There are few cyclists as iconic as Marco Pantani. Not just in his appearance – the shaved head, the earring, that bandana – but also for his remarkable riding feats. Pantani was a figure of extraordinary contradiction, a cycling superhero and his mild-mannered alter-ego. Off the bike he was almost painfully shy, on it he was a rider of such exuberance and conviction that it would beggar belief.

This look at the life of Pantani comes from a different angle, taking you places no biography has before. In the words of Colin O’Brien, this edition’s translator, “it isn’t some silly psalm to an immaculate martyr who never really existed,” because there are plenty written about Pantani already. “Pantani was a god, at least to some people. But he was a lot of other things too, both good and bad, like the rest of us.”