounts, and never seemed to be happy, unless he was riding solo up a steep hill.
He follows two different threads - most obviously the 1941 Vuelta, but also the Spanish civil war, which was very fresh back then. The Nationalists were still consolidating their grasp on power, and Spain would never be the same again. The civil war saw some unparalleled brutality (and this was in the same century as Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot) and the Spanish never came to terms with it. In Germany, the post-war decades were marked by an intense 'denazification' and especially the 1968-generation took pride in distancing themselves from their forebears. That never happened in Spain, where former Francoist ministers and officials kept their jobs well into the 21st century.
Moore writes in his trademark mixture of erudite research and puerile self-mocking commentary. He makes some remarkably stupid mistakes, such as setting his GPS route finder to 'hiking' rather than cycling and ends up having to carry the bike, but also describes the cruelty of the Franco regime in appalling detail.
Five stars, not so much because it's any Great Literature, but because I was in a good mood when I read it.
September 13, 2025
Tour de Covid.
Tim Moore never makes things easy on himself. After writing a book about riding the 1914 Giro d'Italia route on a bicycle from that era, in this one he cycles the 1941 Vuelta a Espana on a road bike from the 1970s made by Moore's Spanish cycling hero, Julian Berrendero, and as such, a lot of pages are given over to the bicycle's failings, not terribly interesting to those who don't know a sprocket from a derailleur. During the second wave of Covid.
I preferred the history of the bike race rather than what Mr Moore ate and the bad hotels he stayed at. He's a very decent historical writer who weaves research into narrative (rather than info dumping), but then spoils it somewhat with minutiae about snacks.
The history in this book is not just regarding the Vuelta, but about the Spanish civil war and its aftermath with its brutal repressions and Trump-style fascism-lite. Everyone knows about the war (or anyone who's read Homage to Catalonia, anyway) but what happened next is less well known. Berrendero being put in a concentration camp until he'd promised to loyalty to Franco makes Israel Premier Tech dealing with a few pro-Palestinian protesters look like very small beer.
Tim Moore never makes things easy on himself. After writing a book about riding the 1914 Giro d'Italia route on a bicycle from that era, in this one he cycles the 1941 Vuelta a Espana on a road bike from the 1970s made by Moore's Spanish cycling hero, Julian Berrendero, and as such, a lot of pages are given over to the bicycle's failings, not terribly interesting to those who don't know a sprocket from a derailleur. During the second wave of Covid.
I preferred the history of the bike race rather than what Mr Moore ate and the bad hotels he stayed at. He's a very decent historical writer who weaves research into narrative (rather than info dumping), but then spoils it somewhat with minutiae about snacks.
The history in this book is not just regarding the Vuelta, but about the Spanish civil war and its aftermath with its brutal repressions and Trump-style fascism-lite. Everyone knows about the war (or anyone who's read Homage to Catalonia, anyway) but what happened next is less well known. Berrendero being put in a concentration camp until he'd promised to loyalty to Franco makes Israel Premier Tech dealing with a few pro-Palestinian protesters look like very small beer.
August 30, 2024
I would recommend Moore's writing but I didn't like this one as much as many of his others. As with his Italian Giro adventure, a bit too much of it was from him riding on his own rather than interacting with others, which I find lends itself to less variety in topics, and in this case, more variations on "shitting piss-sticks" as he moans at his bike.
This time the aim is to follow the 1941 Vuelta in the footsteps of Julien Berrenderro, a cyclist I was unfamiliar with, while providing background on the Spanish Civil War, which is also a personal blind spot, and Spanish covid restrictions. Cycling around a mostly barren and 40 degree Spain sounded horrible and if he hadn't cycled much, genuinely quite impressive. It had its funny moments too, especially "What a hike!" and assorted hotel staff interactions, but I didn't find it as funny as I'd hoped overall.
The Franco context was interesting, along with the modern day willingness to ignore it rather than address it, but for whatever reason the exploits of the Spanish cyclists of old didn't hold my interest at all, and it was during one of these tangents that I experienced a Tim Moore first, asking myself whether I wanted to read to the end. I did, and I'm glad I did, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the others of his that I've read.
This time the aim is to follow the 1941 Vuelta in the footsteps of Julien Berrenderro, a cyclist I was unfamiliar with, while providing background on the Spanish Civil War, which is also a personal blind spot, and Spanish covid restrictions. Cycling around a mostly barren and 40 degree Spain sounded horrible and if he hadn't cycled much, genuinely quite impressive. It had its funny moments too, especially "What a hike!" and assorted hotel staff interactions, but I didn't find it as funny as I'd hoped overall.
The Franco context was interesting, along with the modern day willingness to ignore it rather than address it, but for whatever reason the exploits of the Spanish cyclists of old didn't hold my interest at all, and it was during one of these tangents that I experienced a Tim Moore first, asking myself whether I wanted to read to the end. I did, and I'm glad I did, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the others of his that I've read.
March 15, 2024
Just finished listening to this as an audio book. I have read many of Tim Moore's books and have always found them engaging, relatable and more than anything, hilarious. And this was no exception, however I don't think I've ever read any travel book in which the author disliked what they were doing quite so much (The only one that came close was Simon Armitage walking the Pennine Way)! And it's perfectly understandable - cycling around a mountainous country in extreme heat, in between Covid lock downs, recounting the 1941 Tour of Spain against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and associated atrocities - and the book goes into some detail of these. Additionally the figure that Moore focuses on - Julian Berrenderro - is not the most likeable character. So then, how, given all of this, did I enjoy this book so much? Well it is multi-layered - Moore's amazing cycling achievement (following the arduous route of the tour on an elderly bike), his recounting of the events of the tour and Berrenderro's part in it, and the aforementioned Civil War history, all go together to make a fascinating and amazingly funny read.
August 30, 2022
I have a PhD student whose project started out focusing on men who follow cycle race routes: they’re an odd group and my student eventually found the project going in other directions. So when I sat down to read Tim Moore’s slightly obsessive tale of following the route of the first fascist era vuelta I had, I thought a sense of what I was getting into. While the tale is intriguing – a middle aged bloke on a 40 year old bike following a race route from 70 years beforehand – it’s hard to see who it is aimed at. That’s not to say it’s a bad book: it is well written, if in a chatty break to fourth wall kind of way that I sometimes find tiresome. More to point, I’m struggling to see how the personal narrative of the ride, the biographical and other material on key cyclists, and the interspersed story of the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Franco’s fascist regime and the all too often refusal in post-Franco Spain to confront the era weaves together convincingly. Probably one for the liberal-leftish cyclist in your world…..
September 7, 2022
Another triumph by Moore. The third and final grand tour tribute, and more ridiculous riding in store on a totally unsuitable bicycle. This one, however, is a much harder focused story, with all of the historical grimness of the civil war, accompanied with the contemporary inability of the Spanish to even discuss their recent history. Moore does a cracking job of guiding around the weirdness of a ‘bike race as propaganda’ route. The number of murders are astonishing, and the utter grimness of Franco’s terrible regime is made clear. Along with the fact that modern Spain needs to sort itself out, and consign Franco and his ilk to the category of evil and cannot-happen-again, instead of the current ‘maybe he wasn’t so bad’ rhetoric currently being advertised by the far right. As ever, Tim is here to sort us out; and not do we need it. Tim. Your Next job, should you choose to accept it, crushing Brexit into a footnote of history.
May 12, 2024
Tim Moore is fast becoming one of my favourite authors, as such, I treated myself to a signed copy of Vuelta Skelter earlier this year. It then waited patiently in the ‘books to read’ pile, until its turn came. As with previous Tim Moore adventures, the book comprises of part his own misadventures and part historical account relevant to the assigned task in hand. In this case riding the 1941 Vuelta.
Undertaking the task with a suitably (unsuitable) chosen bicycle is part of the fun. A love hate relationship develops between man and machine.
If pushed, I prefer the comic mishaps of the daily routine and accounts of the towns and hotels Tim encounters, than the details of the 1941 Vuelta and associated history. However the balance between the two is good and the level of detail in the research is apparent. This is the case in all Tim’s previous books.
A great read. Fully recommend 👍
Undertaking the task with a suitably (unsuitable) chosen bicycle is part of the fun. A love hate relationship develops between man and machine.
If pushed, I prefer the comic mishaps of the daily routine and accounts of the towns and hotels Tim encounters, than the details of the 1941 Vuelta and associated history. However the balance between the two is good and the level of detail in the research is apparent. This is the case in all Tim’s previous books.
A great read. Fully recommend 👍
July 2, 2022
Certainly not his best book but very readable, as always, with several barks of laughter and many wry smiles. And you have to give Tim Moore many bonus points for conceiving and executing his adventure during the 2020
COVID lockdown in a country that took the pandemic so very seriously for understandable historic reasons.
In retrospect it is remarkable to have done the trip at all. It is an outstanding achievement for a non-professional athlete in his mid-fifties on a cruelly high-geared period bike. The material about Franco, the civil war and the atrocities is a shocking reminder and leitmotif. What a remarkable country of extraordinary regional variations in landscape, temperament and lifestyle.
COVID lockdown in a country that took the pandemic so very seriously for understandable historic reasons.
In retrospect it is remarkable to have done the trip at all. It is an outstanding achievement for a non-professional athlete in his mid-fifties on a cruelly high-geared period bike. The material about Franco, the civil war and the atrocities is a shocking reminder and leitmotif. What a remarkable country of extraordinary regional variations in landscape, temperament and lifestyle.
December 5, 2023
In Vuelta Skelter Moore borrows a classical racing bicycle and pedals his way round the route of the 1941 Vuelta a España cycling gran tour. On the way he recounts the events of the original race, the first to be staged following the end of the bloody Spanish Civil War in 1939, under the dictatorship of Franco. He recalls the horrors that the villages and towns along the route had witnessed, echoes of which continue to resound today. Moore’s journey is as informative and entertaining as it is arduous. One wonders why he decided to make it doubly tough by choosing to do the ride at the height of summer. Mad Dogs and Englishmen, I guess.
November 28, 2025
He is incredible and definitely bonkers. How he managed to cycle up those mountains on that old bike with a pannier is beyond belief. I so enjoy his books, his ridiculous humour, scrapes and interesting commentary.
This time it was a far more serious and heavily influenced by the Spanish Civil War and its legacy. The self imposed embargo on the subject by the Spanish people has probably kept the country together as the barbarity was horrific. However, by not discussing the war and its aftermath it allows the lessons that could be learned from it to fade. To allow the possibility of repeating the same fatal mistakes would be a tragedy.
This time it was a far more serious and heavily influenced by the Spanish Civil War and its legacy. The self imposed embargo on the subject by the Spanish people has probably kept the country together as the barbarity was horrific. However, by not discussing the war and its aftermath it allows the lessons that could be learned from it to fade. To allow the possibility of repeating the same fatal mistakes would be a tragedy.
January 2, 2024
The Tim Moore grand tour I have enjoyed the most.
Maybe because the tale of Julian Berrendero’s 1941 Vuelta win through the sites of Civil War killings and Francoist concentration camps is a more compelling tale than a sporting-only history. Maybe because of the relatable tale of pandemic avoidance Maybe I have got more used to him. Maybe because I read closer to the time of writing and he is such a colloquial writer that immediacy helps. Maybe he has just got funnier.
Maybe because the tale of Julian Berrendero’s 1941 Vuelta win through the sites of Civil War killings and Francoist concentration camps is a more compelling tale than a sporting-only history. Maybe because of the relatable tale of pandemic avoidance Maybe I have got more used to him. Maybe because I read closer to the time of writing and he is such a colloquial writer that immediacy helps. Maybe he has just got funnier.
October 7, 2021
Not my favourite - a book about his experience of cycling the route of the Vuelta with some history thrown in. I enjoyed the bits about cycling, especially his inclination to bring humour into it, but for me his dabbling into the complexities of the Spanish Civil War took him into dangerous territory.
May 28, 2022
Probably 3.7 stars . 4th cycle tour book of Tim Moore's. French Revolutions ( tour de France) & Gironimo (giro d'italia) are both laugh out loud throughout. This one is very interesting with history of Spain & concentration camps but so horrible not in the mood to laugh at anecdotes. Well written but more in a factual sense than humorous
July 4, 2023
Tim Moore’s books on cycling are always funny and informative. Sometimes a tad repetitive and the formula can be a bit samey, ie demonstrate I’m an idiot with no knowledge of maintaining my bike, but I still struggled through the day and over the big mountain. Even so, it is an enjoyable light read.
August 20, 2021
The best book I have read this year. I have read every Tim Moore book and he gets better with age. This also has the added extra of one of his cycle rides done in the time of a pandemic. A brilliant brilliant book
December 26, 2021
A very moving book both from a cycling and Spanish history standpoint.
Moore does a fabulous job balancing his own monumental effort with presenting the grim reality of Spain before, during and post Civil War.
Moore does a fabulous job balancing his own monumental effort with presenting the grim reality of Spain before, during and post Civil War.
January 2, 2022
What was that comment about a play where nothing happened ... twice!
There are only so many ways you can combine up hill, down hill, flat, hot, cold, puncture etc. before you repeat yourself.
This was a book I forced myself to finish and which I can't see myself reading again.
Sorry Tim.
There are only so many ways you can combine up hill, down hill, flat, hot, cold, puncture etc. before you repeat yourself.
This was a book I forced myself to finish and which I can't see myself reading again.
Sorry Tim.
February 18, 2022
A very disturbing book as it's account s of the Spanish civil war are harrowing to say the least. The cycle ride he undertakes is long , hard, and quite a feat for some one in his 50s. I preferred this to his previous books as it feels less judgmental to the people of Spain.
March 1, 2022
This very enjoyable travel writing balances grim information on the Spanish civil War and very funny details of the author's experience riding the 1941 Vuelta route. Tim Moore manages to do both extremely well, and what a great trip it was.
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