But with a 2,000 km route in seven stages across the war-torn roads and battlefields of the Western Front in horrific weather a mere couple of months after hostilities ceased, the Circuit des Champs de Bataille took suffering on a bike to a whole new level.

This book is the perfect combination of the first two books and I can’t endorse it enough. I had the privilege of listening to Tom Isitt give a talk to the Western Front Association about this book before I read it. Like Tim Moore, Tom Isitt set out to ride the route of a horrendously difficult race from cycling’s earliest days. He chose the Circuit des Champs de Bataille, a seven-stage race that occured mere months after the conclusion of the First World War. The French organizers, after a hasty reconnaissance, planned the route to pass through Luxemburg, Belgium, and France – especially the recently reacquired provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. The race would befall misfortune after misfortune as extreme unseasonable weather tormented the riders and roads pulverized by four years of warfare hobbled race times.

Isitt rode along a route that best approximated the original race route, accounting for modern highways and pleasanter alternatives. He also made several diversions to tour different battlefields and sites of significance. He didn’t attempt to recreate the conditions or the hardships of the original race, but he designed an itinerary that gave him a sense of history and place. In this way, along with extensive research on the cycling and cyclists of the era, he was able to construct a narrative that successfully weaves his personal story, relevant cycling history, and World War I historical context into the story of the Circuit des Champs de Bataille, region by region. 

This comes together perfectly in the chapters on stages four (Amiens to Paris) and five (Paris to Bar Le Duc) of the race which crossed the most devastated battlefields of the war. As Isitt points out, many of the riders had seen service in the military, some on the front lines, and the passage of the race through some of these areas must have been emotionally taxing in addition to the severe physical hardships of the race itself. These are heartbreaking and beautiful sections on the devastation of the war and the national trauma it caused, and the individual sufferings of the riders.

Le Petit Journal, the race’s organizing newspaper, hailed the race as a triumph at its conclusion. Such high acclaim was underserved, though. Incessant rain forced stops every few miles to clear mud and dirt from chains and sprockets. The roads chosen were so bad that time cutoffs for each stage were abandoned as riders routinely sheltered overnight (sometimes in unfilled trenches). Artillery shell craters caused multiple crashes and riders to withdraw. Unseasonable weather in the Vosges Mountains forced riders to carry their bikes over their heads in waist-deep snow for several kilometers. It took superhuman determination to endure. As Tom Isitt pointed out in his talk, the motivation of prize money, equal to four year’s wages in the post-war economy, and riders “off their head” on cocaine and amphetamines had a lot to do with anyone finishing the race at all. 

Amazingly 21 of 87 entrants finished the race – including my new personal hero, Louis Ellner. (Louis Ellner, an isole rider with a routière bicycle, finished each stage 8 to 74 hours after the stage winner, but never abandoned the race!) There’s a lot packed into this 280 page book that can appeal to everyone. It is prolific in nerdy history for someone like myself, athletic tales of achievement for my cyclist friends, and quality storytelling for anyone that likes being emotionally connected to the narrative. Again, it’s a phenomenal read and it already has me plotting my own cycle route in Western France.