In this funny and fascinating tale of cycling, writer Tim Moore takes the reader on a journey few will ever attempt, let alone finish: a 3,162-kilometer route over the Italian mountains that was once the setting of a notoriously difficult bicycle race. The no-holds-barred world of early cycling was plenty tough. The cyclist-hating public threw tacks on the road, although cycling fans weren't much better: They threw vegetables at racers they didn't like. Riders, meanwhile, rode across Italy on a network of white gravel roads astride rudimentary machines ill-suited to swift mountain descents and without the benefit of today's understanding of nutrition or technology.

Even among these early races, the 1914 Giro D'Italia stands out as a monstrous test of human endurance. Eighty-one riders started the 1,964-mile race. A 36-hour rainstorm erupted soon after the start, washing out roads. Eight appalling stages later, the average length of each being roughly the distance from Minneapolis to Grand Marais, eight riders crossed the finish line.

Not content to merely write about it, Moore assembled a period-correct bicycle and rode the route himself, chronicling his beleaguered progress as he chased the ghost of Alfonso Calzolari, the workhorse cyclist who won the 1914 Giro. (And then lived to the age of 95.) For Moore, this is not merely about suffering, but about reclaiming the lost pure heart of road racing, the one before energy gels, titanium and coldly efficient pacing of the modern-day peloton. On a mission that could easily veer into preachiness, Moore is too humorous a narrator to let the story go off track.

(His steady hand will be known to fans who read his earlier work, "French Revolutions," in which he recounts a solo attempt on the Tour de France route.)

When Moore restores a century-old bike for his Giro D'Italia expedition, he works under the constant gaze of his humorless Polish neighbor. "Is old. Why you not put in rubbish?" the neighbor asks. Moore stubbornly pushes on, rolling out of Milan to start his mostly solo ride. He endures bad weather, rough roads, "Fiat-driving granny hit-squads," the frequent breakdowns of his wooden-wheeled bicycle and the not-always-kind work of local bike mechanics.

Wearing the goggles, hat and jersey of 1914 riders, Moore collects a fair amount of stares from strangers: "Get a load of that feller with the bike," whispers an Australian tourist as Moore and others wait out a rainstorm at the edge of a piazza midway through his ride. "Is he for real?"

"Gironimo!" by Tim Moore

Luckily for readers, cycling fans and anyone ready to chuck it all overboard and go on a hilarious, harebrained adventure, he is.

Matt McKinney is a state reporter for the Star Tribune.